Editing Talk:Format guideline (section)

== Page formatting in full-text PDFs ==

I noticed that the Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria full-text PDF is extremely difficult to read. I noticed multiple reasons for this. For one, the lines are very long, over 100 characters per line. Secondly, it's in Calibri, a sans-serif font that is the default in Microsoft Office 2007. That it's sans-serif doesn't really matter, but that font in particular doesn't seem to work well.

This came to mind because I'm currently doing major offline edits for the first chapter of a teaser project, Tabi ni Deyou, and I'm working in the LaTeX typesetting program. I'm using the A5 paper size instead of A4 and the default LaTeX font (Computer Modern), and I find that it's far more readable than the aforementioned PDF I downloaded, with about 60 characters per line and really smooth typesetting. It's far more like reading a real light novel, except on a computer screen. I compared it to my official Suzumiya Haruhi English translations, and the pages are about the same physical size, but the margins are slightly smaller in my PDF, though it's not a drastic difference.

In short, I was wondering: should there be guidelines for PDF conversions of fully translated novels for readability and consistency? Also, should they reference Baka-Tsuki (which the Utsuro no Hako one has no mention of)? Should they credit the translators and editors? [[User:CarVac|CarVac]] 05:25, 21 March 2011 (EDT)

3 things: [http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2864 guidelines], or the closest we have. Additionally, I've worked with LaTeX, admittedly more on the mathematics side, and it seems like converting a whole text to it would be resource intensive, unless there exists scripts to do so. Additionally different typesetters for LaTeX may have different default fonts (I know that the major implementation is different for Mac and Windows, at least). What program are you using, and is the font available online somewhere? I also observe that many of the PDF translations are available only on the forum: I would definitely run a poll (I think translators have permission to make them, I know project editors don't), in addition to any debate here on wiki, before creating any policy, especially with regards to giving credit. --[[User:Saganatsu|Saganatsu]] 07:26, 21 March 2011 (EDT)

LaTeX is designed so that no matter what system you run it on, you will always get the same result. It's free and open-source, and it's available for basically any system ever. Personally I use LaTeX 2e on Linux, but you should get the same exact result for any operating system, and Computer Modern comes with every install of LaTeX so far as I know. Also, LaTeX is designed for books as well as mathematics; several publishing companies use it to typeset their books.

It's actually not that hard to convert a novel to LaTeX; the hardest part was formatting the title page photo to fill the sheet, but I could take what I have done and make it into a template for future use. My code could use a little neatening and documentation in that case, though. Then, you could simply download the images, copy the wiki code into a new file, and use find-and-replace on things like ellipses, quotes, photos, italics, and section breaks. I converted a chapter to LaTeX in about half an hour that way, so it's not a big time investment to create a PDF, unless the chapter started out with extremely inconsistent formatting. --[[User:CarVac|CarVac]] 16:07, 21 March 2011 (EDT)

That's great! I'm going to look for a wikicode->LaTeX converter, and If I don't find one, probably try tot build one myself. If I end up building one myself could I look at what you've produced to get the formatting looking correct? --[[User:Saganatsu|Saganatsu]] 16:21, 21 March 2011 (EDT)

One thing is that any existing wikicode->LaTeX converter is not likely to be suitable to typesetting light novels as books. There are other issues such as the fact that different projects format the novels slightly differently. So, I just created a LaTeX document that explains mostly everything on how to convert the wikicode to LaTeX, and also doubles as a template; you copy it into a new file, modify it, and compile it, and it'll render a nice novel! I'm gonna post it on the forum thread you linked to earlier. --[[User:CarVac|CarVac]] 19:26, 21 March 2011 (EDT)