To understand how the layout configuration works, we have to take a look at the TeX preamble of a particular TeX document created with xerif . The layout features and default settings are provided by the cocotex document class. The customer-specific configuration is represented by a custom TeX style that is usually named after the client, e.g. brill for Koninklijke Brill NV, or now De Gruyter Brill. Macros for tables are provided by h tmltabs , a package for specifying tables in a HTML-like fashion.

\documentclass[greek,main=english,pubtype=collection]{cocotex}
\usepackage{htmltabs}
\usepackage[layout=1]{brill}

The CoCoTeX framework is separated into various modules that provide specific macros for various layout aspects:

The custom TeX style is built upon the features provided by CoCoTeX and sets customer-specific parameters such as margins, fonts, type area, font sizes, leading and other styles. It’s also possible to define customer-specific macros or overwrite existing CoCoTeX macros. The style files can be selectively overridden by a cascading configuration. For example, you could specify different TeX styles based on the imprint, book series or individual books if necessary but our developers use this approach rarely.

For TeX developers, using TeX is obviously the most natural way to specify layout parameters. However, a normal TeX user would hardly be able to create a layout with xerif . Unfortunately, it is not enough to be able to write a paper with LaTeX. You need to have advanced TeX programming skills, be familiar with many libraries in the TeX ecosystem and know the CoCoTeX basics. For TeX novices, the learning curve might quickly become as steep as a wall.