Critical Edition Typesetting with LaTeX
For typesetting critical
editions in the traditional manner
with LaTeX,
there are (somewhat basically) two macro packages:
When both packages were devised, critical
edition typesetting with TeX
required the
EDMAC
macros by Dominik Wujastyk and John Lavagnino.
EDMAC,
however, is not compatible with LaTeX, which many
prefer to Plain TeX. So ledmac was written
as (almost) a port of EDMAC to LaTeX
(while its functionality has increased much since).
ednotes was
written as an attempt at a somewhat smarter user
interface than that of EDMAC.
For a quick comparison of ednotes and
ledmac here
(assuming you have some prior knowledge):
- Where you type \edtext{lemma}{\Afootnote{note}}
with ledmac, you type
\Anote{lemma}{note}
with ednotes (hey!).
- Where you type \edtext{lemma}{\Afootnote{note
A}\Bfootnote{note B}} with
ledmac,
you type \Bnote{\Anote{lemma}{note
A}}{note B} with ednotes (oh
…).
-
Learning ledmac may be
easy for former EDMAC users,
while learning ednotes may be
easier for former LaTeX users. E.g.,
ledmac
introduces its own user macros for
tables, while ednotes
supplies LaTeX tabular environments
with hooks for critical editing internally,
i.e.: without bothering users. On the other
hand, the EDMAC macros
for the appearance of line numbers
(in the margins) have been retained in ledmac,
while with ednotes the
user is referred to the commands of
Stephan I. Böttcher’s lineno.sty.
- You can handle overlapping lemmas
with ledmac when line
breaks have been fixed; you can handle
overlapping lemmas with ednotes without
this precondition.
-
ledmac offers
features like endnotes,
columnar footnotes, and quite a few
very new things which ednotes
does not provide (at present).
Most notably, a package ledpar
adds parallel typesetting in columns
or on facing pages (translations, e.g.).
- For editing verse (poetry, plays),
ledmac and
John Burt’s poemscol
package offer special facilities.
Here are a few links for learning more on
the matters mentioned above (etc.):
- Download an
article
(PDF, 252 KB) that
- explains what the traditional manner
of typesetting critical editions is
(cf. the comprehensive
Wikipedia article);
- compares ednotes with
ledmac;
- outlines the user interface and
functionality of ednotes.
(A former version of this article appeared in
TUGboat
(vol.
24, no. 2), the journal of the TeX Users Group.)
- See some works
that have been typeset with ednotes.
- Download
ednotes.
- Visit a large web page
explaining and exemplifying ledmac and more.
- Download
ledmac.
- Learn about EDMAC and
other
software for typesetting critical editions.
- David Kastrup has uploaded his
bigfoot
package in 2006. As soon as time allows,
it could be used by ednotes
for an improved handling of the apparatus.
However, it may be considered a package for
a different style of critical editions
on its own right; namely using familiar
footnote marks (instead of line numbers),
supporting editorial comments to
footnotes of the document that
is edited.
- Besides
poemscol
for collections of poems,
there is John Burt’s
edmargin, which refers to
comments in the margin of the edited text,
comments appearing as endnotes.
- Find out what
TeX and
LaTeX are; or try the more detailed
Wikipedia article on LaTeX.
-
Contact the maintainers of ednotes.
(e.g.: subscribe to the mailing list …)
“Lyrics” by Uwe Lück.
Thanks to Karl Berry (TUG president and
TUGboat editor) for the (La)TeX links!
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Last modified Feb 03, 2009.
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