Notes to authors "Levin, Oscar" "Hartman, Gregory N" "Keller, Mitch" Matt Boelkins Benjamin Atchison Dave Rosoff "Levin, Oscar" , "Hartman, Gregory N" , "Keller, Mitch" , Matt Boelkins , Benjamin Atchison , Dave Rosoff "Keller, Mitch" Dear Mitch, I have looked at your LaTeX files and am pretty sure it will be relatively easy to convert to other formats. I converted the LaTeX to HTML: http://sl2x.aimath.org/book/mitchkeller/section17-3.html And also to MBX, and then from MBX to HTML: http://sl2x.aimath.org/book/mitchkeller_test/s_polya_burnside.html There are a few anomalies, but nothing alarming: proper handling of front matter (which has messed up the numbering) MBX support for some of your named environments conversion of "overpic" to an image for the web and a few other things. None of that is alarming. We can discuss this in detail next week. Regards, David ------------ Matt Boelkins Dear Matt, I have been through your LaTeX files and it looks like it will be relatively easy to convert to other formats. I converted the LaTeX directly to HTML: http://sl2x.aimath.org/book/activecalculus/section2-1.html And also to MBX, and then from MBX to HTML: http://sl2x.aimath.org/book/activecalculus_test/S_1.1.Velocity.html There are a few anomalies, but nothing alarming: proper handling of front matter (which has messed up the numbering) MBX support for some of your named environments proper sizing of images better structural markup, which will allow for more features in the online version All of those should be relatively easy to address. We can discuss this next week. Regards, David -------------- Dave Rosoff Dear Dave, I have looked at your source on GitHub, and it is clear that you know some programming and are willing to experiment! I think that once you have looked at MathBook XML, it will be clear to you whether or not it is an approach that will let you do what you want. (I suspect it will, but I don't claim to have a complete understanding of what you are trying to do). I don't think it is likely that a generic conversion tool like I have been developing will be helpful. But on the other hand it is not hard to write scripts that can convert what you have written (assuming you were reasonably rigid in repeating similar strictures, which appeared to be the case when I looked.) It will be easier to discuss this in person next week when we can sit down and look at the code together. Regards, David --------- "Hartman, Gregory N" Dear Greg, I have looked at your source on GitHub, and tried converting it to HTML. It actually worked less well than when I tried a while ago, probably because you changed some of the markup. It should not be difficult for me to adapt to those changes. Your book may be one of the more complicated ones for us to deal with, because you have done a lot of work to have the print layout looking like a traditional calculus textbook. So the question is: how to maintain that and still allow for HTML and other versions? One thing is to make the LaTeX more structural. For example, \noindent\textbf{\large Summation Notation} \vskip\baselineskip should probably be something like \subsection{Summation Notation} where you are perfectly free to define \renewcommand{\subsection}[1]{ \noindent\textbf{\large #1} \vskip\baselineskip } That will cause no change in your PDF output, but it makes the source more transparent and flexible. Another example: every place where you use \textit{...} or \textbf{...} could be converted to something semantic, like \emph{...} when the point is *emphasis* \term{...} when you are defining something I'd also like to see every instance of \\ eliminated. Some of them are not doing anything because there is a paragraph break anyway, and some can be replaced if you modify some of your environment macros. The first item I mentioned (subsections) can probably be changed just by running one small script over all the files. The second requires human effort, since you have to actually read the text and decide the meaning at each point. But that can be done slowly over time. The third would require some investigation to see if I am correct that changing the macro is sufficient. There is something I'd like you to think about and we can discuss it next week. Currently your examples look like this: \example{ex_extval3}{Approximating relative extrema}{ Approximate the relative extrema of $f(x) = (x-1)^{2/3}+2$, shown [[lines omitted]] } What if it looked like this? \begin{example}[Approximating relative extrema]\label{ex_extval3} Approximate the relative extrema of $f(x) = (x-1)^{2/3}+2$, shown [[lines omitted]] \end{example} The second way is the more standard approach, which could have some benefits, such as making it easier for other people to contribute to the project. You would have to modify your macro definitions, but that shouldn't be too difficult (or so I assume: I am not a LaTeX expert). It is possible to convert all of your macros to that standard form, just by running one script over all your files, so please think about whether you would consider doing that and we can discuss next week. Regards, David -------------- Benjamin Atchison Dear Ben, I have looked at the LaTeX source for your College Algebra course and tried to do an automatic conversion to HTML. The conversion went better than I expected: http://sl2x.aimath.org/book/atchison/section1-1.html There are several issues: 1. I had not previously encountered the mfpic environment, so those are left as raw code 2. There is a lot of non-structural LaTeX in your source. Examples from Chapter_1_Linears/1a.tex : --------- \subsection{One-Step Equations}\par ~\par {\textbf{Objective:}} {\textbf{Solve one-step linear equations by balancing using inverse operations}}\par ~\par Solving linear equations.... --------- and --------- ...the same.\pp {\textbf{World View Note: }}The study of algebra originally was called the ``Cossic Art'' \ from the Latin, the study of ``things'' (which we now call variables). -------- For long-term maintenance, it would be good to eliminate every instance of \par, \textbf, backslash for spacing, ~ except when used as a tie, your \pp macro, boxedminipage, and a few other things. You may need new macros which allow structural markup in the source and result in the same output as currently. With clean LaTeX source you will have many more options, such as converting to MathBook XML. It will also be easier for you to maintain and modify the source, and it will be much easier for other people to contribute. In many cases it is possible to modify the source code with a script that scans all the files, so it should not be necessary to make all those changes by hand. We can discuss these things next week. I would also be able to say more if I had a better understanding of your goals for this book project. Regards, David --------- "Levin, Oscar" Dear Oscar, I have looked at your LaTeX source and did an automated conversion to html: http://sl2x.aimath.org/book/oscarlevin/section6-3.html Thing went pretty well. You will see that there are some environments that were not processed properly, such as "questions" and "parts". Also, the conversion script does not know about "\gls", and it expects index entries to be in the body of an environment, not in the title. I think it will be very helpful for you to talk with me, Rob, and some other people about various ways to do the markup of those environments. Other people have similar (or even identical) structures in their books, so it would be good to compare notes and figure out best practices. Similarly for your glossary entries. It will be good for you to see what Rob and I have done with "terminology", and also the variety of different glossary-like things Rob can do. I don't anticipate a lot of difficulty converting your book to MathBook XML, if you decide to do that. Regards, David