DISCUSSION: TOOLS AND TIPS FOR NUMISMATIC PUBLISHERS

I had a nice phone conversation this week with Dan Gosling, editor of the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association's Canadian Numismatic Journal. We got to talking about the pros and cons of the various tools authors and editors use to create numismatic publications.

The E-Sylum is a pure web-based publication and we deliver our content in HTML via email and our web archive pages. Most other publications are print-based and the most popular format seems to be the Adobe .PDF file format. These files can be printed and also made available on the web or CD/DVDs. The Canadian Numismatic Journal is available in two versions: Flash and Tablet Friendly (jpg).

With a print-based layout format authors and editors have great control of the exact appearance of their pages. The downside to that is that more of work is required to manipulate the layout. Another problem is that .PDF files containing images can grow very large and be difficult to email as attachments.

Some publishers make use of Adobe security features to prevent readers from copying text or require a password for opening files for viewing; some even restrict printing.

We thought we'd open up an E-Sylum discussion asking other numismatic editors and publishers about the tools they use and thoughts on issues such as copyright, restricted printing, passwords etc. What words of wisdom can you share with the rest of us?

Wayne Homren, Editor

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