Quote:
Originally Posted by Morlac
We use InDesign. Our editors have some leeway on whether or how much they want to edit the original manuscript file (usually in Word). For some books where there's not going to be a lot of restructuring in layout (multiple columns, graphics, etc) a manuscript edit makes more sense. Since, however, a big part of preparing a book for us is getting the various elements to layout and fit properly, it's unavoidable that most of the editing has to be done in layout after the book has been poured into InDesign.
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And herein, IMHO, lies the main catch: for paper books, there's folk that make sure ever letter ends up exactly where they want it: no pages with only a single line on it, no headings just a few lines of the bottom of a page, etc. The layout is their job.
Sure, you can tell even Word that you don't want such single lines on a page, etc., but does anyone ever use those features? Would a professional layout specialist even come near such a way of processing? Nope.. he'd toss it into a page-fixed format immediately.
On the internet we have HTML, a format that like epub is meant to reflow to the size of the screen (or window). However, go around the net and you'll find that most sites have fixed the width of their canvas to something of their liking. Folks with a larger screen get empty margings, folks with a smaller screen are screwed. Why? Because the layout folk want their pixel perfect exact control and refuse to do reflowing stuff. It's a big "screw the new medium, we do what we've done for 100+ years". That's how strong that dogma is. Will it be broken by the ever growing variety of screen sizes (from iPhone through netbook through ever bigger desktop screens)? Doesn't look that way yet.
Ebooks are facing that same problem now. Will layout be defined fully semantically at last? I'd hope so, but it will no doubt take many years still and a complete rethinking of the profession.