Cover image(s) for PDF output

[rbeezer]

Mitch Keller suggests:

The way that I now include my cover (which keeps search and copy/paste working) is to use the package pdfpages. I then have the command \includepdf{2017-front-cover.pdf} right after \frontmatter.

I had real trouble with this long ago, so maybe this package will do the trick. At a minimum it means one less temptation to fiddle with (and break) a PDF.

[kcrisman]

It would be really nice to have a "canonical" way to make a cover. I haven't figured that part out yet since I haven't gone to the custom print route yet, but hope to.

[mitchkeller]

Good cover design is a job for a graphic designer. I certainly don't claim that my cover design is good, but I do have skills using Photoshop and Illustrator from my photography hobby, so I do know that it's assembled properly to maintain good quality for print. Given that different print on demand outlets will have different cover specifications, it may not be a super awesome idea to include a way to make a cover within PTX. We certainly could write up something for the publisher's guide (and give directions for Inkscape instead of Illustrator, even though I find Inkscape infinitely frustrating and never could do exactly what I wanted to for my cover in Inkscape).

[ghost]

Traditionally, cover design (jacket design for hardcover) was meant to catch the eye when browsing in the bookstore. My guess is that most paperbacks created from PTX will be print on demand, where the buyer will be searching with text snippets, not browsing thumbnail views of the cover. So I wonder if cover design is as important these days, especially with technical books. I'm inclined to think that simpler cover design with a meaningful title is the better marketing strategy in these days of online buying.

I note that I never bought a college textbook based on the cover design.

--Bob

On Mon, Oct 30, 2017 at 7:17 AM, Mitchel T. Keller <notifications@github.com

wrote:

Good cover design is a job for a graphic designer. I certainly don't claim that my cover design is good, but I do have skills using Photoshop and Illustrator from my photography hobby, so I do know that it's assembled properly to maintain good quality for print. Given that different print on demand outlets will have different cover specifications, it may not be a super awesome idea to include a way to make a cover within PTX. We certainly could write up something for the publisher's guide (and give directions for Inkscape instead of Illustrator, even though I find Inkscape infinitely frustrating and never could do exactly what I wanted to for my cover in Inkscape).

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[mitchkeller]

Simple is certainly appropriate. It's worth noting, however, that AIM often displays hard copies of books on their list at conferences, and so there being eye-catching may be useful. (Or at least having a good large title on the front and something about the content of the book on the back to help draw browsers inside.)

One of the problems with automating cover design is that the cover size (at least for CreateSpace) is determined by the number of pages in addition to the page size. I think we're best off providing best practices and not some canonical way of producing a cover via a script or anything like that.

[kcrisman]

I'm not suggesting we should have scripted covers. So maybe I was too strong saying "canonical". But for those who have never done so at all (like me), it would be nice to have at least a few examples of how one might do it in ways that preserve searchability and involve taking an image and some text and making something. I know that I think a book with no cover (again, including mine) looks somehow less professional, even if that is not logical in some sense. But most of us don't have money/time for professional graphic designers, and that still leaves the problem of how to "attach" the cover.

[rbeezer]

One of the problems with automating cover design is that the cover size (at least for CreateSpace) is determined by the number of pages in addition to the page size. I think we're best off providing best practices and not some canonical way of producing a cover via a script or anything like that.

My experience with Lightning Source (Ingram) is similar. You make one huge PDF of front, spine (variable width), back. With strategic hole for ISBN barcode.

My thought is you crop out a good portions of this, and docinfo/cover/@front, docinfo/cover/@back point to two PDFs (PDF only). Then pdfpages (which I don't know well yet) slots in the images. Maybe HTML has them (optionally) in the colophon someplace for the idly curious.

@mitchkeller You've seen the soft-opening of the Publisher's Guide? David will do a grand opening, so don't tell everybody. That'd be a place for best practices. FWIW, I seem to get by with GIMP. But I have no design sense, so crude tools serve me OK. I just made a stub chapter on this topic, so we don't forget.

@kcrisman - I got (a fairly unique) student to design/build my FCLA cover. He had taken two semesters of linear algebra from me, but had lots of technical and artistic interests. I think you'll see a small version of the SCLA version he did (as thanks for a letter of recommendation!) in the online version. The graphics are intended to remind you of various matrix properties or manipulations.

[mitchkeller]

My thought is you crop out a good portions of this, and docinfo/cover/@front, docinfo/cover/@back point to two PDFs (PDF only). Then pdfpages (which I don't know well yet) slots in the images. Maybe HTML has them (optionally) in the colophon someplace for the idly curious.

This sounds good to me, although I don't know that including the back cover in the PDF is hugely valuable. I can't guarantee that my cover insertion method is 100% compatible with all of the things PTX does in LaTeX, but I use a bunch of those features and have and no issues with inserting my cover this way. One thing we will want to note in the instructions is that the cropped PDF for the cover doesn't have to be at the highest resolution to still look good. I found that I was able to use a smaller file and still get good quality. (For the 2016 edition, I think 2/3 of the file size of the PDF of my book was the cover page.) If starting with a purely vector file, that won't be a problem, but for projects like mine or Active Calculus that use a raster image (photograph in particular) as part of the cover, the process of inserting that into a vector editor like Inkscape or Illustrator can balloon things.

@mitchkeller You've seen the soft-opening of the Publisher's Guide? David will do a grand opening, so don't tell everybody. That'd be a place for best practices.

I saw of its existence. Just got back from three week sabbatical trip and have a bunch of deadlines to deal with this week for other stuff, but then may have time to look at it and contribute.

[davidfarmer]

quality. (For the 2016 edition, I think 2/3 of the file size of the PDF of my book was the cover page.) If starting with a purely vector file, that won't be a problem, but for projects like mine or Active Calculus that use a raster image (photograph in particular) as part of the cover, the process of inserting that into a vector editor like Inkscape or Illustrator can balloon things.

Presumably the publicly posted PDF is not the same as what you send to print-on-demand for the physical book?

[mitchkeller]

Presumably the publicly posted PDF is not the same as what you send to print-on-demand for the physical book?

Correct. The cover is one big file with the back, spine, and front all in a single file. (I send PDF, but I think other formats are accepted.) The publicly posted PDF also includes active hyperlinks, which CreateSpace makes me turn off, since it messes with something on their end. (And there's not really a great reason to have the text "Theorem 6.14" show up in gray because it's blue in the PDF, so it makes a better print version anyway.) But the differences are all very minor like that so that pagination, etc. remain the same.

[rbeezer]

On 10/31/2017 05:45 AM, Mitchel T. Keller wrote:

This sounds good to me, although I don't know that including the back cover in the PDF is hugely valuable.

You don't want people to see all those nice quotes your publisher solicited?

@mitchkeller <https://github.com/mitchkeller> You've seen the soft-opening
of the Publisher's Guide? David will do a grand opening, so don't tell
everybody. That'd be a place for best practices.

I saw of its existence. Just got back from three week sabbatical trip

Me too.

and have a bunch of deadlines to deal with this week for other stuff,

Me too.

but then may have time to look at it and contribute.

Me too.

It is a bit messy, so query about ideas for (re)organization if you dip into it.

[rbeezer]

Pretty much as discussed, see Publisher's Guide or pretext-announce. Work at 902210ebdfc2077c23d497fc58c35b0326c0c279