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Publishing Assistant supports the typesetter in completing the tasks required to publish a Paratext USFM text. Publishing Assistant provides an interface for entering specifications for the Bible layout, and then automates nearly all of the layout operations in within Adobe InDesign that were previously done manually by the typesetter. This leaves the typesetter free to concentrate on the final adjustments necessary for a high quality publication. The following operations have all been successfully automated:
- Placement of footnotes and cross references.
- Placement of illustrations.
- Text adjustment so that both columns are the same height (column balancing).
- Creating of page headers and footers.
- Creating a table of contents.
- Diglot layouts.
- Exporting USFM text from the typeset files (roundtrip).
This tool results in a high quality Bible with fewer chances for errors introduced by manual operations, and in a shorter amount of time than previous systems. Publishing Assistant is currently in use in all 4 UBS regions.
Availability and Prerequisites
 | Distribution Policy
Publishing Assistant is intended for use by the typesetter and the support staff involved in the translation publishing process. It is not intended for general use by translation teams. Implementation of Publishing Assistant should be discussed with your Area UBS CAP manager, or SIL GPS department, so that proper training and support can be arranged. Distribution of Publishing Assistant does not take place without appropriate training and support.
See the Distribution Policy information page for details. |
In order to successfully produce formatted scripture output using Publishing Assistant, the following is required.
System Requirements
- Intel Pentium IV or higher processor (or equivalent).
- Microsoft(r) Windows(r) Windows XP with Service Pack 2, or Windows Vista.
- 512MB of RAM (minimum), 1GB or more is strongly recommended (esp. with Vista).
- 1GB of available hard-disk space, plus additional room for project
data (InDesign files, illustrations etc.).
- 1024 x 768 display resolution (minimum), higher resolution is strongly recommended for regular typesetting work.
- Paratext 6 with Service Pack 2
- Adobe InDesign CS2 (CS is not supported), or CS3.
User Experience
- Familiarity with Windows XP or Vista
- Working knowledge of the basic tools and features of Paratext 6 (esp Checking tools), and Adobe InDesign.
Project Text Requirements
The translation project text must exist as a Paratext 6 project, and be marked up using valid USFM markers. At a minimum, the Chapter-verse and Validate SFMs checks should have been run on the project text, and any errors found corrected. Preferably all other important checks should also be run to get the text as clean as possible.
News
We have a beta version of Publishing Assistant 2.5 ready for field testing. This release includes the ability to typeset side-by-side column diglots. You are invited to be a tester for this release. If interested please download and install the file "PubAssist_2,5,0.PUD" from the following location:
Notes
- This release has been subjected to in-house testing and appears to be stable, however if you run into any serious problems you can always revert to the previous release. It can be downloaded at:
- Instructions for using the new diglot features can be found the file named "How to Layout a Diglot with Publishing Assistant.rtf". This file will be installed into the "Program Files\Paratext 6\PubAssist" folder.
- Please evaluate the software and let us know how well it works for you. We are interested in knowing:
- Are there bugs in the software? If they are reproducible then please list the steps. Perform a debug backup if you can and send it with the bug report.
- Is it laying out pages as you would expect? What did you expect?
- Are there any features you would like to see added? Please list them and indicate how important they are.
- Must have features - cannot typeset job without them
- Important features - Can typeset job but it doesn't look correct.
- Would be nice features
- Are the instructions correct and easy to understand? Any suggestions you have will improve this for everyone.
- The task of laying out a diglot is complex and takes longer than it does for a basic bible. If the process seems too slow you may want to consider adding memory to your computer and/or upgrading the processor.
Please send your bug reports and comments directly to Ron Rother rrother@ubs-icap.org. Thanks in advance for your help.
Ron
Last changed Feb 04, 2008 13:49 by
Jeff Klassen
Labels:
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pubassist
Publishing Assistant 2.0 Service Pack 1b is available for download.
- For a description of changes, and issues resolved, please see the release notes.
- You may also be interested in the release notes for version 2.0, which was not formally announced.
- A download is available for registered users on the Publishing Assistant downloads page.
 | Important!
- Before installing PubAssist 2.0 you must first uninstall PubAssist 1.5.
- PubAssist 2.0 requires Paratext 6.1. It will not run with Paratext 6.0.
|
Last changed Jun 30, 2008 16:23 by
Jeff Klassen
The Publishing Assistant documentation has been updated with new information on Non-Roman composer configuration. A [FontData-...] section has been added to the configuration file, which has new parameters for controlling inter-character spacing behavior when justifying text.
See: Documentation and Support
