3.113 typesetting, cont. (35)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Sun, 11 Jun 89 19:29:17 EDT


Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 113. Sunday, 11 Jun 1989.

Date: Thu, 8 Jun 89 08:35:00 EDT
From: "Tom Benson 814-238-5277" <T3B@PSUVM.bitnet>
Subject: Re: 3.105 electronic publication (43)

Thanks for John Lavagnino's comments (forwarded from TLS) on
electronic typesetting. I've spent the past month or so, with
heroic help from our computer center, typesetting a book that was
written in SCRIPT on our IBM mainframe (and in collaboration across
bitnet). The process is fascinating, and it provides two big
advantages: (1) it's cheaper for the press, which is saving thousands
of dollars--this makes the book feasible, and it reduces its selling
price; (2) I'm writing about a subjet-in-progress, and so it is
possible to change the text up until almost the last minute, when
we are ready to prepare camera ready pages at Penn State's printing
services department. (Page proofs are made by downloading postscript
files to my Mac, and running them through my laser printer).

But the disadvantages still remain: I am putting a typographer out
of work; I am spending weeks doing keyboard work when I could be
more usefully employed writing another book.

This may all be a false economy, exciting though it may be to do . . .
once.

Tom Benson
Penn State