Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with authoring

Creating a Table of Contents for Multiple Word Files

yerfatma — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:17:52 -0800

Microsoft Word and a table of contents across multiple files: my sister has to deliver her book as a series of Word files, one per chapter. In order to meet the house style (pdf), she's created a specific heading in Word to match their 'A' headings. She wants to generate a separate Table of Contents compiling all those headings into one linked ToC file. Is that possible?

My ding-a-ling, my Dong-a-long, I want to play with my Dongle-Long

infinitewindow — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:10:26 -0800

I found three parallel port dongles and have no idea what software they go to. While cleaning up, I found three parallel port dongles. They are all Sentinel Superpros manufactured by Rainbow Technologies and are probably related (same typeface and similar SRB numbers on each).

Here's the info:

ADEC0210 (Advanced Encoder): Unlimited
DVPM0210: unlimited
DMAE0210: unlimited

I believe they are DVD-related. I probably do not have the original software discs. It's quite likely the dongles are practically worthless, but it's driving me nuts as to what they could be. Does anyone know?

OSX QuickTime VR editing tools?

dbiedny — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:59:42 -0800

What's the current state of QuickTime VR editing software on OSX? So I've been searching the web, looking for current QuickTime VR editing tools and methods - adding text labels, hotspots, embedded still graphic overlays to imported Quicktime VR files (created with the VR Worx software), that sort of thing. Anyone working with authoring and editing QuickTime VR on the Mac? My Google-Fu is not turning up a whole lot, so I'm hoping that there are some MeFites that are actively working with the tech.

Idiot requires simple DVD slideshow help

Beautiful Screaming Lady — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:49:45 -0800

DVD authoring for a genuine simpleton. I have three photographs, as jpgs. I want to create a DVD of these photographs playable on any standard consumer DVD player (not a computer), but not as a slideshow. I'd like the DVD to have a menu, where each menu item goes to a photo. When a photo is selected from the menu, it will be displayed forever until someone tells it to stop or the electricity supply runs out. I don't want a normal slideshow where one photo leads to the next and then goes back to the start, I want each photo to be independent and only selectable from the menu. I have no control over the player that'll be used to show the DVD, so I can't rely on it being a fancy professional piece of kit made out of gold and diamonds. I don't have a DVD player, and have never had one, this is all unknown territory for me. Is it as simple as burning the jpgs onto a CD/DVD as data? Do normal standard budget DVD players read jpg data??

I have the photos, Vista Home Premium, Windows Movie Maker, Windows DVD Maker, Ulead MovieFactory, blank CDs/DVDs, the internet, some cardboard, scotch tape, AA batteries, a bunch of empty toilet roll tubes and some uncooked rice. Assume I am simple. Please tell me what to do. Thank you.

Showing a static DVD image with minimal blurriness

russilwvong — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:42:22 -0800

DVD authoring on Ubuntu: I'm trying to create a DVD showing a single static image, containing logos and text, for playback on a standard DVD player. What's the best way to avoid blurriness? When I use dvd-slideshow, the image is a bit blurry, presumably because it's scaled down from 720x540 to 720x480 during the encoding, then scaled up again to 720x540 during playback. Is there a way to avoid this?

This is using NTSC.

Good places for writers to hang-out

long haired lover from liverpool — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 03:55:54 -0800

Good places for writers to hang-out online? I'm a former journalist and now full-time writer working on her first novel. I'm looking for a good community where other writers hang-out online, preferably those working commercially (or who, like me, have the intention to become professional). Somewhere I can chew the fat, discuss technique or find some other way to avoid actually doing any writing.

PLEASE NOTE: Anybody can do a Google search. I'm looking for personal recommendations.

Generating pure tones...

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 09:37:05 -0800

Generating pure sound tones at a specific power level, for recording to a CD... I'd like to generate sound with control over the following parameters:

• frequency
• channel (L or R)
• power (dB level)

1. I'd like to know if there is (free) software for Mac OS X which I can use to quickly generate tones at a specified frequency?

