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1<?xml version="1.0" 2?> 3<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> 4<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> 5<head> 6<title>Writing Books with Txt2tags</title> 7<meta name="generator" content="http://txt2tags.org" /> 8 9<!-- Included writing-book.css --> 10<style type="text/css"> 11body 12 { 13 font: normal 14pt sans-serif; 14 text-align:justify; 15 margin: 3em; 16 padding: 3em 4em 2em 4em; 17 border: 1px solid black; 18 } 19#toc ol 20 { 21 padding: 2em; 22 } 23#body h1 24 { 25 border-width: 0px 0px 1px 0px; 26 border-style: solid; 27 margin-top: 3em; 28 } 29#body p, #body ul, #body ol 30 { 31 margin-left: 3em; 32 } 33#body li 34 { 35 /* to make IE happy */ 36 margin-top: 1em; 37 } 38a 39 { 40 text-decoration: none; 41 } 42blockquote 43 { 44 margin-left: 5em; 45 margin-top:2em; 46 font-style:italic; 47 } 48code 49 { 50 font-style:italic; 51 } 52hr 53 { 54 margin-top:3em; 55 } 56</style> 57 58</head> 59<body> 60 61<div class="header" id="header"> 62<h1>Writing Books with Txt2tags</h1> 63<h3>by Aurelio Jargas</h3> 64</div> 65 66<div class="toc" id="toc"> 67 <ol> 68 <li><a href="#toc1">Preface</a> 69 </li> 70 <li><a href="#toc2">Visual Editors VS Markup</a> 71 </li> 72 <li><a href="#toc3">The Txt2tags Approach</a> 73 </li> 74 <li><a href="#toc4">Fast and Furious</a> 75 </li> 76 <li><a href="#toc5">Organize the Sources in Folders</a> 77 </li> 78 <li><a href="#toc6">Version Control Made Easy</a> 79 </li> 80 <li><a href="#toc7">Quality Matters</a> 81 </li> 82 <li><a href="#toc8">Other Advantages</a> 83 </li> 84 <li><a href="#toc9">No Tool Fits All Needs</a> 85 </li> 86 </ol> 87 88</div> 89<div class="body" id="body"> 90 <blockquote> 91 This document is a quick guide showing the benefits of using 92 the txt2tags tool on the book writing process. Also applicable 93 for other large documents as Guides and Thesis. 94 </blockquote> 95<p></p> 96<a id="toc1" name="toc1"></a> 97<h1>1. Preface</h1> 98<p> 99I'm the txt2tags<code>[1]</code> author and I wrote two published papers using 100it: a <a href="http://guia-er.sourceforge.net/">Regular Expressions book</a> (96 pages) and a Shell 101Programming Course (108 pages). The writing process was smooth and 102painless, so I want to share this experience. 103</p> 104<p> 105A book is a real big work to get done, but it doesn't have to be a 106complicated process. To write is to organize ideas into text 107structures like sections, paragraphs and lists. Txt2tags is a tool 108that makes this task simple and easy. 109</p> 110<p> 111Writing alone or in a team, with or without version control, technical 112contents or not, text-only or graphics-enabled. In any case txt2tags 113can be used as the main tool for the book creation. 114</p> 115<p> 116There is <a href="http://www.picocontainer.org/Contructor+Dependency+Injection+...+Book+Announcement">a book</a> being written right now, using txt2tags. 117</p> 118 <blockquote> 119 <code>[1]</code> Txt2tags reads a text file with minimal markup as 120 **bold** and //italic// and converts it to documents 121 like HTML, LaTeX and Adobe PageMaker. More info: 122 <a href="http://txt2tags.org">http://txt2tags.org</a>. 123 </blockquote> 124<p></p> 125<a id="toc2" name="toc2"></a> 126<h1>2. Visual Editors VS Markup</h1> 127<p> 128The two common ways of writing a book are to use a Visual Editor 129(<i>Microsoft Word</i>, <i>Adobe Pagemaker</i>) or a Markup Language 130(<i>LaTeX</i>, <i>docbook</i>). 131</p> 132<p> 133In Visual Editors you write and format the contents at the same time. 134This approach is nice for small texts, but for a 300 pages book, the 135formatting consume time and distract the writer. 136</p> 137<p> 138In Markup Languages you write contents and mark it up, so an external 139program will convert it to the final form. The writer don't mind about 140formatting, but the process of including <code><tags></tags></code> and 141<code>\more{tags}</code> is error prone and very intrusive, making the contents 142hard to read on the sources. 