What software do you write your Trek novels in?

[wizkid]

Am I the only person who likes Times New Roman?

I can't stand it. I like Helvitica myself.

@ Christopher: OpenOffice is pretty much a duplicate of MS Word but more stable with less eye candy. It's free. If you actually pay for software, than you should give OO a look and save yourself some money. It saves in DOCX format as well. I work in RTF but anymore, filetype means less and less.

I am a Mac user. I don't know what type machine you use but Mac's are not that much more if at all. A lot of software is cheaper and has more relaxed licensing restrictions, including MS office.

For starters, I just sold my old iBook G4 that I purchased in 2004 or 2005 and nothing was wrong with it. I had purchased a new MacBook Aluminum 13" this year and needed to recoup some $$. I got $220 out of it. Not bad on the resale of a 4-5 year old machine without an Intel Processor. My new MacBook was $200 less than a comparable Windows 7 machine.

The only MS program I use daily is Excel. I do have to virtualize windows for AutoCad use at work but we use XP for that and now it looks as if I can just run AutoCad with the new VMWare without actually having to run Windows.

Btw, what font is used in Trek Novels?

 

[Christopher]

Am I the only person who likes Times New Roman?

As I said above, it's my preference.

Btw, what font is used in Trek Novels?

Depends on the book.

 

[LightningStorm]

Started out in WordPerfect, hated Word for years (I still hate the way it hiccups at the bottom of ever other page - why the *&^%$#!?? does it do that?), but current versions are more like WP, so I've adapted.

Are you talking about how sometimes lines jump from one page to the next and back again? If so, I have an answer for you and you can disable that feature.

That is to prevent a single line at the start of a paragraph or a single line at the end of a paragraph from being on a page by itself. And as you type and add more lines to it Word decides where things should go and this can cause page jumping like you describe. To turn the feature off in Word 2003 and prior Go to "Format->Paragraph..." then on the "Line and Page Breaks" tab uncheck the "Window/Orphan Control" box. In Word 2007 goto the "Page Layout" tab on the Ribbon in the "Paragraph" box there is a tiny little box in the lower right corner, click that and you'll see the "Paragraph" dialog then from there you uncheck the same box mentioned above on the "Line and Page Breaks" tab. And no more page jumping.

 

[Rosalind]

@ Christopher: OpenOffice is pretty much a duplicate of MS Word but more stable with less eye candy.

One correction: Open office is pretty much a duplicate of MS office.

And the less eye candy is a good thing in my opinion. I remember one excel sheet that got passed around the tutors one year, it was 80k before it was given to one guy who runs linux and has to use open office, when he finished adding in his marks and sent out, it was less than 20k in size. It was the exact same file, with a bit more content, but less than 1/4 in size.

I am a Mac user. I don't know what type machine you use but Mac's are not that much more if at all.

I don't know what it's like where you are, but in Oz, you can get a Dell desktop for $1000 but a Mac is at least $3000. Sure the OS upgrade is a lot cheaper, and the software for Mac may be cheaper. But that's maybe a couple of $100 in difference. When all you need your computer to do is browse the net and type some documents, Mac is way too expensive.

 

[wizkid]

@ Christopher: OpenOffice is pretty much a duplicate of MS Word but more stable with less eye candy.

One correction: Open office is pretty much a duplicate of MS office.

And the less eye candy is a good thing in my opinion. I remember one excel sheet that got passed around the tutors one year, it was 80k before it was given to one guy who runs linux and has to use open office, when he finished adding in his marks and sent out, it was less than 20k in size. It was the exact same file, with a bit more content, but less than 1/4 in size.

I am a Mac user. I don't know what type machine you use but Mac's are not that much more if at all.

I don't know what it's like where you are, but in Oz, you can get a Dell desktop for $1000 but a Mac is at least $3000. Sure the OS upgrade is a lot cheaper, and the software for Mac may be cheaper. But that's maybe a couple of $100 in difference. When all you need your computer to do is browse the net and type some documents, Mac is way too expensive.

I agree on the eye candy and you were correct to say a duplicate of Office. However, OO is way behind Excel. I am a power user but by no means am I OO adverse because I have it loaded on all my Macs.

As far as price goes, I can buy a better version of my MacBook AL for $1200 today. The 7 hour battery life is real. I get 6 out of my current one. Never a crash, never have to reformat, never have to worry about much of anything. I use the computer and not work against it. When the iPhone came out, I had to have one just to get a phone that sync'd well with my Mac and I love it! My wife just activated my old 3G today and she is now understanding what the fuss is all about.

I won't waste my time on the Dell comparison because I get a headache looking at their web-site but to get one even close at the time was $200 more, at least. Don't get me started on netbooks, I can't even type on them little keyboards.

Yes, the latest Mac OS upgrade was $29. A fair price for sure. They all won't be that good but it was a nice gesture.

Data migration is a snap when moving from computer to computer or using an external hdd on another mac because your computer is down. I will shut up now but man, those are staggering price differences. You get what you pay for in the end. If you can get three new dells for a Mac, that may be a great deal for you. But I like buying one and using it until it has served it's useful life and then passing it on to someone else who will push the limit and pay me good money for it.

Everyone should be using OO for their writing if they are going to use Word. Why support M$? PocketBooks could possibly cut costs right there. Free is usually good and OO is no exception to that rule. I will admit I use Nisus Writer Pro for my letter's and correspondences and final edits with Scrivener.

 

[Stephen!]

Too bad they got rid of clippy

 

[garamet]

Started out in WordPerfect, hated Word for years (I still hate the way it hiccups at the bottom of ever other page - why the *&^%$#!?? does it do that?), but current versions are more like WP, so I've adapted.

