=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 6, no. 33 Editorial mailing list (digest version) Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Business matters [4ey] Word picture formatting [4ez] Authors' file formats [Offshoot of [4ey] Word Picture formatting] [6] Just for fun [8] Administration =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[4] Business matters ---------------------------------------- ** [4ey] Word picture formatting Date: Tues, 2 Oct 2001 From: Moira Vekony, Moira7777@aol.com I have a little problem here that I hope someone will be able to help with. An author has sent me a (rather complex) Table as a Word Picture embedded in a Word file. How can I get the table contents out of the picture and into the Word doc proper so that I can reformat it to journal style? All of the usual pointy clicky tricks dont seem to work. As a last resort I can rekey it, but I hate doing that!!! --------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 From: Nick Hudson, hudson@c031.aone.net.au It sounds unpromising. If you have the program which generated it, it should open in that program if you double click on it. But it sounds as if you have done this without success. (1) Ask the author what program generated it. If it you can get that program and download it, the double click should work ­ unless it turns out to be a scanned image rather than a text document. (2) A slightly quicker procedure: is to ask the author to send you the content as a word document. (3) The quickest procedure is to get a cup of nourishing coffee and rekey. --------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 From: Ian Kingston, i.kingston@ntlworld.com If double-clicking doesn't work and right-clicking and choosing 'Convert...' is no help, then your last hope is to try to copy and paste to an illustration program, such as Corel Draw. It works more often than you might think. Don't simply paste the copied illustration, though: go to the Edit menu and choose 'Paste Special' followed by either 'Metafile' or Enhanced Metafile'. Then ungroup all the objects and see what kind of state the table is in. --------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 From: Nancy Boston, boston.editorial@ntlworld.com Nick Hudson wrote (in part): > (1) Ask the author what program generated it. > (2) A slightly quicker procedure: is to ask the author to send > you the content as a word document. > (3) The quickest procedure is to get a cup of nourishing coffee > and rekey. Or (4), quickest of all, if the table is very complex but doesn't need alterations and the publisher allows you to - relabel it as a Figure and leave well alone. --------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 From: Geoffrey D. Palmer, gdp@lineone.net Let's face it, this enquiry is about how you should deal with a near impossible task. If you're being asked to edit on screen, then somewhere along the line someone should have taken the trouble to make sure that all of the material submitted on disk is capable of being accessed as intended. The onus should be upon those who supplied the work, not those who have to prepare it. Oh well. Enjoy that cup of coffee. To enrich the coffee experience still further, put on the stereo headphones and listen to music of your choice while rekeying. --------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 From: Moira Vekony, Moira7777@aol.com Thanks to everyone who replied to me on this. Having tried most of the solutions (the author dosnt know what program she created the Tables in - which begs the question of who actually created them) I have come to the conclusion that this is indeed an impossible task and I now have my cup of coffee in front of me. Well, that keeps me out of mischeif for the next several hours....... Yours cross-eyedly ----------------------- Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Peter Best, pbest@idl.net.au Nick Hudson wrote: > (3) The quickest procedure is to get a cup of nourishing coffee > and rekey. For a minute there I thought rekey must be some obscure, but fashionable delicacy! ----------------------- Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Ian Kingston, i.kingston@ntlworld.com Geoffrey Palmer wrote: > Let's face it, this enquiry is about how you should deal with > a near impossible task. If you're being asked to edit on > screen, then somewhere along the line someone should have taken > the trouble to make sure that all of the material submitted on > disk is capable of being accessed as intended. That implies that someone in the chain between the author and the copy-editor has the requisite skills and time to sort out such problems - unlikely at best. Like it or not, we're at the technological front line in this area. ----------------------- Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Geoffrey D. Palmer, gdp@lineone.net I take Ian's point on board: these days, publishers rarely have the time to investigate disk files or anything much else very closely. However, there's nothing to prevent them from giving their authors a general instruction not to embed inaccessible "objects" within word-processing files. I've just taken a look through one publisher's style/instruction booklet, and I can't see a mention of any such requirement. In general, I agree that we find ourselves on the technological front line. I find that UK publishers try to be helpful, but the most technologically clued up outfit that I'm currently aware of is a very well known German publisher. They have to be in the front line, because they're routinely taking in books and journal papers from all round the world, including quite a high volume of work originally prepared in Far Eastern versions of Word or LaTeX. ----------------------- Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@ntlworld.com Geoffrey Palmer wrote: > However, there's nothing to prevent them from giving their > authors a general instruction not to embed inaccessible > "objects" within word-processing files. And where are these authors who (a) read and (b) follow instructions from publishers?! ----------------------- Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Kathleen Lyle, edserve@klyle.demon.co.uk Geoffrey Palmer writes: > I've just taken a look through one publisher's style/ > instruction booklet, and I can't see a mention of any such > requirement. The more cynical among us will reflect that even if there were, it wouldn't make much difference. How often do authors follow these guidelines? Only, I think, when they are trying really hard to get a paper published in a very demanding journal. Even the most intelligent of authors seem to be incapable of realizing that they are not helping by embedding tables, graphics, text boxes etc. in the file, and are often appalled when they are told that these will be stripped out. Then they seem to forget, and do it again next time. ----------------------- Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Geoffrey D. Palmer, gdp@lineone.net To Kathleen, and to Jane, I'd say that in my experience *some* authors working with *some* publishers do seem to be trying a bit harder nowadays. I think that those who are using LaTeX to produce maths/economics books do realise that they're doing most of the keying for the typesetter, and they're keen to get it right -- not that they always succeed. ----------------------- Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Corinne