I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline • Hacker News Board

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#91

Post by huijzer » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:25 PM UTC

ahknight wrote: post #79

dustin1114 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

typst is great. I experimented with it, it I simply didn't have the fine-tuning and maturity LaTeX. For example, window/orphan control is a binary on/off, while LaTeX calculates by penalties at a much lower level. Pandoc is also great (I used it often for unrelated workflows), but it can't map custom styles from ODT files (not sure about Word).

The funny thing is that you can use both a style template and content template with the DOCX exporter of pandoc and _export_ custom styles. You just can't import them. Works great on my MD -> DOCX/PDF/HTML workflows but not the inverse, alas.

It also makes no sense to go reverse. Maybe practically, but from the Word generated garbage your not gonna get something useful

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#92

Post by everybodyknows » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:35 PM UTC

kcartlidge wrote: post #83

As we're sharing pipelines: - I write in Markdown files using VS Code and a custom syntax highlighter - A custom C# tool stitches it together (with YAML metadata) - It generates reports on chapters, dialogue, character presence etc - It uses custom code to generate an EPUB (v2) - It uses custom code to generate a DOCX (validated) - It uses custom code to generate a PDF (print or with interactive links) Works great an…

> syntax highlighter

This was critical for me, but I didn't see an easy way for Markdown to bring it to my Linux+Emacs home, so I went with Org-mode.

Custom Go code parses the Org-mode syntax into HTML, WeasyPrint turns that into paginated PDF. The latter step is a bit slow, so I proofread iterative content updates in the HTML.

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#93

Post by KPGv2 » Sat, May 30, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

kyboren wrote: post #37

KPGv2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what CS PhD students have been doing ~forever. Or what every researcher has been doing for literally decades (except with other versioning systems, but still typesetting without Word or Adobe). No need for techbros to pat themselves on the back as innovators. I typeset my novels in LaTeX and use GIT. I even just clone a base repo whenever I'm going to release another.

Considering LaTeX came from legendary CS PhD and Turing award winner Leslie Lamport's need to typeset a book, and was built on the shoulders of legendary CS PhD and Turing award winner Donald Knuth's work on TeX, I think "techbros" can safely pat themselves on the back as innovators in this case.

It doesn't seem you know what "techbro" means.

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#94

Post by rlpb » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:24 PM UTC

raddan wrote: post #16

Exoristos wrote: post #7

As someone who worked for years in commercial print, before most manufacturing moved overseas, I recall the workflows the article discusses as being more automate-able than the author seems to understand. For example, "Making the slightest change became a chore. [1.] Update the 'master' DOCX. [2.] Update the InDesign file ..." --the appropriate way to use an external document as master in InDesign is to use the Place…

> Overall, as a technical writeup I enjoyed the article; however, I would caution that the author seems to approach publishing from an amateur perspective. I also worked at a publishing company (for ~6 years) in the early 2000s. While you are right that the pros have some tricks to make the process easier, the fact remains that the process is not easy at all. Unlike in academic publishing, where nothing stands betwee…

> sometimes resulting in arguments with authors that the editors need to smooth over

This is an understatement. A friend of mine is a published author in a field that requires correctness. The "legions of people" all got in the way, continuously introducing errors and unable to use a system with any kind of change control, so my friend had to keep rechecking the whole thing and finding further errors that had been introduced without being told about them. This included introducing errors of fact as well as simple things such as not fixing references to areas that they themselves changed. This was from an established publishing house and apparently this is normal. As far as I can tell, the roles that once added professionalism have been eroded both in skill and in budget, such that now they fail to make use of technology and just get in the way. They didn't seem to add any value in my friend's case, anyway. Perhaps it does add still add value to authors who start with a low standard of work. And perhaps the quality of publishers varies massively, resulting in hugely different experiences.

Re: I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

#95

Post by kyboren » Mon, Jun 01, 2026, 2:29 PM UTC

KPGv2 wrote: post #93

kyboren wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering LaTeX came from legendary CS PhD and Turing award winner Leslie Lamport's need to typeset a book, and was built on the shoulders of legendary CS PhD and Turing award winner Donald Knuth's work on TeX, I think "techbros" can safely pat themselves on the back as innovators in this case.

It doesn't seem you know what "techbro" means.

Please explain what you think it means.

I said CS PhD students have been doing this forever, and you dismissed that as techbros patting themselves on the back. But once I pointed out that LaTeX was created by Serious People, apparently CS PhDs aren't techbros any more.

So which is it? And who exactly do you think is a self-congratulatory techbro here?