Is TeX really used in publishing industry?If I have to learn a typesetting programming language to find a job in publishing industry is TeX a good choice or I should learn something else? I'm also interest if or in which publishing industry is used TeX.
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2Which part of the publishing industry? Academics... for sure! Children's bed-time stories... probably not. – Werner Oct 18 '13 at 15:46
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9@Werner No children's bedtime stories? Tell it Nicola Talbot. – egreg Oct 18 '13 at 15:55
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3@egreg not to mention Christmas Carols – David Carlisle Oct 18 '13 at 16:07
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@Werner My question is in general, if I search a job in publishing industry statistically I'm sure there is a language most used. – G M Oct 18 '13 at 16:07
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1Oh, are you kidding me? I was working for a publishing company, in China. As far as I know, the most important software to these companies, maybe just in China, is Adobe InDesign. – Ch'en Meng Oct 18 '13 at 16:13
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2Related LaTeX in Industry, Alternatives to LaTeX and What software do publishers use? – texenthusiast Oct 18 '13 at 16:34
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1For best chances of landing a job you should master TeX and XML. – Dan Oct 18 '13 at 18:11
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@Dan thanks no one answer about XML I have done some research and It seems one of the most used typesetting programmig languages... Fell free to answer I think your contribute could be important for my question... – G M Nov 01 '13 at 11:36
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Which type-setting tools is used really depends on the type of publication to be type-set. TeX (in a wider sense) is widely used for scientfic journal and book publications. Since TeX is designed for mathematics, it dominates these areas but many large science publishers rely on TeX as well, Wiley, Elsevier, Springer to give a few examples. The benefits for publishers is that the author will essentially do the type-setting for them and production costs become lower. If you look at book production in general the dominant software will be Adobe Indesign and QuarkXPress. These are not programmable in the same sense but are layout software with graphical interfaces. These software target a different market and are used by the publishing industry where authors provide materials but the layout is done by the publishers.
So the answer to your question depends on what part of the publishing industry you would aim for. In terms of TeX publications, the job will be to generate packages for layouts of publications whereas for the others the job is more one of designing individual layouts for each product. There are other proprietary solutions for specific publishers for which I do not have any insights but I believe the ones mentioned are the major solutions.
Peter Jansson
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