X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil t nil] [nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]) Date: Wed, 2 May 90 10:20:33 PDT Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list From: Leslie Lamport To: Rainer Schoepf Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 89 Below is an outline of a proposed book. Comments or suggestions should be sent to Paul Milazzo's (Milazzo@bbn.com). Leslie Lamport +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Book Outline: LaTEX STYLES for CLASSIC DESIGNS INTRODUCTION The number of users of TEX and of LaTEX is very large. In the academic communities, especially in the hard sciences, TEX has become a kind of standard, used primarily in the important function of writing papers. Its penetration is probably due to its power in typesetting mathematics but it is beginning to be used in subjects that are not mathematical such as linguistics and law. We do not know what the total number of TEX users is. We do know that the users are distributed worldwide and that their number is well over 70,000. This is the number of copies sold of both Don Knuth's book on TEX and of Leslie Lamport's book on LaTEX, at least according to informal sources (i.e., other than the publisher). TEX and LaTEX are used by researchers, students, secretaries, publishers, and many others. Most of these users are really not interested in TEX itself; they simply use it as a tool and want to know only what they need to know about it to get their task done. The quick penetration of LaTEX, a set of macros on top of TEX which make working with TEX easier, is consistent with this statement. Another indicator that this is so is the surprisingly small number of members of the TEX Users Group of the American Mathematical Society: roughly 3,500 in all. These are the enthusiasts, and their numbers are a small fraction of the users. The use of TEX by so many people amounts to a democratization of the process of typesetting. Something that was previously done by professional typesetters under the guidance of professional designers is now done by a variety of users professional in neither. Most users use TEX simply as a word processing program, one that is capable of dealing with math. They know little about the issues of design, although they marvel at the relative elegance of their finished document: This document is much more professional looking than the typewritten manuscript of yesterday. Those in the publishing profession view the massive use of TEX in two ways. On the one hand, it makes many specialized books publishable because the cost of expensive mathematics typesetting does not need to be borne: publishers of such texts increasingly use the author's camera ready copy (or the author's disks) for their books. On the other hand, Computer Modern (the default TEX typeface) and the typical LaTEX page design are insufficient tools for those interested in both variety and elegance. PURPOSE OF BOOK It is this second effect of the popularity of TEX, the deleterious side-effect of democratization, that the present book will address and attempt, to some degree, to remedy. A scientific or technical community draws its cohesion from a number of sources, one of the important ones being the shared background, educational and professional, of its members. This background also provides members of the community with a shared visual memory of the educational materials, mainly books, which they labored on in their student days.. Essentially all American PhD level physicists share the memory of a typical page from Goldstein's CLASSICAL MECHANICS, since this has been a classic graduate level textbook on the subject for generations. They also probably carry the visual imprint of a page from Jackson's CLASSICAL ELECTRODYNAMICS, and probably from Dirac's QUANTUM MECHANICS. An analogous list of titles can be drawn up for other disciplines. The members of a given community also share visual knowledge of their discipline's research journals, professional society magazines, newsletters, and many other published and unpublished materials. Recently, the look of a typical TEX or LaTEX document has begun to resonate in the visual memories of members of many user communities. The shared visual knowledge we are referring to forms a kind of background "culture" in the democratic exercise of the new art of typesetting. A mental comparison with remembered designs is the backbone of one's judgement of beauty or elegance, or simply of adequacy. The purpose of this book is to educate the unwitting typesetter and designer that today's TEX or LaTEX user has become. Since we believe the user is unable to devote time to learning design on its own terms, we teach it in a way that requires little or no time: The book provides LaTEX styles, reproducing selected designs that are part of that background culture shared by scientists and engineers. It gives the user simple descriptions of what makes the designs successful, and how to and how not to change them with the help of easy to use control "knobs" provided for the task. We expect that users will welcome this offering of more canned designs than available in the past. We also expect their thinking about design will be by analogy: "I want my page to look like a page out of Dirac, but the format must be 6" X 9", and I would like the page numbers bigger". Someone thinking in this manner may find the model he wants in our book, and if not he may find something similar. He will also find a concise description of the design, of what gives it its balance, what makes it work, and recommendations on how to change it and what to watch out for in the process. BOOK OUTLINE The choice of subjects and of the classic designs to be macroized will be made without precise knowledge of the distribution of user types and the designs most likely to resonate in their collective visual memories. However, the following groups, listed crudely in descending order of importance, are all numerically big enough to be included: - physicists - mathematicians - chemists - engineers (all grouped together even if their visual cultures differ substantially) - computer scientists - social and biological scientists - lawyers While total space is limited, all will be given some exposure. And, the appearance in