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Ulysses 2.0: Self-Publishing: LaTeX vs. ePub

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      CommentAuthormaxheld
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2011
     
    I want a way to write and self-publish (mostly academic stuff) right from within Ulysses, which is a great writing environment.

    I know how to do all sorts of great things in LaTeX that are required for pro-looking books:
    - references (with internal links and semantic formatting)
    - images (with captions and internal links)
    - tables (with captions and internal links)

    Now LaTeX is all well, but it's for print and PDF, and both seem to be (hopefully) dying. (It also seems that LaTeX isn't even used by corporate typesetters anymore).

    Either way, I also want to be able to publish as ePub, which is after all the format for electronic distribution (PDF, because it can't be reflowed, is NOT).

    I don't know much about ePub and its limitations. I have noticed that Ulysses (or its ePub exporter, or ePub?) falls short on all sorts of stuff that would be required for academic publishing (see all of the above).

    So here are my questions:
    - Do other people share this goal of self-publishing from the writing environment (without days of ex-post editing) on BOTH print (LaTeX) AND ePub?
    - How do other people go about this?
    - How can I use Ulysses for the job?
    - I this something Ulysses can evolve to do? Or am I looking in the wrong place?

    Anyway, this is, I guess, a bit of a broader discussion.

    Would love to hear thoughts from other users and The Soulmen :).

    Thanks so much
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      CommentAuthorgoetz
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2011 edited
     

    I don't know much about ePub and its limitations. I have noticed that Ulysses (or its ePub exporter, or ePub?) falls short on all sorts of stuff that would be required for academic publishing (see all of the above).

    Actually, our ePub Exporter can do most of these things, including references, footnotes, and images. Tables are currently not possible. However, we could most probably work out something to make it work (by using HTML table tags directly, since ePub are just HTML and CSS files). The online help explains most of the features already present in the Exporter.

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      CommentAuthormaxheld
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2011
     
    Thanks, Goetz, I was aware of the options that Ulysses ePub Exporter has.
    I still think that some of the stuff required for academic publications is not provided, such as:
    - you can't choose the style of the in-text citation. Ulysses just seems to post the [key] as the reference.
    - if you refer to the same source in different documents, Ulysses will duplicate the reference the epub output
    - you can't refer to images or tables by their number or cross-reference them.

    Again, I'm not sure whether these are ePub limitations, or whether it's even Ulysses goal as an app to provide this kind of stuff.

    I'm just wondering what's a good way to go about self-publishing (ePub + LaTex).

    I'm leaning towards creating in LaTex now, then converting to HTML, then to ePub.

    But it seems that LaTeX2HTML is also very complex and/or unreliable.

    How are other people approaching this?
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      CommentAuthorgoetz
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2011
     

    Thank you for your comments. Here are some more thoughts of mine :)

    you can't choose the style of the in-text citation. Ulysses just seems to post the [key] as the reference.

    True, you can't "choose" it in the user interface. However, since the ePub Exporter is built upon the WebExport, we could convert the Exporter to a WebExport template to make it editable. From there, you could easily set up your custom citation styles (the thing is, there are countless citation styles available, so it's not really feasible to give the user a selection of different citation styles).

    if you refer to the same source in different documents, Ulysses will duplicate the reference the epub output

    Yes, this is something inherent with the way Documents are exported (something the Exporters can't get around easily).

    you can't refer to images or tables by their number or cross-reference them.

    This works definitely for images. You can write inside a paragraph something like
    see also <<img>> where the <<img>> is replaced with "Image 1" and the image is inserted after the paragraph with a caption below. Whenever you reference this image in the document, simply type <<img>>. The second image tag (<<...>>) that is not <<img>> is replaced with "Image 2".

    Again, I'm not sure whether these are ePub limitations, or whether it's even Ulysses goal as an app to provide this kind of stuff.

    Well, the ePub format certainly has its limitations (as I said, it's just HTML and CSS), especially with regard to scientific publications. The ePub Exporter of Ulysses tries to make as much as possible of this format and to allow the user to insert references, images, etc.

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