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by boundlessdreamz 5295 days ago
I looked at the excerpt. The typesetting is terrible for a book priced at $24. See the side by shot of rails recipes and your book. Also in your book the code is not syntax highlighted making it quite difficult to read.

The code is also formatted such a way that the codeblock splits into two pages for just a closing brace (page 44 - collection view)

For $24 I expect better typesetting. Right now it looks like a pirated OCR book.

The content may be great (I haven't read it) but to me a book is difficult to read if it is typeset like this.
2 comments
eee_c 5295 days ago
I agree that the PDF formatting leaves something to be desired. We are using the OSS git-scribe (https://github.com/schacon/git-scribe) toolchain for producing PDF, Mobi, and ePub. I have already put a ton of work into the toolchain to make it better (http://japhr.blogspot.com/search/label/git-scribe). Most of that work, however, was to help get the Mobi and ePub versions up to snuff.

I plan to take a week or so in the very near future to again focus on improving the toolchain. Hopefully some, if not all, of your valid criticisms will get addressed.

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boundlessdreamz 5295 days ago
Forgot to link the comparison screenshot - https://img.skitch.com/20111216-d3fajpw313y3e4f3cgs74einr1.j...

As an open source user, I appreciate that you have improved the tools. But as a potential reader of your book, I want you to use whatever tools necessary to get it to look good.

Even when compared against a non-professionally converted pro Git PDF, this books does not fare that well. https://img.skitch.com/20111216-enxfwjcgkgsu2pcndkcaimd3q.jp... The code block has no padding. In general the typography is not pleasant. If you look at the git book, the italics do not stand out as much as in this book.

Backbone documentation is presented beautifully. So when you are aiming to compliment it, the bar is also a bit high :) (Granted it is HTML but I do think a lot can be done to make this book more pleasant to look at)

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kermitthehermit 5295 days ago
This helped me decide not to buy the book. Thank you.
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