Re: [docbook] On family/given/first/last names

[Markus Hoenicka <markus.hoenicka@mhoenicka.de>]

Quoting Geraint North <geraint@transitive.com>:

>  This would be good for authors and readers, but might annoy the
> publishers.  I guess the question is whether such annoyances would
> cause them to change their ways, or to find an alternative to DocBook
> with authorship semantics that suit them better.
>

Currently the situation is about as odd as it can be. I tend to write  
manuscripts in DocBook, then transform them to RTF, using a  
bibliography tool to get the references list formatted correctly. I'll  
add a few final touches in OpenOffice and save the manuscript as a  
.doc file (shudder), or sometimes as a .pdf, because this is what the  
publishers ask for. The publishers then use some toolchain to turn the  
word processor crap into SGML or XML again which is finally used to  
produce the printed and online versions of the manuscript. Therefore,  
at least at this time the markup that you use to encode names is  
irrelevant to the publishers, as they see only word processor  
documents as input. You have to get that formatted correctly, as  
you'll be asked to fix your reference listing if you don't follow the  
journal's style.

Needless to say, the world would be a better place if we could just  
upload our DocBook documents with the names encoded as you suggest  
(I'm here absolutely with you) and leave all the formatting to the  
publishers - they want it so complicated, after all.

regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Hoenicka
markus.hoenicka@cats.de
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