Bible-like Formatting for the Loose Canon PDF?

[JellyKing]

Ahoy,

I've been tinkering with making the PDF version of the Loose Canon look more Bible-like. Basically, two-columned and serif font. I'm not sure if anyone else things this is worthwhile idea? To show what I mean, I got started by converting the Announcements and the Book of Midgets/Midgits. You can see the PDF here.

I made the PDF by downloading the TeX source for the PDF version of the World English Bible and copying the text from the Loose Canon. I crudely automated tagging the verse numbers and manually inserted the book titles and abbreviated forms. It still needs cleaning (e.g. not all the verse numbers were picked up, it needs page breaks between books) but I did it as a kind of proof-of-concept. The bulk of the work is copying and pasting the text. Thanks to the TeX setup, the cosmetic stuff should be pretty straightforward.

Also, I don't know if using the WEB TeX source is some sort of heinous copyright violation but it seems to be freely distributed.

Let me know what you think. If there's wild support I can break down more thoroughly what I did.

JK

[Ubi Dubium]

Oooh - I do like the look of that.

Now can we get it printed on tissue-thin paper in a pocket edition cheap enough to hand out copies to potential converts?

[DaveL]

That looks awesome - and nice to see Midgets looking so cool.

Will speak to the Olive Garden but I'm sure there would be no problems reposting a new improved PDF.

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I don't particularly like it, myself. Not that it's BAD, but I just find it hard to read that way. I can definitely see why people would want it though, and I don't see a problem with hosting both versions on the official site, once it's finished.

If I may make a few suggestions, though. First, pay attention to things like line breaks/white space, as these are useful and intentional visual cues that indicate a shift in focus or some such, and to things like subtitles and credits, which you left out of The Book of Midgets/Midgits. Also, it may be a good idea to avoid splitting the titles of the various pieces of scripture between columns/pages. It may be confusing that way.

Other than that, looks good!

[StJason]

Also, you shoulden't put the preface in the numbered format. It just looks funny.

Also, if possible, put the first page of each book at half way, with a GIANT title above that. Like 50 point font. Start each book on a new page done in this manner. That will really Bible it up.

[JellyKing]

Okay, given the response I've carried on working on this. I've realised I can pull all the text from the HTML version rather than the PDF, so the text is now all present. I'm just cleaning it of typos an HTML tag leftovers and whatnot. I'm not too worried about formatting at this point, just getting the text to compile.

There are a few things I'm open to suggestions on. I wasn't really sure what to do with Chapter titles at first but, having glanced at Psalms in the WEB, I'll probably set them like that. I'll also work out what to do with the notes and signatures. Also, some books, like Qwerty, seem to have implied Chapters. They're currently drafted as such. I note the point about the Announcements: I'll probably set them like the notes at the beginning of WEB. Certainly, the default setup isn't perfect and needs some manual tweaking. Which sort of defeats the point of LaTeX...

This is near the bottom of my to-do list, so my plan is just to clean things up and then I'll make all the source I've generated available for others to tinker around with.

JK

[Platypus Enthusiast]

Ahoy JellyKing. As I guess you know at this point that I'm one of the honchos of the Canon and so I have a request. I do appreciate your interest and effort, but please do not alter the content of the text, including typos, spelling and grammatical mistakes, odd numbering, etc. In many cases it's intentional, and even when it's not it adds to the Bibley feel of the book. I personally would be cool with formatting changes, but we at the Council (at least most of us if I remember right) are against content changes. Sorry if this sounds a little gruff, but I tend to be blunt. So please reread this in a humorous voice or something. Anyhoo, props for taking the initiative dude. Sauce be with you.

[JellyKing]

Don't worry: I have absolutely no intention of changing the content. At the moment, I'm commenting occasional things to suppress warnings from the LaTeX compiler. So in some of my local drafts the text is hidden but only until I work out how to make it appear without breaking anything. No gruffness taken.

JK