In our last installment, I promised to relate whether or not the open
source office suite OpenOffice would
solve my PDF-production woes. Before I answer that, though, I’d like to
thank everyone who offered to help in one way or another. I appreciate
your offers, and may yet take one or more of you up on them–it’s too
early to tell, yet. In the meantime, I’ve printed out a copy of
Through
Darkest Zymurgia for my brother Charles, so that he’ll no longer have
an excuse not to have read it.

Now, OpenOffice. Not prolong the suspense, the answer is “Yes and No,
and (finally) No.”

OpenOffice has a long and venerable history. I first encountered it when
it was a Sun Microsystems product called StarOffice, and I didn’t like it
much. One of the things I disliked was that it wasn’t just an office
suite; it wanted to be full-screen with its own desktop. I didn’t really
need it at that point (almost everybody has standardized on MS Word where I
work, and it just wasn’t worth being incompatible), so I was just looking
at it as a curiousity.

Later on, control was transferred to an open source consortium and the
product was renamed OpenOffice. A couple of years ago I looked at an
early version running on Unix under X11; it was better than StarOffice
had been, but it had some unpleasant effects on my color maps, and I
dumped it. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, be happy; if you
do, you’ll understand.)

But CafePress said it was a reasonable
solution, so I went looking. It turns out that there is a freely downloadable
distribution of OpenOffice for Mac OS X; the only quirk is that it’s not
yet a native Aqua app (Aqua is OS X’s window manager). Instead, it runs
under X11. This, by itself, doesn’t bother me; I’m a Unix programmer,
I’ve done a fair amount of GUI programming under X11, and I run X11
programs on my PowerBook all the time. It’s not as pretty, but if it
gets the job done I’m not one to quibble.

My initial experiences were encouraging. OpenOffice installed easily and
without any trouble, and started right up. It’s even pretty zippy for a
Java application; I’m (very mildly) curious how they managed that. The
“Writer” application (the equivalent of MS Word) has a straightforward,
easy to understand interface, and inside of an hour I’d produced a short
PDF file that printed very nicely indeed.

Still, there were some hurdles. Like Word, using Writer successfully is
all about defining styles. And Writer has a confusing array of
pre-defined styles, and there are half-a-dozen different kinds: character
styles, paragraph styles, page styles, chapter styles, and several others
that I don’t remember at the moment. The key to success was clearly
going to involve understand the different flavors and the predefined
styles in each flavor, and redefining the predefined styles to suit my
needs. In the software world, this is called “Research”, and it was
clearly going to be a lengthy task.

Still, so far, so good. If Writer’s formatting model is complex, the
on-line help in the current version is surprisingly good. I don’t know
how many times I’ve clicked on the help button in a dialog box, only to
get a help page that simply restates the contents of the dialog box. You
know–there’s a check box that says “Enable Engine Coolant”, and you go
to the help page and it says “Enables the Engine Coolant”. There’s never
any word on why the software has an Engine, what the Engine does, or why
it might possibly need Cooling. But the OpenOffice on-line help actually
is fairly helpful, and between that and the information at the OpenOffice web site I’m sure I could
have figured things out.

So I started trying to use OpenOffice to write up some tutorial material
I’d written about Snit, my
Tcl object framework–and ran face first into The Font Problem.

What’s The Font Problem? X11. X11 was one of the first widely available
windowing systems, and one of the first to do high-quality screen fonts.
But that’s a long time gone, and the X11 font model is seriously showing
its age.

We Windows and Mac users have become accustomed to high-quality fonts
that look the same on the screen as they do when printed. It’s not even
an issue for most of us; we take it for granted. Oh, how gladly I have
forgotten the halcyon days of my youth, when TrueType was but a dream and
all the cool kids installed Adobe Type Manager! But OpenOffice has the
font problem in spades. It tries to solve it by converting the Mac’s
fonts to a form it can use, but it doesn’t do it very well, and this
makes font selection a truly difficult task.

OpenOffice makes available to you all of the fonts that it knows about.
Some of them are purely screen fonts; the printed output will look
different. What You See Is Not What You Get. Some of them are
purely printer fonts; the screen will look different. Same problem.
Some few work the same on both the printer and the screen–but for many
of these, OpenOffice picks up the different styles–bold, italic, and so
forth–as being different fonts.

If I picked Palatino, for example, and tried to use bold or italic type,
it all looked like normal type on my screen. The PDF output was fine;
but it was impossible to tell, while looking at the screen, whether a
given piece of text was italicized or not. Not good.

I found, if I recall correctly, two fonts that worked for both screen and
printer, and had all their styles, and they weren’t fonts I wanted to
use.

