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a bit off-topic: book printing



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 12th 21, 09:00 PM posted to comp.lang.postscript,comp.periphs.printers
Eli the Bearded
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 15
Default a bit off-topic: book printing

Note crosspost. c.l.postscript because I can imagine the people reading
that group have more expirience with non-home printing, and c.p.printers
because printers are involved.

Background:
There are a _wealth_ of public domain books that have been scanned and /
or OCRed available on the net now. These are great for reading on
computer devices, but what if I want a print copy?

I can, and have, naively send them to a local laser printer and get a
stack of US-Letter output. I don't really like the look or the usability
of that. Beyond the page count that I can easily staple, it's not a good
format.

I have also tried, once, the process of turning some 500 pieces of email
into a bound epistolary. (Maybe e-epistolary be correct for e-mail? :^) )
For that I scoured the net for a good Latex template for the book, and
finding none I really liked. There were a lot suitable for short
technical documents, and few good for an entire book. Some pain points:
formatting chapters, table of contents, the perfect-bound wrap-around
cover, flowing non-prose text properly (eg embeded poems). I didn't have
any illustrations to deal with in that book, but that looks intimidating,
too. Reseach papers have a very different idea of frontmatter than
novels or non-fiction books. Reseach papers need a lot more support for
foot or endnotes.

I did eventually get a PDF built with a "fiction novel" template. I made
time based divisions of the email into the chapters for for that. Then I
had Blurb (.com) print the thing for me as a trade paperback size
perfect bound book.

It's a lot better than a stack of US-Letter sized pages, but it still
leaves a lot to be desired.

Request:
So with that background, I'm curious if people know good ways to print
free ebooks. I'll give two links, to two different books at different
sites (which share the same title) as example texts:

https://archive.org/details/cu31924002801979

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26014

With the file formats there, and the whole world of printing services,
what's the easiest way to get a respectable looking printed book, that
would be conviently sized and sturdy enough to take on a field trip?
Budget is not unlimited, but not too constrained. Time to prepare the
document for publishing is more constrained.

The Batty book, eg, has a lot of detail on making field expeditions to
collect samples, so that would be a book you might want to carry off
into the field.

(I have "vintage" bound copies of both of those, and have read both. I
present them as examples where I have a known existing thing to compare
it to. Both have extensive illustations, and the occaisional table of
data. The Browne volume has a fold out map, Plate V, kinda poorly
reproduced at Gutenberg.)

Elijah
------
kinda surprised more people don't want to do this
  #2  
Old February 19th 21, 12:32 AM posted to comp.lang.postscript,comp.periphs.printers
Lynn McGuire[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 198
Default a bit off-topic: book printing

On 2/12/2021 2:00 PM, Eli the Bearded wrote:
Note crosspost. c.l.postscript because I can imagine the people reading
that group have more expirience with non-home printing, and c.p.printers
because printers are involved.

Background:
There are a _wealth_ of public domain books that have been scanned and /
or OCRed available on the net now. These are great for reading on
computer devices, but what if I want a print copy?

I can, and have, naively send them to a local laser printer and get a
stack of US-Letter output. I don't really like the look or the usability
of that. Beyond the page count that I can easily staple, it's not a good
format.

I have also tried, once, the process of turning some 500 pieces of email
into a bound epistolary. (Maybe e-epistolary be correct for e-mail? :^) )
For that I scoured the net for a good Latex template for the book, and
finding none I really liked. There were a lot suitable for short
technical documents, and few good for an entire book. Some pain points:
formatting chapters, table of contents, the perfect-bound wrap-around
cover, flowing non-prose text properly (eg embeded poems). I didn't have
any illustrations to deal with in that book, but that looks intimidating,
too. Reseach papers have a very different idea of frontmatter than
novels or non-fiction books. Reseach papers need a lot more support for
foot or endnotes.

I did eventually get a PDF built with a "fiction novel" template. I made
time based divisions of the email into the chapters for for that. Then I
had Blurb (.com) print the thing for me as a trade paperback size
perfect bound book.

It's a lot better than a stack of US-Letter sized pages, but it still
leaves a lot to be desired.

Request:
So with that background, I'm curious if people know good ways to print
free ebooks. I'll give two links, to two different books at different
sites (which share the same title) as example texts:

https://archive.org/details/cu31924002801979

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26014

With the file formats there, and the whole world of printing services,
what's the easiest way to get a respectable looking printed book, that
would be conviently sized and sturdy enough to take on a field trip?
Budget is not unlimited, but not too constrained. Time to prepare the
document for publishing is more constrained.

The Batty book, eg, has a lot of detail on making field expeditions to
collect samples, so that would be a book you might want to carry off
into the field.

(I have "vintage" bound copies of both of those, and have read both. I
present them as examples where I have a known existing thing to compare
it to. Both have extensive illustations, and the occaisional table of
data. The Browne volume has a fold out map, Plate V, kinda poorly
reproduced at Gutenberg.)

