Hi Steven,
You want to learn more about LaTeX, but it's not too much.

I wrote a little book called Self-publishing with LyX that will help you
set up the title page as well as some of your other problems. This is not a
sales pitch -- it's free :-).

 Self-publishing with LyX
ISBN: 978-0-9803-3242-1
http://www.lulu.com/content/1085870

Cheers,
Alan



On 28 May 2014 13:25, Steven Arntson <steven@stevenarntson.com> wrote:

> Nick Dokos <ndokos@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Igor Sosa Mayor <joseleopoldo1792@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> Steven Arntson <steven@stevenarntson.com> writes:
> >>
> >>> Hi, I'm trying to export an org-mode doc to LaTex and subsequently to
> >>> PDF. This is a literary novel, written in prose. Right now when I run
> >>> the export command, the resulting file is incorrectly formatted for the
> >>> literary world, and I'm not sure how to change it. Is there a dialog or
> >>> "customize" menu that allows users to eliminate some default settings,
> >>> and add others?
> >>
> >> Maybe you can configure it with
> >> M-x customize-group org
> >>
> >> But I think a look at the manual is pretty useful and you can configure
> >> it in your .emacs without very much complication:
> >>
> >> http://orgmode.org/manual/Export-settings.html#Export-settings
> >>
> http://orgmode.org/manual/LaTeX-and-PDF-export.html#LaTeX-and-PDF-export
> >
> > I may be barking up the wrong tree, but to me the problem seems to be
> > not so much what org does, but what latex does. If that is so, then
> > perhaps what is needed is a latex style file that formats prose
> > "correctly for the literary world". That may be a non-trivial
> > undertaking (but maybe not: typographical demands for a novel are
> > trivial compared to say mathematics). Integrating such a hypothetical
> > style file into org would be pretty easy.
> >
> > But perhaps the OP can clarify: what does "incorrectly formatted for
> > the literary world" mean?
> >
> > Nick
>
> Full disclosure: I'm a beginning emacs user, and I know nothing about
> LaTex at all!
>
> I'm not producing a "book" per se, but a manuscript that will be
> printed on 8.5 x 11 pages and read by my agent or a publisher. The
> conventions are simple, but thus far I haven't been able to understand
> much of what I'm reading in the customize menu for org-mode.
>
> Until now I've done this formatting with MS Word or Libre Office. I
> dislike those programs, but I know how to use them. Simplest has been to
> take my raw org-mode txt files and convert them manually. It's a tedious
> last step before sending downstream, which I'd love to replace, and I've
> seen some beautiful LaTex examples online, so I know it's possible ...
>
> Literary format redux:
> + 12 point text
> + Title page has title and author name, centered both horizontally and
> vertically. Contact info for agent is in the bottom left, single spaced.
> + Remaining pages are double-spaced
> + Page numbers are centered at the bottom of the page (but no page number
> on title page)
> + Each page has a right-justified header in the format LASTNAME/TITLE
>
> That's it. I guess I'm wondering now--should I be learning more about
> org-mode, or more about LaTex?
>
> Thank you very much for taking the time to read all of this.
>
> -Steven
>
>
>
>


-- 
Alan L Tyree                    http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel:  04 2748 6206