In other words, I was going to have spend a fair amount of time learning
how to use OpenOffice’s formatting system to get the book to look right
just so that I could print it in a font I don’t like. No thank you. Add
to that the file format issue, and the answer was clearly no, not unless
I couldn’t find a better alternative.

The file format issue? I’m a programmer. I like plain text files. I
have text in plain text files that I wrote when I was in college twenty
years ago. I can still read those files. About fifteen years ago, my
wife and I put together a “family cookbook” in MS Word; I’m not sure now
that it was even Word for Windows. Later, I converted those files to
WordPerfect 5.1. Later, well…I’ve still got those WordPerfect 5.1
files, but I don’t have a machine that runs WordPerfect 5.1. What I’ve
got is a text editor called Emacs with which I can open those files,
delete all of the special characters, and recover the actual text. It’s
a pain, but I can do it.

I’ve seen file formats come, and file formats go, and text files go on
and on and on. I’ve no particular desire to marry a project like this to
yet another ephemeral file format, unless there’s a compelling reason to
do so.

So I turned away from OpenOffice, to try a different approach. An older
approach. An approach that suits my skills and prejudices.

Don’t miss the next installment of The Perils of PDF!

In Publication On $0 A Day I talked about the print-on-demand
publication service offered by CafePress, and my interest in using
it to publish some of the stuff I’ve got in my head, including my novel
Through
Darkest Zymurgia. In this post I’m going to talk about getting here
from there.

The first requisite, naturally, is something to publish, but as I’ve already
got a candidate I shall pass lightly over the topic and go on to the
next, which is creating the PDF file for upload to CafePress. This is a
two-part problem. First you need to acquire a tool that can save a
document in PDF format, and second you need to put your book into a form
the tool can use.

In my case, Zymurgia exists as a set of plain text files (I’m a programmer, I
like plain text files) and as a set of HTML files. Either of these can
be turned directly into PDF by a number of means, none of which will
result in a nice-looking book. So I’m going to have to massage the text
into some other format.

If I wanted to take the high road, I’d buy a copy of Microsoft Office and
use Word; or, better yet, a dedicated package for doing page layouts like
Adobe’s InDesign or FrameMaker. But that costs money, and my stated goal
is to produce this book as cheaply as I possibly can. But let’s suppose
someone else were to buy me a copy of Office–would my joy would still
not be complete. I’d have a tool that can produce high-quality output,
but I still wouldn’t have PDF, because Word doesn’t know how to produce
PDF. For that, I’d need a copy of Adobe’s Acrobat Distiller, which also
costs money.

(An aside–I’m writing this on an Apple Powerbook running Mac OS X. Any
program that can print on OS X can produce PDF files automatically; this
capability is supplied by the operating system. Very cool.
Unfortunately, the resulting PDF files are optimized for display, not for
printing.)

So the question is, what freeware tools exist that will produce
publication-quality PDF output? On a hunch, I went to the CafePress
website for an answer to this one. And CafePress pointed me at
OpenOffice, an
open-source office suite that produces good quality PDF output.

Will OpenOffice save the day? Find out in the next episode of The Perils
of PDF.

Since I began homeschooling my daughter, I’ve begun reading aloud to her
daily again. When she was in public school, homework took so much of the
evening that it impossible to read aloud on a regular basis. Now, however,
the only school work we do in the evening is a run thru of the flash cards
I’ve made up to drill her in Latin phonograms. So, I had to come up with a
book that would be entertaining and yet still be a stretch for her vocabulary.
The educational goal here is to increase her vocabulary and teach listening
skills. That’s the rationale I gave my husband for reading aloud to a 14-year-old
who can read to herself. The real hidden agenda I have is to spend some time
cuddling on the couch with my teenage daughter while sharing a good story.
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes fit the bill perfectly.

Since this book has been reviewed by both Will and me in the past I will skip
the normal plot summation. I did find reading it aloud to be a bit of a
tongue twister at times. Polysyllabic words I can silently read
automatically don’t trip off my tongue quite so easily and my daughter had
gotten to listen to Mommy sounding out a few herself. That’s a good thing.
She’s also been told to stop me whenever a word is used that she’s
unfamiliar with so we read with the dictionary next to us on the couch. That
also is a good thing. But the best part is that the book is almost funnier read
aloud. Abby identified with the fifteen year old Mary and guffawed thru
several passages when Mary let fly with her highly mature, highly
intelligent and very sarcastic comments. And I’m hearing the “Can we read
now, Mom?” question again when she’s wanting a little cuddle time with Mom.
She also commented that it’s all she can do NOT to pick up the book and read
ahead when I’m not around. What could be better?

