[IPOL discuss] Typographic problem

[Jean-Michel Morel]

Dear all,

I am spending a lot of time proof-reading for IPOL and I see the 
typographic problem as the main problem that ought to be solved.

Indeed, IPOL papers are  articles with mathematical content. 
Nevertheless, we are requesting authors to invent typographic tricks to 
avoid using .tex formulas in their  text.

If they do, the .tex symbols are not aligned with the text.  If they 
don't, the aspect of the symbols is different in text and in .tex 
becomes quite ambiguous.

I asked recently an author to find a way to  make the aspect of symbols 
equal in the text and in the .tex formulas, and he simply answered me 
that it was fine as it was.

In such a situation I am at a loss to enforce this rule. Indeed you 
cannot enforce a rule as editor if you do not have a standard editing 
solution to propose to authors.

Furthermore, it is not at all a negligible requirement we are doing to 
authors, to learn a new editing style just for IPOL -while all other 
scientific journals in this field are in .tex+.pdf !-

Thus, at this point, should we not go back to .tex .pdf for future 
submissions? Then each article would still have a web page, but it would 
generated by the editor and only contain the header: title, authors, 
editor, abstract, bibtex, and the LINKS to the .pdf paper, the demo, the 
archive. The authors would therefore furnish a .tex file with  the 
images and we would generate the  .pdf.

This would facilitate a lot the life of authors who would produce .pdf 
from text. The form would be worse in some aspects, but better in 
others. For instance, .pdf has page numbering and is printable.

Clearly, most online scientific journals have opted for .pdf, so far. 
Thus why  should we innovate at the point where our papers either look 
unprofessional, or request a lot of editing tricks to look decent?

Thus my question are:

1- Has anyone a solution for aligning .tex formulas with text,  or is it 
a desesperate situation?

2-Back to .tex + .pdf. My proposition would be to furnish like other 
journals (simple) style files in .tex to authors. They would retain most 
form features of the current web pages, but would of course lose some 
functionality. That's as it is!


Best,
Jean-Michel