Page Layout ⇒ Complete LaTex example file for a novel

[sman]

Hello,

I am trying to write a novel book, A5 in LaTex. My search in the internet for finished and complete example tex-files was not succesful.
I am a decent LaTex writer but do not know very much packages, definitions or layouts.I don't want thausand links to command references or various types of document classes and definitions of chapters and so on. I just want a simple finished and ready-to-fill tex-file with titlepage, content, chapters and so on. So I can start writing fast without months of layouting. Sure i am able to adjust my own wishes in this tex-file later. Roughly the layout should be as a usual old-style novel book.

Is there any source of complete ready-to-fill book/novel-files for download and private use?

Thanks for answers

[localghost]

[…] I don't want thausand links to command references or various types of document classes and definitions of chapters and so on. I just want a simple finished and ready-to-fill tex-file with titlepage, content, chapters and so on. […]

Try the memoir class. One link, one class, one comprehensive manual.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten¹

[sman]

Hi,

thanks for reply. I actually already found the memoir class a half day ago and began to read the manual. My impression is that memoir perhaps is able to fulfil my wishes of layouting a novel, for sure it offers all I dream of, but by scanning the manual I did not find any complete example or application, it is like a documention of commands, but without some example tex-files.

The reason why I asked the question in this forum is, that it will take too much time for me to set up a nice novel layout by looking up all the definitions, commands and margins in this memoir manual. I am not that incorporated with texing, so creating layouts based on a manual without examples would not easy for me .

For this reason I hoped there are some people out there who already implemented memoir for example or other classes to build a nice novel layout, who maybe are able to send me the skeletal structure of their layout.

[localghost]

I suggest to start writing and deal with the final layout later on. One of the advantages of LaTeX is the strict segregation of form and contents of a document. For the present you can start with reading a paper about setting up a document based on the memoir class [1].

But if you have certain ideas about paper and page dimensions, you can present them here and we can try to setup the document together. If you are a complete novice in LaTeX, you should refer to a topic where you can find very useful information [2]. On CTAN there are some useful packages listed which will be a good help for your work [3]. Just tell us your ideas explicitly.

[1] The PracTeX Journal - TeX Users Group, Lars Madsen: Page Styles on steroids (or, memoir makes page styling easy)
[2] View topic: LaTeX Resources for Beginners
[3] The TeX Catalogue Online, Topic Index - Poetry and Drama

[sman]

Thank you very much for your opinion and links. I'm going to try my best to get started, I am not completly new in Latex so I will create something useful but ugly
As soon as I have finished concrete ideas about special layouts and element designs I will post them here.