Chris Johnson of Midwest Conservative
Journal recently announced that he’d written a book entitled Frank and I: The Final
Disillusion of a Life-Long Episcopalian. Chris has been covering
the long, slow meltdown of the Episcopal Church on a daily basis over the
last couple of years, and the book collects a number of his posts. But
given that I’ve already read most of them, what interests me more is how
he got the book published.

When I first wrote Through
Darkest Zymurgia, I had every intention of shopping it around,
and I even went so far as to send to Tor Books. The rejection came back
by return mail; clearly, they hadn’t even read past the cover letter. I
did a little nosing around, and some reading, and came to the conclusion
that to get my book published the traditional way I’d have to work really
hard and spend a lot of my spare time on it, and that even if I
succeeded, which was unlikely, the chances of making serious money (by
which I mean enough money to quit my day job) were slim and none. I
wrote Zymurgia for fun; it simply wasn’t worth my time to make the
effort to get it published in the traditional way.

Now, there’s an alternative of long standing for those who want to
publish a book in the worst way, and that’s the vanity press. And you
really do end up publishing your book in the worst way–you pay them a
lot of money you never get back, and you get boxes of books you have no
room for. Now, some folks have actually made money this way–but they
spend all of their time marketing their books. Let’s say it together:
“This is a hobby!”

More recently, the vanity press has branched into the world of
publication-on-demand. There are (or, at least, were) several
on-line firms where you upload your manuscript in electronic form, and they
give it an ISBN and undertake to get it listed at Amazon.com and such-like
places. Usually this costs you a “nominal” fee; plus they are happy to
take more of your money by selling you “manuscript consulting” services.
I looked into a couple of these places, and then I Googled them, and
the impression I got was Not Good. I discovered a number of folks who
felt ill-used, and that these outfits were not giving value for
money–indeed, once books sold were not passing the money back to the
author as they ought.

But Chris, now, Chris has published his book through CafePress. If you’re not familiar
with CafePress, they got started selling custom T-shirts and coffee mugs
on-line. It’s easy, and it’s free. Here’s how it works: first, you
design the graphic you want to have on your T-shirts. Then you go to
CafePress.com and “create a store”. This is the website on which you’ll
sell your T-shirt. Then you use their website to upload your graphic
position it on your T-shirt, jersey, handbag, coffee mug, frisbee, or a
host of other things, and put them up on your store. And then you get to
set the price for each item. CafePress sets a minimum price for each one;
you can stick with that price, and sell your items at cost (I’ve done
this), or you can set the price as high as you like.

The bottom-line is this–it costs you nothing to sell merchandise through
CafePress. If no one buys your merchandise, no one buys it. You make no
money, but also you spend no money. You’ve got no inventory, and no
fixed costs. CafePress is willing to spot you the storage space on their
servers in the hopes that maybe they’ll make a few bucks off each item
you sell.

Well, it so happens that CafePress is now in the publication-on-demand
business, and works just the same as the rest of their services. You
write your book, format it as a PDF file, create graphics for the book
cover, and upload the whole shebang. And you set your price, and if
anyone buys your book you get the difference between your price and theirs
delivered to your bank account.

This is very cool, and it’s the way it should be. And given that I’ve
got a book or two in me that I’d like to see in print, I think I’m going
to take advantage of it. And given that I’ve got a blog, I’m naturally
going to document every step of the process.

Tomorrow: The Perils of PDF.

I’ve just uploaded the latest version of Snit, my Tcl/Tk object framework, to the Snit Home Page. Any Tcl programmers in my audience are encouraged to take a look at the README file.

Last spring I went to an author signing/talk given by Tamora Pierce. She’s
been my daughter’s favorite author for a couple years now and since I forced
the kid to go on the class trip rather than allowing her to stay home and
attend the talk, I felt compelled by maternal guilt to at least get the
newest hardback autographed for her.

I was first struck by Ms Pierce’s uncanny resemblance to my daughter’s math
teacher, a woman with infinite patience and fortitude, an ample bosom and a
face like a bull dog. Pierce treated the, mostly, girls in the audience to
an hour of honest talk about what writing is about, what publishing is like
and where she gets her ideas from and her own incredibly sly sense of humor.
She also discussed her respect for other author’s YA books, particularly
mentioning Meg Cabot as one whose book The Princess Diaries was gutted of
all merit when made into a movie.

