[FM Discuss] MYOSA printed book received, some problems

[Rebecca Hargrave Malamud]

Hello -

I am going through my email and just read this exchange - Christopher 
and I are experiencing font problems with OBJAVI II - we are going to 
put in some extra time this week to see if we can resove them and/or 
describe them to you in the form of useful feedback - primarily by 
filing bugs in booki trac!

We also saw strange page breaks in the auto-generated OBJAVI II PDF. We 
want to eliminate this type of error in our final RDC version. I will 
file a bug in booki trac so you can see what we are talking about ...

More soon!

Rebecca Malamud



adam wrote:
> hey James :)
>
>
> Glad you got the book!
>
>
> On Sun, 2010-08-22 at 07:28 -0500, James Simmons wrote:
>   
>> Yesterday I got the printed "Make Your Own Sugar Activities!" from
>> Lulu.  There are some issues with this book that I hope we can
>> correct.
>>
>> The biggest problem is the font size of Normal and Formatted text.
>> It's very small.  This book contains lots of formatted text, both as
>> Python program listings and command line examples.  The formatted text
>> is very small and quite faint.  That's a real problem for anyone
>> trying to understand the code, or worse still trying to type in the
>> code.  The normal text is not as bad, but that too really should be
>> one size higher too.  Headings and even page numbers are quite large,
>> but the rest really needs to be one size larger.
>>
>>     
>
> your book is generated with the default CSS but if you dont like it then
> your option is to swap to the new Objavi. FLOSS Manuals currently uses
> Objavi 1 but if you want css control you need to use Objavi 2 -
> http://objavi.flossmanuals.net
>
> Objavi 2 works for booki books (through booki) AND for FM. 
>
> The issue here is that you have to start with a template for the css
> that has not been refined and work with that since we are not using
> Objavi 2 yet for production of FM books...
>
> If you use Objavi 2 then please change with the CSS in the 'advanced
> options', regenerate and upload to lulu.com
>
> i think you and Anne should work out what works best with the style
> sheets. but be prepared that it might take a little bit of tweaking to
> get right.
>
> Eventually we will make a nice way that you can save your style sheets
> for use with Objavi 2 - therefore you can (eventually) have personal
> 'default' style sheets for yourself and also groups within booki will
> have shared default style sheets...but we dont have this yet
>
>   
>> The other problems are my fault.  In the "About The Authors" chapter I
>> made a remark about my alma mater that my wife objected to.  I have
>> removed it on the site, and would like this chapter to be
>> re-published, and even if we can do nothing about the font issues I'd
>> like a revised PDF sent to Lulu to correct this.
>>     
>
> ok...I think Anne is helping you with this...
>
>   
>> The cover is really, really bland.  I'm thinking that since everyone
>> seemed to like the cover the RDC did for the second book I could ask
>> them to put together something for this book. 
>>     
>
>
> sounds excellent :)
>
>   
>>  If you could tell me
>> what the actual constraints are: image size, number of colors, etc.
>> that their artist could come up with something more visually appealing
>> that still would fit in with the rest of the FLOSS Manuals.  I would
>> be willing to pay her for this work myself.  The cover as it is is
>> tolerable, but there's an awful lot of plain white.  Since this is the
>> only use of color in the whole book I wish it was a little nicer.
>>     
>
> when you have generated the pdf lulu then stipulates the size of the
> cover. It needs to do this because the number of pages effects the width
> of the spine. Anne will be able to help you with this once the new
> content is uploaded.
>
>   
>> The interior illustrations are grayscale, which is OK for this book
>> because they're all screen grabs.  That works fine for this book.  I
>> don't know how well it would work for the E-Book book. 
>>     
>
> Objavi can generate greyscale images for printing for books, and
> preserve color for ebooks or color if you wish to produce a color book
> (expensive to print)
>
>   
>>  The RDC will
>> be printing off a batch of these themselves, more likely than not with
>> color illustrations.  They'll also be doing some fancy style sheets.
>> If the book needs that to work, and I think it might, then maybe
>> putting it on Lulu would be pointless.
>>     
>
> i think putting it on lulu still gets it to people who might want it
> that would not otherwise have access to it
>
>   
>> The font issue could affect the Booki project too.  
>>     
>
> as mentioned above, Objavi 2 is built for booki but it works for FM too.
> so if you make a good style sheet for this book using Objavi 2 then we
> could look at using it for other books made in either Booki or FM.
>
>
> in some weeks of course, FM will use booki...so this distinction will
> collapse
>
>   
>> I thought Booki
>> might be a good tool for OLPC users to use for class projects.  There
>> was some interest in the "It's An Education Project" mailing list
>> about tools that students could use to create printed books.  Booki
>> would fill the bill nicely if the font size was larger in the default
>> style sheet.
>>
>>     
>
> it might be nice to see if there is anyone on that list that wants to
> help style it as you like
>
>
>   
>> Anyway, it's a real thrill for an author to see his work in print, and
>> none of this changes that.  I'm just thinking that FM sometimes prints
>> off books to sell at Linux conferences, etc. and that this book would
>> sell better to that audience with more readable text, especially for
>> the code examples.
>>     
>
> very glad you send this feedback here. i hope my notes are of
> help...without wanting to speak for Anne, if you can convince her to
> stay onboard and help you refine it i think that the best path forward.
> if Anne cant do it let me know and I might be able to help...
>
>
> cool!
> adam
>
>   
>> Thanks,
>>
>> James Simmons
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
>> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
>>     
>
>
>
>