Orde, c.orde@btinternet.com Kathleen Lyle wrote: > Even the most intelligent of authors seem to be incapable of > realizing that they are not helping by embedding tables, > graphics, text boxes etc. in the file, and are often appalled > when they are told that these will be stripped out. Then they > seem to forget, and do it again next time. I too find that desk editors and authors need to be constantly reminded what format to supply material in. At least these days, it's an easy matter to email new files. It was so disheartening a few years back to wait days for a floppy disk to turn up from the other side of the world only to find that it was unreadable or in the wrong format. ----------------------- Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Jane Lyle, jlyle@indiana.edu Geoffrey Palmer wrote: > I take Ian's point on board: these days, publishers rarely have > the time to investigate disk files or anything much else very > closely. However, there's nothing to prevent them from giving > their authors a general instruction not to embed inaccessible > "objects" within word-processing files. I've just taken a look > through one publisher's style/instruction booklet, and I can't > see a mention of any such requirement. Often authors have finished their manuscripts well before they find a publisher. It's easy enough to get them to follow instructions if they are in the process of preparing the manuscript, but once it's finished, it's not always a good idea for the publisher to require that embedded elements be unembedded by the author--the result can be major problems. In our experience, it's easier for us to do the unembedding in most cases than to leave that job to an author who may not realize how much he can screw things up in the process. But if I ever encountered a situation in which I couldn't unembed something on my own, I wouldn't hesitate to bounce it back to the author--or to cut out the portion of the file with embedded objects and require the author to submit those as camera-ready copy. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [4ez] Authors' file formats [Offshoot of [4ey] Word Picture formatting] Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Corinne Orde, c.orde@btinternet.com Geoffrey Palmer wrote: > I'd say that in my experience *some* authors working with > *some* publishers do seem to be trying a bit harder nowadays. > I think that those who are using LaTeX to produce maths/ > economics books do realise that they're doing most of the > keying for the typesetter... It depends on the typesetter! Some (I venture to suggest many) of them don't use LaTeX. It's an all-or-nothing system that is essentially incompatible with standard typesetting/layout packages. So, pending improvements in LaTeX's interface, compatibility and flexibility that would make it a viable tool for general typesetters such as myself, we rekey all of the maths submitted in LaTeX. A big drawback with LaTeX (apart from the long learning curve) is that it doesn't lend itself to implementing last-minute faxed corrections to content and layout, on press day, at speed, often while a courier is waiting to pick up the job outside the door at 4.45 pm and the client is phoning through further changes. A standard set of publishers' instructions to authors is not particularly helpful, unless the publisher always uses the same typesetter. Typesetters work with different systems and software and have different requirements. The most important thing is for publisher and typesetter to talk to each other to establish exactly how authors should submit their material. The onus is firmly on the typesetter to make clear what he or she needs to do the job. It is always a good idea for on-screen editors to ask if they can talk to the typesetter before embarking on time-consuming 'formatting' tasks that may all go to waste. Some typesetters like to import style-sheets, others want the plainest text possible, with all formatting stripped out. Some like marked-up hard copy, others prefer coded text files. Each to their own method, but dialogue is essential. ----------------------- Date: Thurs, 4 Oct 2001 From: Geoffrey D. Palmer, gdp@lineone.net I may have made some assumptions. For example, I've assumed that LaTeX books are going to typesetters who can handle LaTeX files; and I'm thinking of projects that are all LaTeX -- not instances where a few LaTeX equations have been popped in. I agree that, otherwise, there's no option but to rekey. The whole purpose of LaTeX in the first place (as I understand it) was to get around perceived deficiencies in trade maths typesetting, but of course it must be carefully targeted. Some science publishers have adopted it as the present-day equivalent of "camera-ready copy". I'd like to think that a WYSIWYG package such as Scientific Word makes the interface problem easier. I have a trial version running at the moment, and I'm about to have to decide whether I invest in the full program, which costs circa GBP400. It looks as though you can import various kinds of "txt" file into the SW window, so perhaps that means that "txt" E-mail attachments, or faxes scanned into an OCR program, could be copied & pasted into the window at the last minute. But don't quote me -- I haven't tried to do it! I'd welcome feedback please, if anyone has, because I could do with knowing how flexible SW might prove to be. As I understand it, a key part of publishers' standard instructions to authors is to get them to render their disk files down to something simple and straightforward that can be imported into any typesetting system. So, for example, an author working in Word is encouraged *not* to hyphenate automatically, or make use of fancy fonts, type sizes etc. The files need to be as flexible as possible. Along those lines, then, it makes sense not to have any embedded "objects". I fully agree about dialogue. If, as editors, we're going to do anything more sophisticated than just edit the words, then we must know where the book is heading. Where possible, I enter into that dialogue and then add appropriate coding. With some publishers, all this can be fine-tuned because they already know where books are going for typesetting. In other cases, they won't know until they've done their estimating, in which case the copy editor's end product probably has to be free of any complex formatting. ---[6] Just for fun -------------------------------------------- Piffling trifles, no. 18 To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles. ---[8] Administration ------------------------------------------ EDline is a discussion list about editorial and business matters for members of the publishing community. It focuses on issues of interest to professional editors, proofreaders, typesetters, writers and those in associated jobs. 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These archives can be found at: < http://www.electriceditors.net/EDline/ > --------- ** The views expressed in this mailing list are strictly those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the moderators or of the Electric Editors. ** Articles (c) 2001, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996, 1997, 2000 Iain Brown Compilation (c) 2001, Iain Brown / The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 6.33 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=