Now I kind of liked that movie. The image of Julie Andrews clumping across
the doorway in imitation of her granddaughter was hilarious. My son,
disdainful of anything resembling a chick flick, laughed out loud thru most
of it though he wouldn’t admit it later. So if the movie is a gutted
representation of a much better original and I like the movie, then perhaps
I should find out what this book is about. Not to mention that it’s been
selling like hotcakes and has been followed up by several sequels that are
selling like hotcakes. So I read it.

It was, well, ok. The premise of the book is that Mia Thermopolis finds out
that her father, conveniently dead in the movie, is actually King of a small
city-state sort of like Monaco rather than the wealthy man involved in
politics that she has always been led to believe by her mother. Not only is
he King, but he has been rendered unable to produce more off spring by a
form of testicular cancer, now making Mia, his love child from his college
days, the heir to the throne. And Grand-mere, the dragon who takes care of
her summers at the little chateau in France, will be responsible for
training her for the throne. Mia is traumatized. And to top it off, her
mother is dating her Algebra teacher, the only subject in school she’s
failing.

The book was cutesie. Aside from some very unnecessary but not overt jokes
about her father’s, um, testicular issues, most of the humor struck me as
the type an adolescent kid would enjoy. There’s a lot of emphasis on bad
hair, clothes, what shoes to wear and that sort of thing. The writing is a
masterpiece in girl speak. Cabot’s got the, like, you know, bad, um, like,
conversational style, the, like, girls seem to use these days. It’s not
something I’m sure I want my daughter to imitate but it was the only really
objectionable thing in the book. It’s kind of nice little dessert book,
something light and not too heavy.

Posting has been light recently, for which I apologize; I just haven’t felt much like writing, and I haven’t even been reading all that much, so I haven’t had much to write about. When I get home, about all I’ve had energy for (other than family things) has been a little work on Snit and video games.

This isn’t my usual state, and I put it down to a variety of things going on at work these days…not to mention all of the ECUSA foolishness I’ve posted about occasionally. I’m in no danger of losing my job–far from it–but Reorganization has reared its ugly head. The organizational changes take effect at the beginning of October–although, it’s not clear that I’ll know, even then, who my new managers are going to be. And then, the Lambeth Commission reports to the Anglican Primates in mid-October, just a couple of days after our parish priest might or might not be elected the next Bishop of the Diocese of Rio Grande. Oh, and the project I’ve been working on for the last six years is winding down early next year.

Can you wonder that things are a little unsettled around here? It’s as though all of the fixed points of my life, with the exception of God and my family (thank God for Jane), have gotten up to dance over the next month.

I’ll get over it, of course–long before all of this is finally settled, by preference–but until then posting might remain light.

Hurricane Ivan is big. Here’s a picture from the International Space Station. May the Good Lord have mercy on New Orleans.

This is an outstanding book by the same author as
By The Great Horn Spoon!, which I
reviewed
a couple of years ago. That book involved the California Gold Rush. I’d
read it many times as a kid, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it to my
eldest boy, Dave.

The only other book of Fleischman’s that I’d read as a
kid was this one, Mr. Mysterious & Company. It takes place in
the 1880’s and concerns the Hackett family, who are migrating from
somewhere in the Mid-West to San Diego, where Mr. Hackett’s brother has a
cattle ranch. In addition to knowing cattle Mr. Hackett is also a
consummate magician, and as book begins the Hackett family is traveling
westward through Texas, paying their way by giving magic shows in each
town they visit. Mr. Hackett performs as Mr. Mysterious, his wife plays
the piano, and each of their three children has a part.
And on the way to California the Hacketts buy a dog, meet an outlaw,
drive off a band of Indians, and save a town from ruffians.

It’s a fun adventure, and the highest praise I can give it is this: the
night after we finished it, David wanted me to read it to him over again.
I declined, though honestly I don’t think I would minded all that much.

I don’t know why I never looked up Fleischman’s other books when I was a
kid; I rather expect I’ll be doing so over the next few years.

Today is the third anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers; it’s also the second anniversary of this blog. And I have to ask myself, what was I thinking? One day earlier, or one day later and I could go into raptures about my blogiversary every year.

Instead, I remember coming downstairs, dressed and ready to go to work, and hearing my wife call me to the TV, where she was nursing our little girl, “Will, come here, something happened in New York.” “What?” “I think a plane hit the World Trade Center.” I remember watching the first tower collapse, and that I knew it was collapsing before the man doing the voiceover on TV did. I remember the billowing smoke and ash and dust. At least I couldn’t see the people plunging to their deaths.

September 11th is not a day for celebrating–but one day, if we can keep our resolve, it will be. I hope that for my grandchildren 9/11 will be just another three-day weekend commemorating a victory they are too young to remember. In the meantime, may God bless our troops, and grant wisdom to their commanders.