2. Also, is it sufficient to use an editor like Sound Studio to accurately set the level and channel of the tone?

3. When distributing a CD with these tones, are there technical issues I should know about with respect to authoring the disc, such that the power is accurately replayed on the end sound system? By this, I mean I would like to give this disc to someone, and if they played this disc, the power is accurate replayed for the listener.

What should I do to ensure this? Would I need a "calibration" track or pair of "normalization" tracks?

Is there a list of novel plots?

humblepigeon — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:57:48 -0800

Is there a searchable site that details novel/fiction plots or storylines? (Important notes below.) I'm looking for a site that contains summaries of novels—effectively full summaries that are searchable. I found this previous AskMeFi question, which links to sites that summarize novels in 25 words, but that's not what I'm looking for. Please bear in mind two things: 1) I'm not looking for a list of archetype plots (ie The 36 Dramatic Situations); 2) The blurb on most book store sites like Amazon don't list the full plots, only part of them. Wikipedia often lists summaries but it's impossible, AFAIK, to search just the entries for novels or other types of fiction in isolation.

Is dealing with a publisher worth it?

antipasta_explosion — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:26:04 -0800

Should I bother with a publisher? How much do nonfiction authors make off a book deal these days? For about five years I have been self-publishing my own nonfiction books (let's just say they would be filed in the 500s in the Dewey Decimal System). I have about 5 titles, which altogether have sold over 10,000 copies over a 5-year period through my website (70%), through Amazon Advantage (20%), and to universities (10%) for their course fulfillment. My name is well-known; I have a national magazine column in this field.

I have thought about turning over one of my titles to a publishing house. The title I have in mind is not one of my fast movers, but it's sold 1250 copies over 5 years. The overall cost of this was $9000 in printing, leaving me with about $28,000 in profit on a $30 price tag.

The problem is I can't picture any publisher cutting me a $28,000 check for 1250 copies. Maybe I'm wrong. My impression has always been that a typical non-bestseller trade book earns about $5000-9000 for an author. Plus I'm not even sure if a publisher is capable of reaching a bigger market than I already have. My only problem is that I don't have enough cash lying around to bankroll a giant offset print run. I'm working within the constraints of typical DocuTech short-run print quality.

My main question is to other authors and any publishing types is this:

A. How do my sales figures and quantities sound? Am I small peanuts, or am I doing pretty well? What are typical sales figures for a run-of-the-mill nonfiction book not targeted at bestseller lists?

B. How much does a typical nonfiction book author earn for a title, in cold hard numbers, not percentages? What is a typical or sample take-home earning for X number of books?

C. Do you feel it's smart for me to keep what I'm doing rather than deal with a publisher or agent? I suspect that if I'm small peanuts then I should start looking at publishers.

I'm hoping someone outside the box can illuminate this situation for me.

Budget DVD authoring in a nutshell.

mystyk — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 07:41:42 -0800

Looking for better DVD authoring software. After a lengthy hiatus, I am resuming work on creating DVD's for home use. Most of the time, this means home videos to be distributed with friends and family, but sometimes it means archiving shows that are not yet (or ever) available on DVD (typically captured through a DVR).

In both endeavors, I seek to create engaging, well-styled menues and extras, and to be able to control the structure and flow as much as possible.

So far I have been using Nero Vision Express 3, with reasonable success. I am able to create basic menus for titles and chapters, position elements, and add labels. That's about it. I have little leeway to do anything more.

I want to create menu screens that display text, a "back" button, and nothing else. I want "play" and "scene selections" buttons together, rather than one or the other. I want a "play all" feature for multiple titles, but to be able to see each one individually so that it returns the menu after each. I want to be able to have no label text next to selections. I want to set the label as the link so I can get rid of the image as the selection button. I want to get more control over the siz of selection images and label text.

Oh, and I'm fairly poor. Free software is most preferred, but low-cost may be an option.

Checking grammar in HTML files?

markmillard — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:23:56 -0800

Are there any web authoring applications that have a robust grammar (not just spelling) checker? I copyedit training content in HTML files for a living. Are there any WYSIWYG HTML editors out there that have grammar checking? Currently I'm using GoLive CS for Mac (v7.0.2), whose spelling checker is weak and grammar checker nonexistent. I'm having to paste content into Word, run the Word spelling/grammar checker, then paste content back into GoLive pages. Is there a better way?