143</p> 144<p> 145Txt2tags also uses the markup schema, but the big difference is that 146its marks are very minimal, some indeed are almost natural, as using 147the hyphen for list items. So the writer can focus on contents only 148and the source remains readable. 149</p> 150<a id="toc3" name="toc3"></a> 151<h1>3. The Txt2tags Approach</h1> 152<p> 153Using txt2tags, the book writing process follow these steps: 154</p> 155<ol> 156<li>The author(s) learn the very simple txt2tags markup rules. 157<p></p> 158</li> 159<li>The author writes the book contents, forgetting about noises 160 like page margin, font face, colors and sizes. 161<p></p> 162</li> 163<li>The author (or the publisher) open the contents on a graphical text 164 processor that reads HTML (or LaTeX or ...) and conclude the book 165 formatting. 166</li> 167</ol> 168 169<p> 170Step 1 is fast, just a few minutes. Step 2 will take months, and step 1713 can take days or weeks. 172</p> 173<p> 174Writing contents is when you will spend more time on the book, so it 175is really important to make this process a simple, productive and 176pleasant task. 177</p> 178<p> 179The following are arguments showing that txt2tags can be used to 180achieve that. 181</p> 182<a id="toc4" name="toc4"></a> 183<h1>4. Fast and Furious</h1> 184<p> 185Time is the key. Using txt2tags you will experience a very high 186productivity period because you write contents, not formatting. 187</p> 188<ul> 189<li><b>Initial Release Fast</b> 190<p></p> 191 It is very difficult to start something, but txt2tags has a nice 192 approach to this problem. Just sit and write plain text. When you're 193 done, in a few minutes you can add all the txt2tags marks on the 194 text and the document is ready to be converted and published. 195<p></p> 196</li> 197<li><b>Fast Snapshot Preview</b> 198<p></p> 199 No matter which will be the final book format, HTML is the preferred 200 format to use on the writing time. A snapshot of the current book 201 state can be done at any time, converting the sources to an HTML 202 page, so any system with a browser can read it. If you need a 203 printable version, convert the HTML to PDF with the excellent 204 <a href="http://www.easysw.com/htmldoc/">htmldoc</a> tool. 205<p></p> 206</li> 207<li><b>Book Contents Overview</b> 208<p></p> 209 To quickly have a global overview of the book contents at any time, 210 just use the txt2tags <i>TOC Only</i> feature. The program shows the 211 current Table of Contents for the book, with the listing of chapters 212 and sections, numbered or not, at any depth. 213<p></p> 214</li> 215<li><b>Fast Writing</b> 216<p></p> 217 Txt2tags marks are simple and minimalist, very easy to learn. No 218 names, no options, no parameters. You don't have to stop writing 219 contents to insert marks, they flow together with the text. If you 220 don't remember a specific mark at the moment, forget about it and 221 keep writing. At the end you do a global review on the text and 222 quickly insert the missing marks. 223<p></p> 224</li> 225<li><b>Fast Conversion</b> 226<p></p> 227 Even if you have a 500 pages book, the conversion process will take 228 just a moment. It is because txt2tags acts as a filter, converting 229 from one format to another. It does not index, compile, calculate, 230 compress, draw or do any strong processing on the sources. No more 231 library, catalog, schema and DTD nightmares. 232</li> 233</ul> 234 235<a id="toc5" name="toc5"></a> 236<h1>5. Organize the Sources in Folders</h1> 237<p> 238Txt2tags has a built in command to include external files in any part 239of a document, at conversion time. It makes possible to split the 240sources into several files. 241</p> 242<ul> 243<li><b>Each chapter in a folder</b> 244<p></p> 245 You can make a folder for each chapter, storing the sources in a 246 structured tree. Inside the chapter folder, you can even create 247 subfolders to store images, configuration and included files. 