Real tools. DO YOU USE THEM MOTHERF*CKER?

[kickaha]

So way back in summer of 2005, I got asked to submit a chapter for a book on design pattern formalization techniques. I wrote up a 25+ page paper, which was a bit of a pain right when I was trying to defend and graduate, but with ginkgo's stellar editing skillz, it got done by Christmas 2005. Spring 2006, it got accepted, and then the real pain began.

See, I did the original paper in LaTeX. With 30 highly complex equations broken out in the text, and about as many *in-line* equations, not to mention a dozen figures generated as PDFs for quality (no jaggies), LaTeX is the professional tool of choice for producing mathematical or technical documents with anything beyond simple algebra. It handles equations like you wouldn't believe, and makes them just beautiful. Figures are included with a jaggie in sight, and scale to whatever you need, automatically.

It was at this point, after producing a formatted document, that I was told that I would have to redo the entire paper in Word, because the publisher's typesetting system couldn't accept LaTeX. This is the first time I've encountered this in a decade of publishing. Previously, I've always been given a LaTeX template, and generated the document on the fly. It's fast, efficient, and easy.

I only wish this had been.

So I spent several full days this past summer rendering every. Little. Equation. Individually. Over 60 little pieces of equations, done as *images* for god's sake, simply because the MS Equation Editor *cannot handle* what I needed to do. Believe me, I tried. (That was day one.) No matter what I did, it looked like ass. So LaTeX it was, to render 12pt 6" margin equations.

Then the editor told me "Oh, we're not sure if they're going to use 12pt or 10pt, so that won't work. You'll have to do them in Word anyway." I pointed out to him that Word *could not do* what was needed, and his advice was to go purchase a several hundred dollar piece of software. Right. Sure. I'm going to run out and do that.

Instead, I re-did all of the equations in 10pt also. All of them. We're now up to about 120 individual little equation files.

And what about those figures? Well, have you ever tried to embed a PDF or EPS file into Word? Right. Asstacular. This isn't rocket science, it's a published standard that most companies can handle just *fine*, but some arcane, bizarre, unknown reason *cough*market-lock*cough*, Office products just gee-whillikers can't seem to handle those big bad PDF files. Inane.

Recommendation from the 'professional' publishing company? "Send them as GIFs." GIFs? *GIFs*? Unscalable, jaggie-laden, GIFs? Yup. Alright, so I convert the PDF files to 600dpi GIFs so they can be scaled down to whatever they need with minimum jaggies. Guess what. That's too high a resolution for their system. Max, 380dpi. Pretty much guaranteeing that any image will be smudgy.

Now, noticing a trend here? I get information that is critical only after it becomes an issue, not before, so I can plan for it. This gets worse.

The image issue finally gets resolved by converting all of the PDF files to EPS, which, after *MUCH* badgering on my part, I finally get them to admit will work. See, that would have been a lot easier from the beginning, but for some reason they were fixated on the GIFs.

So, several days later of hair-pulling frustration, I get a Word document that retains all the text formatting from the original LaTeX document, such as capitalizations and italicizations, all the equations in-line done correctly, all image files embedded appropriately, and EPS and PDF files for them in both 10pt and 12pt equations, and all figures. Around 150 image files, plus the Word document that took *hours* of pain-staking work by [Bad username or site: ginkgo'? @ livejournal.com] and I to get correct.

Finally, however, I send them the entire thing, and from this point, it'll be easy, right?

Ha.

Late last week, I get the proofs. I'm told I have four days to return any corrections.

First thing I notice: They have two typos in the title. THE TITLE. AND they misspelled my last name. (*MY* last name! How the hell hard is it to get my last name right??) AND they truncated the name of my co-author's institution. This is before we even get to the Abstract, notice.

I flip through. The Equations? Ass. The Figures? Jaggie ass. The formatting we spent so much time on? Fucked up beyond belief.

So began another set of questions and answers that were less than helpful. Another set of figures done, and today I sent *nine pages* of corrections to them. *NINE PAGES* for a 30 page document. That they had a fully correct Word document for. What the hell? Was it them re-typing it unnecessarily, or was it Word being 'helpful' with auto-formatting? I don't know, and frankly, I do not care. The fact that it fucked up was just unprofessional. Another few days down the drain for *no good reason*. What was the point of my spending *any* time on the formatting, if they were just going to fuck it up? Aren't these supposed to professionals? I'd settle for competent, at this point.

That original paper I wrote, fully formatted, typeset, and professionally rendered? It took less time than the formatting alone on this damned Word document. The fact that I had to proof-read, re-format, and re-do the paper *three times* now, simply because the tools that this 'professional' publisher uses are substandard crap, is infuriating. Add to that, that they haven't the apparent brains to relay critical information to their authors, and you get an extraordinarily unprofessional experience.

I'm pissed. I can't wait for this damned thing to be over with, so I can get back to spending time on publications where I can interact with professionals, and professional tools. This Word/GIF/Equation Editor shit is for the birds. The fact that MS gets money for it *at all* continues to baffle me, when there are free, freely available tools that simply put, work better. The fact that entire industries are built around them does nothing but make me horrified at what people can be suckered into. Wake up folks. Stop wasting your lives fighting idiotic software. Use better tools. Make a difference. Or, y'know... go away. Either way would suit me. Just please, stop getting in my way while I'm getting actual work done.

Alright, rant off. I'm hoping that this is the last round of crap I have to deal with from this publisher. I mean, it's not like I'm ever going to have to deal with them financially.

Yup, this was gratis. Everyone gets a learning experience. My lesson learned? Question one for any publisher in the future: "Do you accept LaTeX? No? PDF from a LaTeX template you can provide? No? Thank you for your time."

And now... I do believe I've earned a Dark 'n' Stormy.

Comments

[morgyne.livejournal.com]

Your PI probably had higher expectations for you ;)

I'm especially productive right now because I hate to write so I'm running tons of experiments. JUST IN CASE. I keep hoping I'll prove something I'm doing isn't right so I don't have to write up my advancement and stuff.