Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 11 Jun 2007 to 12 Jun 2007 (#2007-65) From: MYSTARA-L automatic digest system Date: 13/06/2007, 17:00 To: MYSTARA-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 3 messages totalling 160 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Publishing professional game materials (3) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:30:31 -0700 From: Ricardo Matheus Subject: Re: Publishing professional game materials [Lurkmode=off] I'll just give my 2 cents on the subject of publishing materials: I'm under the impression that anyone can get quite impressive material using MS Word and some PDF printer (cute PDF is free => http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp ). If your page diagramation gets too fancy you can go to Powerpoint, where you can do anything. I like both programs because MS Office is so widespread that almost anyone can get it (one way or another) and really easy to learn. I can send PDF I obtained in this way for a gamming convention module I wrote last year to anyone interested (in Portuguese though). As for LaTeX: as a physicist I've been using it for years now. It's true that it is mostly free (compiling, visualisation and PDF, PS convertion are free) you still have to get a good TeX editor in order to be effective, and the good ones are not free. Despite all that, I agree that it is a great tool to use in scientifc material because the format is standardized, but I'll in for a whole lot of headaches if you're aiming for non-conforming format. Darkblood a.k.a. Ricardo Matheus www.geocities.com/darkblood18 (the Mystara Map Navigator) [Lurkmode=on] _________________________________________________________________ Like puzzles? Play free games & earn great prizes. Play Clink now. http://club.live.com/clink.aspx?icid=clink_hotmailtextlink2 ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:19:11 -0500 From: George Hrabovsky Subject: Re: Publishing professional game materials I use Mathematica for my scientific writing (and the newest version is awesome). I use PDF995. (The new version of Mathematica imports and exports pdf). I do not use Mathematica for my game writing... George ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ricardo Matheus" To: Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 7:30 AM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Publishing professional game materials > [Lurkmode=off] > > I'll just give my 2 cents on the subject of publishing materials: I'm under the impression that anyone can get quite impressive material using MS Word and some PDF printer (cute PDF is free => http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp ). If your page diagramation gets too fancy you can go to Powerpoint, where you can do anything. I like both programs because MS Office is so widespread that almost anyone can get it (one way or another) and really easy to learn. I can send PDF I obtained in this way for a gamming convention module I wrote last year to anyone interested (in Portuguese though). > > As for LaTeX: as a physicist I've been using it for years now. It's true that it is mostly free (compiling, visualisation and PDF, PS convertion are free) you still have to get a good TeX editor in order to be effective, and the good ones are not free. Despite all that, I agree that it is a great tool to use in scientifc material because the format is standardized, but I'll in for a whole lot of headaches if you're aiming for non-conforming format. > > Darkblood > a.k.a. Ricardo Matheus > www.geocities.com/darkblood18 (the Mystara Map Navigator) > > [Lurkmode=on] > > _________________________________________________________________ > Like puzzles? Play free games & earn great prizes. Play Clink now. http://club.live.com/clink.aspx?icid=clink_hotmailtextlink2 > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:41:15 -0400 From: Angelo Bertolli Subject: Re: Publishing professional game materials Ricardo Matheus wrote: > [Lurkmode=off] > > I'll just give my 2 cents on the subject of publishing materials: I'm under the impression that anyone can get quite impressive material using MS Word and some PDF printer (cute PDF is free => http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp ). If your page diagramation gets too fancy you can go to Powerpoint, where you can do anything. I like both programs because MS Office is so widespread that almost anyone can get it (one way or another) and really easy to learn. I can send PDF I obtained in this way for a gamming convention module I wrote last year to anyone interested (in Portuguese though). Yeah, I use PDFCreator, but I didn't think about using PowerPoint or Impress. I'll have to look into that. I started playing around with Scribus, but tables seem a little bit of a pain. Still, so far Scribus is the best thing I've found that's free. > As for LaTeX: as a physicist I've been using it for years now. It's true that it is mostly free (compiling, visualisation and PDF, PS convertion are free) you still have to get a good TeX editor in order to be effective, and the good ones are not free. Despite all that, I agree that it is a great tool to use in scientifc material because the format is standardized, but I'll in for a whole lot of headaches if you're aiming for non-conforming format. Exactly. My first thought was also TeX, but then no... that's not really what it's for. TeX isn't for layouts. In fact, it's sort of the opposite: you're not supposed to care how your stuff is positioned, and trust that it will just be positioned logically, well, and in a standard format. Great for papers and bibliography, bad for things like magazines. I've never tried or seen the "good" TeX editors. I've only used TeXnicCenter in the past, and recently switched to TeXMaker because it's cross platform. How do those compare with the pay ones? Angelo ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.pandius.com To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 11 Jun 2007 to 12 Jun 2007 (#2007-65) ***************************************************************