Are you talking about how sometimes lines jump from one page to the next and back again? If so, I have an answer for you and you can disable that feature.

That is to prevent a single line at the start of a paragraph or a single line at the end of a paragraph from being on a page by itself. And as you type and add more lines to it Word decides where things should go and this can cause page jumping like you describe. To turn the feature off in Word 2003 and prior Go to "Format->Paragraph..." then on the "Line and Page Breaks" tab uncheck the "Window/Orphan Control" box. In Word 2007 goto the "Page Layout" tab on the Ribbon in the "Paragraph" box there is a tiny little box in the lower right corner, click that and you'll see the "Paragraph" dialog then from there you uncheck the same box mentioned above on the "Line and Page Breaks" tab. And no more page jumping.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

[wizkid]

Too bad they got rid of clippy

I had so forgot about Clippy!!!

 

[wizkid]

Am I the only person who likes Times New Roman?

As I said above, it's my preference.

Btw, what font is used in Trek Novels?

Depends on the book.

Really? How does choosing a font depend on the book? editor/author choice or looking for a particular page count?

 

[Una McCormack]

Am I the only person who likes Times New Roman?

Nope. (I don't like reading large blocks of text in san serif fonts.)

 

[RichMerk]

I used to really love Ami Pro. But that was way back in the days of Windows 3.1. It was very versatile and had a lot of desktop publishing features. I did the company newsletter with it. Nowadays I use MS Office 2000. If I didn't have a copy of Office already, I would definitely be using OpenOffice.

 

[D Man]

Too bad they got rid of clippy

That's awesome.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

I started off on Wordperfect, back when Windows was still 3.0 years old. But I made the switch to Word along with the rest of the planet. The trouble is that I've now slipped into a comfort zone, where my writing PC is a decrepit Pentium II, with Office 2000 on. I just love writing on that machine. Most of what I write is published on the web, and Word 98 is lousy for HTML compatible formatting.

So I write in Word, Times New Roman FYI, spellcheck, edit all in Word. Then I essentially cut and paste the whole document into Notepad, which strips out the Word specific formatting, then copy and paste that text file into the HTML editor, where I clean it all up and post online.

 

[Greg Cox]

Am I the only person who likes Times New Roman?

As I said above, it's my preference.

Btw, what font is used in Trek Novels?

Depends on the book.

Really? How does choosing a font depend on the book? editor/author choice or looking for a particular page count?

Don't worry about it. The font the author uses has NOTHING to do with the font employed in the final book. That's a production choice, made by the book designer. As long as you're writing in something clean and legible, you're fine.

 

[Christopher]

Really? How does choosing a font depend on the book? editor/author choice or looking for a particular page count?

I've never been consulted on the font and wouldn't be qualified to offer an opinion. I assume it's a choice made by the editors, typesetters, etc. on the basis of what fits the needs of the book in terms of length, style, legibility, etc.

 

[tmclough]

Speaking of fonts, from what I've read online, most people prefer serif fonts (such as Times New Roman) for reading printed (paper) works; while they prefer sans serif fonts (such as Arial/Helvetica) for on-screen reading.

Also, a question for the MS Word users: What do you do when you wish to compose an entire book/novel on MS Word? From what I've heard, Word starts going "crazy" (more than normal, anyway) after a document gets to be a certain size. So do you try to type the entire book into one document file, and hope nothing happens? Or, do you break it into smaller files, such as chapters?

Most of my "writing" these days is in the form of email to my family and posts to online forums, especially TrekBBS. When I do use a more formal, paper approach, I usually use OpenOffice.org, although I sometimes use AbiWord, just because it's there. I also know the basics of (La)TeX. I use all of these software under various distros of Linux, which I've been using for over 10 years now. Yes, I'm a nerd!

 

[Greg Cox]

Really? How does choosing a font depend on the book? editor/author choice or looking for a particular page count?

I've never been consulted on the font and wouldn't be qualified to offer an opinion. I assume it's a choice made by the editors, typesetters, etc. on the basis of what fits the needs of the book in terms of length, style, legibility, etc.

Not to mention the current cost of paper . . . .

 

[Dayton Ward]

Also, a question for the MS Word users: What do you do when you wish to compose an entire book/novel on MS Word? From what I've heard, Word starts going "crazy" (more than normal, anyway) after a document gets to be a certain size. So do you try to type the entire book into one document file, and hope nothing happens? Or, do you break it into smaller files, such as chapters?

Maybe my novels haven't been long enough (my longest first draft to date was 144,000+ words...comparable in size to the prologue of any random David R. George III book), but I've never encountered this problem.

 

[Man of Steel]

Really? How does choosing a font depend on the book? editor/author choice or looking for a particular page count?

I've never been consulted on the font and wouldn't be qualified to offer an opinion. I assume it's a choice made by the editors, typesetters, etc. on the basis of what fits the needs of the book in terms of length, style, legibility, etc.

Not to mention the current cost of paper . . . .

Aren't the manuscripts emailed to editor once done? I thought in today's age, everything is done electronically.

 

[Greg Cox]

I've never been consulted on the font and wouldn't be qualified to offer an opinion. I assume it's a choice made by the editors, typesetters, etc. on the basis of what fits the needs of the book in terms of length, style, legibility, etc.

Not to mention the current cost of paper . . . .

Aren't the manuscripts emailed to editor once done? I thought in today's age, everything is done electronically.

They are. I was referring to the cost of printing and binding the actual books, which can influence the publisher's design choices. ("Any way we can bring this book down to 324 pages so we can lower the price point?")

Again, this in an in-house production issue. It's nothing the author needs to worry about.