Re: Org as a book publisher

[Jonathan McHugh <indieterminacy@libre.brussels>]

To build on your analogy, would Tikz be the Graphics Designer?


Jonathan

Juan Manuel Macías <maciaschain@posteo.net> writes:

> Hi Diego,
>
> Thank you very much for your comments.
>
> Diego Zamboni <diego@zzamboni.org> writes:
>
>> I think with Org and a setup like you describe, we are one step closer
>> to separating content (what) from form (how) in a document. This was
>> one of the original goals of LaTeX, but of course in a LaTeX document
>> much of the "how" is still visible through the "what". With Org the
>> separation becomes clearer, by hiding the LaTeX structures (almost)
>> completely, and by allowing to produce multiple formats from the same
>> source document.
>
> I Totally agree. Leslie Lamport originally created LaTeX (as far as I
> know) as a simplified way of handling TeX for his own documents, since
> the other format of TeX, plainTeX, was quite spartan. Then LaTeX has
> grown incredibly thanks to its extensibility qualities: a small kernel
> (unlike ConTeXt, which is more monolithic) and a ecosystem of macro
> packages. If we make an analogy with the old days of mechanical
> printing, I always say that TeX is the typographer, the one who gets his
> hands dirty with ink, while LaTeX wears a tie and is in the editorial
> design department. TeX works on the merely physical plane, and he is
> only interested in how each element on the page is positioned in
> relation to other elements. Here the minimum indivisible element would
> be the letter, which to TeX's eyes is a box with certain dimensions.
> LaTeX lives more on a semantic plane: for LaTeX there is no lines or
> letters or paragraphs, but rather headings, heading levels, lists,
> quotes, verses, chapters, tables, equations, tables of contents... But,
> as you say, in LaTeX you can still see too many gears. With Org we can
> work on a lighter and cleaner document. And with a single source for
> multiple formats!
>
> Before moving to Org, I applied this `philosophy' to the markdown/pandoc
> tandem. But since I migrated to Emacs/Org a few years ago, it's almost
> like having superpowers :-D
>
> Best regards,
>
> Juan Manuel 


-- 
Jonathan McHugh
indieterminacy@libre.brussels