Elijah
------
kinda surprised more people don't want to do this


I use www.lulu.com for printing and binding my five computer software
manuals. Each is approximately 300 pages and printed on 8.5 inch by
11.0 inch paper. www.lulu.com requires a PDF for the body, the front
cover, the spine, and the back cover. Four PDFs. The cost for each
manual is around $14.
https://www.winsim.com/doco.html

Lynn

  #3  
Old February 19th 21, 01:55 AM posted to comp.lang.postscript,comp.periphs.printers
Eli the Bearded
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 15
Default a bit off-topic: book printing

In c.p.printers and c.l.postscript, Lynn McGuire wrote:
On 2/12/2021 2:00 PM, Eli the Bearded wrote:
kinda surprised more people don't want to do this

I use www.lulu.com for printing and binding my five computer software
manuals. Each is approximately 300 pages and printed on 8.5 inch by
11.0 inch paper. www.lulu.com requires a PDF for the body, the front
cover, the spine, and the back cover. Four PDFs. The cost for each
manual is around $14.


That looks and sounds very similar to the blurb.com process. They used
two PDFs however, one for body, one for front/spine/back. That is tricky
to do precisely since size of spine changes with paper choice and page
count. In any event, the cover was my least concern. Generating the PDF
for the inside that was tricky.

Perhaps it's just my standards. A document to PDF process that doesn't
put page breaks in before new chapters is wrong. A process that doesn't
have different margins for front and back of page (left side is spine on
front, and right side is spine on back) is wrong. A process that doesn't
surpress page numbers on first page of chapter is wrong. A process that
doesn't start page numbers until after title page is wrong. If I'm
getting something bound in signatures rather than perfect bound, then
the process needs to know about page creep or it is wrong.

I know how, in a small number of GUI programs, to properly format a book
like that. It is not something I can do quickly or easily.

I am hoping to find some way to get from document formats quickly and
easily available to good layout (PDFs or other interim format) for
printing. It need not be a free process, but I don't want to break the
bank either.

Elijah
------
had given up hope on any response
  #4  
Old February 24th 21, 11:18 PM posted to comp.lang.postscript,comp.periphs.printers
Computer Nerd Kev
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 77
Default a bit off-topic: book printing

In comp.periphs.printers Eli the Bearded wrote:

Background:
There are a _wealth_ of public domain books that have been scanned and /
or OCRed available on the net now. These are great for reading on
computer devices, but what if I want a print copy?

I can, and have, naively send them to a local laser printer and get a
stack of US-Letter output. I don't really like the look or the usability
of that. Beyond the page count that I can easily staple, it's not a good
format.


I've done this, though I'll need some time and prodding to dig up
details. I was using the plain-text format version of novel texts.
The cover was manually designed based on a template.

Contents pages and page breaks for chapters were generated
automatically based on assumptions about the text formatting which
often needed to be adjusted for different input files. removing
the page number at the start of a chapter was probably possible but
not my preference, though they were excluded from pages preceeding
the beginning of the first chapter.

The output format was A5 pages, to be arranged into two
single-sided A4 print jobs performed in sequence to produce
double-sided A4 pages that were cut in half to produce the
double-sided A5 pages ready for perfect binding. I did all the
printing and binding myself, so this was designed to suit my own
production process.

My preference was to have the page numbers on the outside edge of
the pages, so they needed to alternate sides on each page, which
caused me a lot more trouble than it should have.

Generation of the A5 document was done in Libre Office using a
Libre Office Basic script, which was a choice I soon regretted
because a lot of things didn't seem to work properly. That produced
the A5 document in Postscript, which I reformatted into the two A4
Postscript print jobs using psutils.

I only ever attempted novels in plain text as input, never any
images. This wasn't all that long ago, but long enough that I've
forgotten further details. Scripts (I think they were pretty short,
but there were multiple versions) and examples can be dug up, but
they're messy (I didn't learn LO Basic very extensively) and done
with an "only need to work once" mindset.

--
__ __
#_ |\| | _#
  #5  
Old February 25th 21, 12:18 AM posted to comp.lang.postscript,comp.periphs.printers
Eli the Bearded
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 15
Default a bit off-topic: book printing

In c.l.postscript and c.p.printers, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
The output format was A5 pages, to be arranged into two
single-sided A4 print jobs performed in sequence to produce
double-sided A4 pages that were cut in half to produce the
double-sided A5 pages ready for perfect binding. I did all the
printing and binding myself, so this was designed to suit my own
production process.


Do you have a guillotine paper cutter, or were you using something else?
Having once used a proper guillotine (clamps paper, then cuts straight
down) I've become very not a fan of the non-clamp swing arm style.

Faced with doing something like that myself, I'd probably be more
inclined to just buy pre-cut reams in the smaller size and print on
those in regular duplex. It would also make the imposition easier.
Although I usually use US Letter, my printer supports down to A6
from the paper tray and I know how to buy "exotic" sizes.

My preference was to have the page numbers on the outside edge of
the pages, so they needed to alternate sides on each page, which
caused me a lot more trouble than it should have.


This is a good style, but not one I'd insist on. Having the margin
wider on the spine side, so text isn't lost in the crack is more
important to me.

