Considering that the user wouldn't likely have equations, glossary, index, bibliography or double columns (but would perhaps need insets for monologues), and considering the popular novel formats of the best sellers, what are the chief advantages of using Memoir Class over the standard book class in LaTeX.
I'm considering the following (please correct me if I'm wrong)
- No need to use Geometry for standard Novel Dimensions (about 8.5in X 5.5in)
- More fonts to choose from
- More customization of the Table of Contents
- More ability to have unnumbered, untitled sections within Chapters, known as "Scenes"
Best Answer
memoir
is better for this sort of thing insofar as it has a lot of built-in stuff that a novel(ist) might want to make use of. Some of the more obvious things in addition to your list:\sidenote
,\sidebars
,\sidefootnotes
(ch. 12);Now, you don't need
memoir
to do any of this, but using a feature-rich class like this makes it easier to do most of these things unless you already know the equivalent packages and their commands. And sincememoir
incorporates many of these packages anyway (and were initially written by the same person), the gain is not always there to be had. (The same is true of theKOMA-Script
universe, but it was designed with different principles in mind; you really need to pick one or the other for a given project.)In my experience,
memoir
can just about do it all, which makes it very convenient. That said, however, you may find that you prefer to use some particular package to the built-in commandsmemoir
provides. (E.g., I sometimes usegeometry
in this way; and I often loadenumitem
if I'm using any lists.) You can do this, of course: if you couldn't,memoir
would not be nearly so popular. In fact, if you'd rather use one of the packages the class emulates (or need to fix some kind of package option clash), you can use the command:But this is likely to be a very rare problem. I myself have never had to worry about it, and I use
memoir
much more than any other class.