Over the past two months, the success rate of the TouchID key on my Magic Keyboard has been atrocious. I was seriously considering replacing it when, today, I possibly stumbled upon the real cause. My hands may just have been too cold.

After it failed on me this afternoon, I rubbed my hands together to warm them up and when I pressed the key again it worked.

I repeated it a few times later in the day and, without fail, it would unlock once I’d warmed my hands.

I’m gobsmacked, to be honest.

If it's on the internet, then it must be true.

https://barry.mieny.com/2023/09/08/im-writing-a-book/

The response from @blag to my previous toot about this subject proved to be the push I needed to kick things into gear. Since then, I've dived into LaTeX and started to (re)organise all the assets I'd built up over the years, reinvigorating me to push forward with the project.

After two false starts, I trust the third time's the charm.

Does anyone have an opinion on NOT using baseline grids? More specifically, for a long-form book.

There won't be multiple columns, but some paragraphs at the end of sections will use a smaller size than the regular body copy.

So, for the regular copy, 10/12pt looks great. However, when it's 8/12pt, it just looks odd.

The book will hopefully be printed on a thick stock, so it should be opaque enough to not see the text on the reverse side where the misalignment will be obvious.

Yeah, or Nay?

Does anyone have a suggestion for a (paid or free) sans-serif family with small caps (and ideally old-style figures) that would pair well with Garamond Premier Pro? (It has caption and display sizes, so I'd prefer not to switch.)

Sans-serifs with those attributes are not typical. Still, I've found Futura Next (in the top spot so far), Dexa Pro (a close second), Alegreya Sans (probably better paired with Alegreya), Artegra Sans (no OSF), Source Sans (hmm), and Fontin Sans (not an ideal pairing).

As part of getting my book writing project back on track, I spent some time over the weekend seeing if there'd be a better way than DTP software to realise the end product. It's not just text, so some degree of design is required.

The project's scope is extensive; without even adding the content, it was already around 100 pages, just by adding a two-page chapter for each year, the table of contents based on that, some random front matter, etc. Once done, it'll probably be double to triple that.