Shared authoring wanted

richg — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 22:40:15 -0800

I tend the website of a small nonprofit. Some of our board members would like authoring tools to put bylaws and policies out for the board and have it accept revisions by a restricted set of users. Plain text isn't sufficient, at a minimum formatting like bold and italic, and tables would be needed. We'd like to be able to track changes and see who made them.

So I'm looking for suggestions of what would be easy to install and use. Either free or very low cost. Our webhosting is Linux and Apache. Everyone in our group has MS Word if that helps.

Cropping errors in DVD authoring.

mystyk — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:36:42 -0800

Creating my own DVDs vrom AVIs. Everything seems fine, but then... Ok, here's the situation. I am burning ~25 minute long AVI files of an anime from DVD (data type) to DVD (standard video type) for a friend who got the episodes somehow but whose computer doesn't support DVDs (It's an old ThinkPad) and therefore needs to watch them on his tv.

At first glance, things work fine. The discs play on both PC and TV. However, when playing on TV the image gets cropped around all 4 edges while on PC it does not. This is troubling because it cuts the subtitles in half most of the time, making it nearly impossible to read.

For clarity's sake, I have tested this with 3 different tvs and 3 different pcs always with the results named above. I am burning discs using Nero Vision Express 3, although the results are identical if I burn straight to disc, burn to .iso then to disc with Nero 6, or to .iso then to disc with Roxio 6.

I have also checked the usual suspects (google, yahoo, etc) for those who feel the need to be snarky if I don't explicitly point out that I have Google-f**king-fu.

In the end, there may be no way around this, but I sure as hell hope not since I can't change the formatting of subtitles that have been encoded as part of the video stream.

Multimedia quizzes

bwerdmuller — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 09:49:12 -0800

My dad wants software to create stand-alone multimedia quizzes. He needs the ability to redistribute them as Windows executables or on the web without the original authoring software. He's not a programmer or a techy; it needs to be really simple, sort of like the old Click & Create software. Does anyone have any ideas? Best would be open source, but I'd be happy to shell out a moderate amount of money. (Up to a hundred bucks, say.)

Any ideas? :)

How can I create MP3-CDs from WinAmp playlists?

feelinglistless — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 14:30:34 -0800

Is there anything good out there which will let me create MP3-CDs from WinAmp playlists?

Best DVD authoring tools?

skallas — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 03:56:59 -0800

DVD authoring tools. What are you guys using? Whats the best "bang for the buck" software out there for casual (non-professional) work? I'm really getting sick of running video and audio through virtudub and tmpgenc. I'm looking for a one stop solution. I'm eyeing the Nero Suite. I'd love to hear what other people are using or if Nero is worth buying.

Playing MPG1 on DVD player from DVD-R?

scarabic — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 17:29:09 -0800

MPG1 + CD-R = VCD

MPG1 + DVD-R = ???

Preferably, something I can play on my console DVD player.

DVD authoring software?

muckster — Tue, 04 May 2004 13:23:19 -0800

DVD authoring software? I'm itching to try out this brand-new DVD burner, but it looks like the software that came with (RecordNow) is a bit on the simple side. Seems like there are tons of options out there -- Alcohol, Adobe Encore, DVD Maestro, Easy CD & DVD, Ulead DVD Movie Factory, and on and on. Can anybody point me toward something that's flexible, functional, and doesn't have an insane learning curve?

For CDs, I like Nero, btw--it seems to have the right balance between tweakable and accessible.

I'm looking for a Windows answer, but there's no reason MacHeads couldn't add their recommendations here, too.

Thank you much.

I have a mystery CD burner; how do I tell what model it is? Also recommendations for free CD burner programs?

Frasermoo — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 02:49:01 -0800

I've just bought a CD-Burner from ebay. No maker's mark on it, so how can I tell what model it is? (lots of serial numbers all over it). Also, I need a good CD burning program. Can anyone recommend any free applications? Ignore first part of that. I googled E118405 and it came up with Philips.