# Recommend a program to typeset/edit a book **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 22, 2009, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-program-to-typeset-edit-a-book/482437 "2009-01-22T12:10:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-program-to-typeset-edit-a-book/482437/21 "2009-01-23T10:35:40Z")
> [@CaerieD](#): > > I’ve used QXP and Adobe InDesign and both will get the job done. It’s pretty simple to import things in from Word, too, which was where the majority of content came from (I preferred InDesign for this, actually). > > Additionally, the publishing house I work for part-time uses InDesign and it’s relatively easy to learn and creates nice, professional publications. Is it actually true that QXP and InDesign will BOTH do what I need? I’ve researched a bit on the internet and fiddled around with trial versions, and (aside from the regrettable fact that it’ll be a steep learning curve in either program), it seems that Quark will _not_ handle footnotes. Importing the latest project, it just dumped all the footnotes at the very end of the document, which, of course, is not what was intended. [QUOTE=Page Fault] I’ve used LaTeX a lot. Quite a lot, actually. If it were me, I’d use it for this, as I can do all of those things easily. Whether or not it’s the best choice for you depends on how comfortable you are with a markup language, and how much you intend on using it later. If it’s just for this project, the time spent learning LaTeX is better spent just fiddling with Quark. Also, I’m presuming this is a Windows system. I know LaTeX works on Windows, but I don’t know how clunky it is. I’ve only used it on Linux(which is as smooth as anything on Linux: not very) and Mac(TeXShop makes it easy). [/QUOTE] How steep is the learning curve for this program? The main problem with all of this, I suppose, is that I’ll not be around to do the layouting forever, and while I may see the next book through to print, someone else will take over afterwards. In your opinion (all of you), assuming you’d have to retrain someone every year, is it worth the hassle to switch from crude Word layouting to something more professional? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-a-program-to-typeset-edit-a-book/482437.md?page=1)