Generation of the A5 document was done in Libre Office using a
Libre Office Basic script, which was a choice I soon regretted
because a lot of things didn't seem to work properly. That produced
the A5 document in Postscript, which I reformatted into the two A4
Postscript print jobs using psutils.


Creating of some intermediate format via scripting has been suggested to
me, but no one has pointed me to an easy way to do that. I don't want to
try my hand a *roff template; I haven't done anything but man pages in
20+ years. I don't know Tex/Latex well enough to create my own
templates. And I looked briefly at Sile[*] which tries to modernize
layout and takes Knuth's basic line breaking / filling system and using
that for both lines and larger blocks: the better to avoid orphaned
words or lines. Sile gave me a lot of compile trouble on my (then) older
Ubuntu and I never really went back.

I only ever attempted novels in plain text as input, never any
images.


Many novels have images, too. I selected the (commercially printed)
version of _Moby Dick_ I'm reading now because of the Rockwell Kent
illustrations. Those are not in public domain yet, being from 1930.

I was thinking of books like _Les Liaisons dangereuses_ as probably good
to illustrate. There are a lot of now public domain pictures for that
book, and not so many print versions with those pictures. When I read
it, the copy had no illustrations. The illustrations are part of what
gave it its naughty reputation. The text never really goes further than
"she surrendered all to me" style details.
[*] Search sile-typesetter on Github. I know the author via Usenet.

Elijah
------
having already read _Liaisons_ would probably not actually print that one
  #6  
Old February 27th 21, 01:53 AM posted to comp.lang.postscript,comp.periphs.printers
Computer Nerd Kev
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 77
Default a bit off-topic: book printing

In comp.periphs.printers Eli the Bearded wrote:
In c.l.postscript and c.p.printers, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
The output format was A5 pages, to be arranged into two
single-sided A4 print jobs performed in sequence to produce
double-sided A4 pages that were cut in half to produce the
double-sided A5 pages ready for perfect binding. I did all the
printing and binding myself, so this was designed to suit my own
production process.


Do you have a guillotine paper cutter, or were you using something else?
Having once used a proper guillotine (clamps paper, then cuts straight
down) I've become very not a fan of the non-clamp swing arm style.


This is the one that I've got (or close enough):
https://www.comemachines.com/collect...-cutting-width

It has a clamp, and I'd say you definately need it. The main
problem with it is that the "blade safety knob" keeps coming off,
but otherwise it works pretty well.

Faced with doing something like that myself, I'd probably be more
inclined to just buy pre-cut reams in the smaller size and print on
those in regular duplex. It would also make the imposition easier.
Although I usually use US Letter, my printer supports down to A6
from the paper tray and I know how to buy "exotic" sizes.


Well to get a nice result where you can flick through pages with
your thumb, you need to trim the three faces of the book, or at
least the long one. Plus to cut the cover of paperback books down
to exactly the same size as the pages. The guillotine is needed
for that anyway, and then printing time is improved if you print
on A4.

But actually I did try with A5 and found that, in spite of any
claims about support for such paper sizes, it guaranteed a paper
jam with my printer, so I didn't have much choice anyway.

If you need the guillotine anyway, as I suggest, it's cheaper to
buy A4 (or I guess letter in your part of the world) and cut it in
half yourself even if your are running the smaller size through
your printer.

Generation of the A5 document was done in Libre Office using a
Libre Office Basic script, which was a choice I soon regretted
because a lot of things didn't seem to work properly. That produced
the A5 document in Postscript, which I reformatted into the two A4
Postscript print jobs using psutils.


Creating of some intermediate format via scripting has been suggested to
me, but no one has pointed me to an easy way to do that. I don't want to
try my hand a *roff template; I haven't done anything but man pages in
20+ years. I don't know Tex/Latex well enough to create my own
templates. And I looked briefly at Sile[*] which tries to modernize
layout and takes Knuth's basic line breaking / filling system and using
that for both lines and larger blocks: the better to avoid orphaned
words or lines. Sile gave me a lot of compile trouble on my (then) older
Ubuntu and I never really went back.


Well yes I looked into Latex and the like as well, but I can't
remember the actual path of reasoning that lead me to choose Libre
Office instead. Probably I wasn't finding clear examples of using
those tools to do the sort of thing I wanted, and just generating a
Libre Office Writer document by running a LO Basic script in a
template document seemed easier, but I don't think it was in the
end.

I only ever attempted novels in plain text as input, never any
images.


Many novels have images, too. I selected the (commercially printed)
version of _Moby Dick_ I'm reading now because of the Rockwell Kent
illustrations. Those are not in public domain yet, being from 1930.

I was thinking of books like _Les Liaisons dangereuses_ as probably good
to illustrate. There are a lot of now public domain pictures for that
book, and not so many print versions with those pictures. When I read
it, the copy had no illustrations. The illustrations are part of what
gave it its naughty reputation. The text never really goes further than
"she surrendered all to me" style details.


I think getting the scaling and orientation right for each image
would probably have to be a manual process. Then again, I only had
TXT or HTML to choose between for a lot of the books I wanted to
do. I don't know if the ebook formats offer metadata about
real-world dimensions and orientation on a page. Actually I've
never even used an ebook format, even for the intended use.

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