Re: Typesetting
Pthom said:
So, what's my point? akaEraser asked, "How come we can't just make the italics or bolds or whatever to begin with?" My friend the typesetter is a small outfit; has only a few hundred clients. Uncle Jim, seriously, do the big guys still set type for whole novels by reading 8 1/2" x 11" typed copy? Especially when it's so much easier, quicker, and more error free to do it from a file. I betcha that 95% of us writers prepare our manuscripts using a word processor on a computer.
Surely, modern publishers utilize the most current and efficient technology. Don't they?
They don't do it because it isn't easier, quicker, and more error-free to do it from the author's file.
Consider the manuscript. It gets edited, rewritten, finally goes to production. One copy is sent to a copyeditor who makes marks on it. Another copy is sent to a designer who does the same. (Or, if you have time to burn, the same copy is sent to one, then the other. Never mind.) The copyedit comes back, gets looked at and fiddled with by the editor, goes to the author, gets fiddled with and stetted and fiddled with some more, and comes back to the editor again.
Now. If everyone's behaved properly, meaning they've all used comprehensible marks, and everyone's used a different color of pencil so you can distinguish one set of marks from another, the manuscript is ready to go to typesetting. The typesetters are used to this system, and can sort out the marks. Typesetting is like sending out your laundry: manuscript goes out, galley pages come back; and since the typesetters have been cutting each other's throats on prices for years, it's not even that expensive. In fact, it's one of the few steps in book production that's relatively simple and reliable, and very rarely generates new error modes.
Note that this system works no matter what kind of computers and software the author, editor, copyeditor, and designer used or didn't use. This is necessary. You can't expect the author to change the way they work to accommodate your new text processing system. Most authors are incredibly conservative about their writing setup. The last CPM user on the planet will probably be an author. You also don't want to be stuck having to choose your copyeditors on the basis of their personal computer systems. The difference in customer satisfaction between a good copyeditor and a bad one is huge. You'll take the good one even if she sends in her documentation in quill pen on parchment. Are you starting to get the picture?
You can't do this all electronically because it's an incredible pain in the wazoo to keep track of who made which changes. Believe me, "Just have the author enter the changes as they go through the copyedit" is NOT an option. Typesetters are professional keyboarders. There are some authors, copyeditors, editors, etc., who are that good at keyboarding text, but there are plenty who aren't. Also, keyboarding text isn't their job. They have other things to do.
Sometimes these days the typesetters will use the author's text file as the basic keystrokes, and just clean it up and enter all the changes. However, the master document they'll be working from will still be the printed-out hardcopy manuscript with all the different-colored pencil marks on it. Nobody has yet come up with a computer technology that's anywhere near as flexible, verifiable, and multi-platform-compatible.