one place of a diverse collection of designs such as this will hopefully cause some innovative cross-pollination. The word classic in our title refers to two distinct features of the method we will use in selecting the base designs. First, we will be seeking publications that have a certain standing in their field, a standing based on their content, author, and other subject-related factors. Dirac's QUANTUM MECHANICS has such standing and is appropriately called a classic in that sense. Second, we will be selecting publications whose form (i.e., design) can be termed classic. This means they will have a calm, elegant look, with flashy design elements used sparingly or not at all. The design will allow the content to keep the reader's attention, and will be an aid to him in reading or scanning the page, without drawing unnecessary attention to itself. In the table of contents below all chapters except the first two will be structured similarly. Each will be devoted to the indicated disciplines and publication types. The subsections will contain separate discussions of one publication and its variants. Such a discussion will in each case have the following parts - design specs (including page layout rules) in the professional notation which relies on units such as points, picas, etc. but otherwise uses only the necessary minimum of jargon - a reproduction of one or more pages in the design being discussed, perhaps >from the original publication - the code representing the control "knobs" allowing simple and recommended variations of the design - the designer's comments on the basic design, its weaknesses and strengths, and on possible variants with limits to how far one should go with various parameters - at the end of each chapter, a few paragraphs describing the knobs for that set of styles. A few chapters might require longer descriptions of peculiarities in the implementation of the software. All terms used will be introduced in chapter 1, which will provide a general introduction to practical design principles for someone using a powerful tool but having little background knowledge of design. Chapter 2 will be an introductory description of the techniques and implications of translating design into software LaTEX STYLES FOR CLASSIC DESIGNS Table of Contents 1. Design for the Non-Designer 1.1 General Introduction - Purpose of the Book - Intended Audience - The Combined Skills to be Transmitted to he Reader - How to Decide Whether to Produce the Publication on Your Own - Why and When to Ask for Help 1.2 Technical Terms 1.3 Historical Information on the Development of Books 1.4 Technical Information on How Books Are Made - Type - Composition Systems - Illustration/photo - Pre-press - Press work - Bindings - Historic Evolution and Recent Changes 1.5 Design - Page Size - Page Layout (front matter, title, headers, footers, text, back-matter, etc.) - Choosing Type - Illustration and Photographs - Paper - Binding 1.6 Mechanicals, Proofing and Schedules - Printer Requirements - Sizing of Artwork - Shipping - Final Proofs 1.7 At the Printer - Blue Lines and Page Proofs - Color 1.8 How to Use the Rest o This Book 2 Designs in LaTeX 2.1 Designs as Software - translating the design elements - advantages over the traditional approach - limitations of the software approach 2.2 LaTeX Styles - Ready-made Designs for LaTeX 2.3 "Knobs": Creating a Family of Similar Designs 2.4 How to Use the Style Files in this Book 3. Undergraduate Level Textbooks 3.1.Mathematics 3.2.Physics 3.3 Chemistry 3.4.Computer Science 3.5.Social and Biological Sciences 3.6 Engineering 3.7 Miscellaneous 4. Graduate Level Textbooks 5. Research Monographs 6. Conference Publications 6.1 Conference Announcement 6.2 Conference Schedule 6.3 Conference Proceedings 7. To-Be-Published Researc Articles (Preprints) 8. Business Plans 9. Company Annual Reports 10. Newsletters 10.1 Non-Technical 10.2 Technical 11. Professional and Reference Books 11.1 Computer Science and Data Processing Professional Books 11.2 Applied Science and Engineering Professional Books 11.3 Handbooks 11.4 Encyclopedias 11.5 Dictionaries/Glossaries 11.6 Databooks 11.7 Law Reference Books 11.8 Technical Documentation 12. Scholarly Books 13. Fiction Books 14. Miscellaneous 14.1 Letterheads 14.2 Business Cards 14.3 Mailing Labels 14.4 Resumes 14.5 Ph D Theses 14.6 Grant proposals 14.7 Book proposals Glossary of Technical Terms Appendix A: A LaTeX Roadmap A.1 Structure of the LaTeX Macro Package A.2 Structure of a Style A.3 Modifying a Style - changing the layout - changing the font - using printer-resident fonts A.4 Foreign Languages and Writing Systems Appendix B: A Complete LaTeX Style This appendix contains the complete source code that implements,in a specific font size, one of the styles described in this book. The code will probably be 1200-1500 lines long. AUTHORS Three authors with complementary backgrounds will collaborate on the book. The designer will bring years of experience, sophistication, and practical know-how of design in the relevant areas of publishing (scientific, technical, college, scholarly, etc.) The second author will create the LaTEX macros and ensure that the control "knobs" are intuitive, consistent, and easy to use. He will also make certain that design changes allowed by the knobs correspond to the designer's recommendations. The third author will select the disciplines to be discussed, and create the lists of candidate "classic" publications from which the designer will make his final choices. All three will participate in all stages of the work by giving the principal author of that stage continuous feedback and support. Resumes of the authors are attached. SCHEDULES, FORMAT, ETC. We expect the manuscript for this book to be completed within one year from signing of a publishing agreement. The likely format we will choose is 7 X 10, to accommodate full size illustrations of 6 X 9 format book pages including commentary. This project has been encouraged by the head of AMS's TEX Users Group, Nelson Beebe, and by Leslie Lamport. We expect to participate in the ongoing improvements to the LaTEX interface by sharing our experience and suggestions for improvement with the developers of LaTEX Version 2.10. In turn, we expect to benefit from early access to LaTEX's new features.