Do professional writers use Linux?
 

Using Linux means using the .rtf format, or similar, and not .wps, etc., that is used by Microsoft. Unless I find some kind of conversion program.
So my question is this: Do literary agents and publishing houses accept a manuscript that is in the .rtf format?
I'm just about finished with a horror novel, and my computer burned out. I don't have Office on this machine - so it's either buy a copy of Office, or start using a program like Open Office, etc

Moderator: This is my first posting, and I was blocked from the General Discussion forum; could you please move this question to General, where, I hope, it will be reviewed by a larger audience?

You can open and save files in .doc format using Open Office. If you own a copy of MS Office, then you could run it under WINE. (That's what I do.)

As to publishers, I would expect that they would accept PDFs, which can be generated by Open Office as well, or by many other programs.

To directly answer your question, RTF is not Linux-specific, so publishers should be able to open it on Windows or MacOS. (Word Pad, for example, can open RTF.) I would imagine that each publisher will want manuscripts submitted in one specific file type of their choosing, and that this preference may differ from publisher to publisher.

Certainly it is quite impossible to "characterize" publishers.

Actually, the technical publishers that I have worked with do not use any of these "Word Processor" formats. They use semantic markup languages, such as DocBook.

For example: look at just about any O'Reilly book that has ever been published. You'll notice that they can publish books of any thickness :) that you might be persuaded to actually buy. Some are thick, some thin; some large, some small. And yet they all contain more ... or less ... of the same material. O'Reilly also sells the stuff online, and from time to time puts something out for free. (You will notice that they might publish an HTML page and a PDF at the same time.) How do they do that?

All of this is made possible through the use of a markup language (and fine tools such as XXE) which describes ... not how a document should "look," but instead, what it "contains." Or if you will, what it "is." These techniques make it possible to extract portions from a larger set of master documents, and to then automagically publish those portions in any one of several different target formats ... printed books, HTML, PDF, Windows and/or Java Help, Unix/Linux "man" or "info" pages, or all of the above at once.

People are not laying-out those hundreds of pages all at once. When the time comes, they will (referring to a well-known programming utility...) quite literally "make" all of those deliverables at once... hands-free.

Moved to General at OPs request.

And one note: wps is WordPerfects file-format, has nothing
to do with Microsoft or their program word.


Cheers,
Tink

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Publishers do not care what operating system you use, they care about the format of the delivered-to-them file. Very often they will specify what format they want. If you have a particular publisher in mind, ask them.

If you are using an agent to shop your book, ask the agent what format he wants it in.

Do NOT convert the file to PDF without having a copy in some sort of word processor format as well. Changing things back from PDF to a word processing file is not something that any application does well.

OpenOffice, as mentioned by others, can save in .doc format (Microsoft Word) and in .odt and .rtf and .txt. Just about everything except into WordPerfect, which it can read but not save as.
OpenOffice is also free (donation strongly suggested, since nobody likes a freeloader), so there is no reason why you cannot avoid the expense of Microsoft (Word) or Corel (WordPerfect) and use OpenOffice with either Windows or Linux (OpenOffice has versions for both) and ask the publisher or agent what file format he wants.

Thanks for the responses.
From what I've found so far, agents and publishers accept a plethora of different file types. (I've been posting in a few writing sites, too, of course.) I started out with the assumption that there would be an industry standard - quite probably, Microsoft based, or so I thought. Thank God that I found the exact opposite to be true! Personally, I would prefer an industry standard, just so I wouldn't even have to ask my original question, but I literally despise Microsoft. It's just another hole in my pocket.
Your response about the DOCBOOK, sundialscvs, was especially helpful. I'll be researching DOCBOOK, probably, throughout the rest of the day.
Also, no I did not know, Tinkster, about the .wps format; as you can see, I've been putting off this portion of my research to the very last.
The hard part, getting the manuscript finished, is complete!
Well, I guess I'm off to Wiki-land!
Thanks again.

Oops!
Thank for moving this posting to General! (-any more responses like these, and I'll be on the Wiki site all week!)