248<p></p> 249</li> 250<li><b>No file conflicts</b> 251<p></p> 252 Separating chapters, different teams can work in different chapters 253 with no interaction between them. Each team work on its own folder, 254 avoiding file conflicts due concurrent changes. 255<p></p> 256</li> 257<li><b>Flexible access control</b> 258<p></p> 259 Files and folders organized, you can implement access control rules, 260 setting up properties and permissions for any file or chapter. Do 261 use the standard system tools to configure the read/write 262 permissions, like the "users and groups" schema. 263<p></p> 264</li> 265<li><b>Global view of sources</b> 266<p></p> 267 Structuring the sources also helps to have a global view of the 268 book, using any file browser to quickly know the amount of text and 269 images of any chapter. (Hint: on UNIX, <code>find</code> and <code>du</code> commands) 270<p></p> 271</li> 272<li><b>Work your chapter, forget the others</b> 273<p></p> 274 Separating sources into files, you can convert your chapter alone, 275 not needing to wait for the full book processing. Besides faster 276 to convert, the chapter alone can be sent to reviewers or be 277 published alone, as a sample of the full book. 278<p></p> 279</li> 280<li><b>You separate, txt2tags joins</b> 281<p></p> 282 When converting, txt2tags will automatically join all the chapters 283 into the final book, no matter how deep or large is the folder 284 tree. 285</li> 286</ul> 287 288<a id="toc6" name="toc6"></a> 289<h1>6. Version Control Made Easy</h1> 290<p> 291Txt2tags helps the book version control with line based tools (as 292<i>CVS</i> and <i>Subversion</i>). The sources are plain text, not compiled 293data. 294</p> 295<ul> 296<li><b>Work with short lines</b> 297<p></p> 298 You can make short lines, breaking them at 72 columns. It will help 299 on the revision control, because it is line based. If the final 300 format needs that a paragraph is composed by a single long line (as 301 PageMaker), txt2tags will join them to you automatically. 302<p></p> 303</li> 304<li><b>Readable sources</b> 305<p></p> 306 With very minimal markup, the sources are readable. One can easily 307 see what has changed from one version to another, the marks don't 308 hide or pollute the text. 309<p></p> 310</li> 311<li><b>Large contents, small sources</b> 312<p></p> 313 As plain text, you can have a huge amount of contents, with a low 314 disk usage. People can do full checkouts and commits even in slow 315 connections. 316<p></p> 317</li> 318<li><b>Chapter versioning</b> 319<p></p> 320 As seen before, the sources can be organized into folders. This 321 makes version control separated by chapter, or even sections of 322 chapters, depending on how granulated you need the versioning. 323</li> 324</ul> 325 326<a id="toc7" name="toc7"></a> 327<h1>7. Quality Matters</h1> 328<p> 329You can write a book. Or you can write THE book. Txt2tags has nice 330built in features to increase your work quality. 331</p> 332<ul> 333<li><b>Spell Check</b> 334<p></p> 335 As all txt2tags marks are symbols and not words, you can use any 336 spell checker on the sources. It will take care of the text only, 337 not trying to correct tags. 338<p></p> 339</li> 340<li><b>Alias Database</b> 341<p></p> 342 Txt2tags has <i>Pre Processing Filters</i>, where you can define 343 keyword/value pairs. Wherever the keyword is found on the sources, it 344 is expanded to the given value at conversion time. For example, you 345 do use the string <code>URL_GOOGLE</code> on your text and it will appear as 346 <code>http://www.google.com</code> on the book. If the Google URL changes, 347 you just change the filter definition and all occurrences of it will 348 be updated. You can define as many keywords as needed, with no 349 maximum limit. 