Jerry asked:
I'm looking for a freeware program that can import text for layout as
facing pages, ready for printing in book form. Is there such a
creature that a technology idiot can understand?
Depends on what sort of thing you want to do and what your quality expectations
are.
Things I'd suggest:
- LyX -
http://www.lyx.org --- this is a LaTeX front-end, a ``What You See Is
What You Mean document processor. If you use the Memoir class, and can find a
combination of standard packages / options which meet your needs, this is an
excellent setup which you can grow into (and never outgrow). H&J is excellent.
- Ragtime Solo - this is free for personal (and possibly certain other) uses.
It's listed at the Pricelessware list. At one time it was billed as a light
office suite / multi-function program so handles a lot of different things
really well.
\begin{offtopic}
You \emph{might} want to consider hiring this out---pay a designer to create a
design and set up a tagging scheme (if your work is more complex than straight
text), and then either use a template which they set up for you, or send the
composition work out---again, this is dependent on your quality expectations
(and budget---not likely to be free unless you're a non-profit and the design
is done pro bono, or you have a graphic design student do it for you just to
get a portfolio sample). The latter two can be an exception to the rule, ``One
gets what one pays for.''
\end{offtopic}
The above is a brief example of LaTeX tagging---I suspect you're doing yourself
a disservice and could manage raw LaTeX at need, look up the ``lshort'' book on
LaTeX at
http://www.ctan.org (or look at
http://www.tug.org for a good
introduction to TeX / LaTeX).
William