The well known Science Fiction/Fantasy write, Piers Anthony, uses Linux. Several of his popular Xanth books have afterwards, dealing with his issues in trying to get away from MS (or possibly Apple) over the years. Eventually, of course, it became relatively easy, and he began using odf format.

Of course, his books are usually guaranteed to be best sellers, so his publishers/agents, will, no doubt, accept it in whatever format he provides. For budding young writers, I'm no longer familiar enough with the industry to know if you lower your chances of acceptance by not using one format or another, but for what it's worth, I did receive a nice, "Thank you for your page on mutt," from a relatively well-known, writer once, so I assume he's using Linux too.

The editor probably has to retype your manuscript into whatever markup language they use, such as SGML.
A text markup language will probably make their job easier. Some publications like ACM require a particular markup language (like LaTeX) and require that you use their package.

Well, I definitely asked the right question on the right forum!
I explored the PDF format when I bought my computer in 2006, because it came with Adobe, and immediately realized how, and when, it was used, and knew it wasn't what I was looking for. I first installed Open Office about two years ago; I installed a fresh copy about a week ago. When I first perused it, I wasn't just impressed, I was a little intimidated, at the time--by the multitude of functions. (I plan on digging into those today or tomorrow--and now that I have a little experience with modern computers, not intimidated at all.[My first computer was an Apple IIe, and that was in 1986: I didn't touch another computer until about 2006, which was when I finished the manuscript.]) Things sure have changed! :)
(The manuscript was hand written on construction jobs over a period of several years, and was eventually typed, and then eventually scanned into my computer in 2006--that was the computer, an emachines, that eventually caught cancer and burned up. [Long story--Lordy!, but I thought a little history was in order.])
In any event, your responses have shed light on quite a few details that were still missing (especially concerning publishing), and as always, are appreciated.

I did not know that about Piers Anthony; yeah, if Steven King wrote a short-short on a piece of toilet paper, every publisher worth his weight in salt would be trying to get his hands on it!
I already, usually, make fresh backups in both .rtf and .wps, as I work. However, I no longer have a copy of Office 2003(that died with the old computer), but I did download a trial of Office 2007, a little over six months ago, and that is what I have been using. (Actually, I'm on my forth trial version--and that runs out in about a month.[I saved the Small Business Office trial version for last--it's basically the Professional version with extra gidgets and gadgets thrown in!)
I don't really need a new computer, or OS; I need a dependable computer and OS, so I can use a very dependable word formatting program. To me, most importantly, they all are just tools to make money. (I used to be a cabinet maker--now they all come pre-assembled from China, and are installed by Low's by people earning $10/hr or less; so I became a house painter: I live near Monticello, outside of Charlottseville, VA, and there are not many houses here to paint to begin with, and with the economy the way it is . . . the evil red eyes of the monster turn to encompass yon morsel, OpenOffice.

I am perfectly aware of that.... :)

Of course it has a great deal to do with what you are publishing. If it's "general fiction," then just about any word processing format will do (and if you're JK Rowling and prefer to write your stuff in long-hand, they've got a million monkeys waiting to type it in for you).

If it's technical writing, or news publication or various other specialized disciplines in which semantic meaning is important, formats like the one I described are used.

It really depends on what "the publisher" is doing.

Some governments, at the behest of both their legal counsel and their archivists and historians, have begun to push for "open" document formats .. some semantic-based and some not .. in the recognition not-only that they have a technical need for such a thing, but also because even a slightly-old document can become unreadable. I can pick up a book from the 16th century and still read it. But I might pick up an electronic document from three years ago and not be able to read it.

I love it when you talk dirty.

OpenOffice 3.1 is probably what you want, although there are other applications that handle .odt files perfectly well (e. g., abiword). Given that you want to track your royalties, OpenOffice, being an office suite, has a spreadsheet, although there is gnumeric as well.

LOL.
I tried Abiword; what I found is that the full version is about 30 bucks, last I checked, and seems to be hooked to the hip with Microsoft. And I don't think it has even half the functions of OpenOffice.

Abiword is no cost to download, install and use. Grab it from the download section of the site. All the reviews on their site point out that it's no cost. What did you try to install?