350<p></p> 351</li> 352<li><b>Dynamic Content</b> 353<p></p> 354 Txt2tags also has a command to include pre-formatted text into the 355 document when converting it, for example, a software source code 356 sample. This way you can keep this code sample separated from the 357 book text and update it by hand or even automatically. A nice idea 358 is to mark the software source code with special comments, and a 359 little program extract these marked parts into separate files. 360<p></p> 361</li> 362<li><b>Control Over the Result</b> 363<p></p> 364 Txt2tags has <i>Post Processing Filters</i>, where you can define rules 365 that makes adjustments on the resulting document. So if the standard 366 txt2tags conversion does not fully satisfy your needs, you can 367 improve it with your own filters. You can use the power of the 368 Regular Expressions to match patterns. 369</li> 370</ul> 371 372<a id="toc8" name="toc8"></a> 373<h1>8. Other Advantages</h1> 374<p> 375And there is more! 376</p> 377<ul> 378<li><b>Separate Formatting from Contents</b> 379<p></p> 380 Using HTML as the development target format, you can also use CSS 381 files to experiment different book looks. CSS defines formating for 382 HTML pages, and there is graphical editors to create CSS files. 383 A team of designers can work on doing CSS files for the book, while 384 the writers keep writing. 385<p></p> 386</li> 387<li><b>Include Complicated Structures</b> 388<p></p> 389 Txt2tags does have support for all the common structures used in 390 texts: lists, definitions, quotation, verbatim area and tables. But 391 if some parts of your book requires a more complicated structure, 392 you can use the <i>Tagged Include</i> feature, where you insert text 393 that is already tagged, like a real fancy HTML table. With txt2tags, 394 exceptions are not a problem! 395<p></p> 396</li> 397<li><b>Do Use Any Editor</b> 398<p></p> 399 As plain text source files, even the most modest text editor in the 400 world can be used to write the book. It doesn't have to have any 401 feature besides write and save text. If you use the editors with 402 txt2tags support, you will have <i>Syntax Highlight</i>, which helps to 403 identify the txt2tags marks. They are: Vim, Emacs, Kate, Nano, gedit 404 and TextMate. 405<p></p> 406</li> 407<li><b>Technical Support</b> 408<p></p> 409 Txt2tags has various channels to get technical support: two mailing 410 lists (english and portuguese), an IRC channel and even an Orkut 411 community. And for book projects, your can send direct e-mails to 412 the program author, who will give priority on the answer. 413</li> 414</ul> 415 416<a id="toc9" name="toc9"></a> 417<h1>9. No Tool Fits All Needs</h1> 418<p> 419There are some special cases where txt2tags is not a good tool for 420writing books. 421</p> 422<ul> 423<li><b>Very Complex Books</b> 424<p></p> 425 Books that uses lots of complicated tables, formulas or specific 426 structures, needs a graphical editor or a more complex markup 427 language, as LaTeX. If your book matches this description, txt2tags cannot help you. 428<p></p> 429</li> 430<li><b>Footnotes</b> 431<p></p> 432 Txt2tags does not have footnotes support. If you will use just a 433 few, you can add them later. But if you plan to make an intense 434 footnotes use, txt2tags cannot help you. 435<p></p> 436</li> 437<li><b>References for Pages, Tables and Images</b> 438<p></p> 439 One can use a graphical editor at the publishing time to include 440 indexes for pages, tables and images, no problem at all. But if you 441 plan to refer to them inside the text like 442 "<i>See table 4.11 on page 35</i>", txt2tags cannot help you. 443</li> 444</ul> 445 446<hr class="light" /> 447<p> 448<i>Writing Books with Txt2tags - Oct/2004</i> 449(<a href="writing-book.t2t">see source</a>) 450</p> 451</div> 452 453<!-- xhtml code generated by txt2tags 2.6b (http://txt2tags.org) --> 454<!-- cmdline: txt2tags writing-book.t2t --> 455</body></html>