Python for Informatics: Exploring Information
This is the source code for "Python for Informatics: Exploring Information" the web site for this book is http://www.pythonlearn.com/
LaTeX Files
The source file for the book is book.tex - this file includes the per-chapter files 00-cover.tex through AD-copyright.tex
Workflow
Once you have LaTeX and HeVeA installed properly the workflow is simple. To produce the PDF version of the book you type:
bash book.sh
This leaves the output on book.pdf and if you are on a Mac or Linux, it even attempts to open the PDF viewer for your system.
To produce the HTML version of the book you type:
bash html.sh
This produces files in the html folder. This folder contains the book, chapters in HTML and the images for the book.
To make EPUB or MOBI files I use the Calibre software. The steps that I take in Caliper are here:
I also have a server that builds the latest version from this repository at this URL:
I don't yet have the files that make up the build server checked in because it is still a bit of a hack. If you want to set up your own build server - I will check the files in.
Software Installation - Macintosh
Running the script to produce the PDF is really easy and convenent on the Mac. Simply install this software:
Make sure to install the extras as well. If you have a recent Mac you cannot make the binary download of hevea work as it is a PowerPC binary. If you want to do the HTML generation, you need a variant of Linux.
Software Installation - Ubuntu
This is the rough set of steps I use on Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install texlive-latex-base
sudo apt-get install texlive-latex-recommended
sudo apt-get install texlive-fonts-recommended
sudo apt-get install texlive-latex-extra
sudo apt-get install hevea
sudo apt-get install imagemagick
sudo apt-get install texlive-fonts-extra
sudo apt-get install texlive-lang-spanish texlive-doc-es
You could put them all on one long apt-get, but I like to see if they work :)
Once this is done, the book.sh and html.sh should both work just fine. For my own sanity, I have Parallels with an Ubuntu image that I can use to generate HTML. It was easier than keeping a four-year-old MacBook running with Rosetta support.
Translating This Book
This book is available with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. So as long as you are not intending to profit from the translation, no permission to translate and publish is needed. If you want to sell the resulting translated book commercially, please see the Appendix on Copyright and contact me.
Here are some of the translations in-progress:
- Korean - Formatted Book | Book Source (Lead: Victor KC Lee)
- Italian - Google Doc (Lead: Mauro Toselli)
- Spanish - Formatted Book | Book Source (Lead: Hedemarrie Dussan)
Feel free to send me a link (or just edit this page and send me a Pull Request).
You can use any technology you like LaTeX, Google Docs, WikiBook or whatever you choose.
If you can figure out LaTeX, the easiest way to translate the book is to fork my repo on GitHub and start translating in your own repo. That way it will be easier to catch up with changes I make to the English version of the book.
If you start a translation in github, please contact me so I can add it to my automatic build process:
This way your latest work will be easily found by students and linked from my web site once the translation is under way.
TO DO
I need to document and check in the code to run a build server. The build server is another way for a MacBook user without HeVeA to develop. Edit locally, check the PDF and then check in the changes wait a tick and then the HTML is made in the build server.
I have no idea how LaTeX works on Windows. I would be happy to get a PR with some documentation.
Chuck Severance - Mon Aug 18 22:20:12 EDT 2014