Atlantis and Print-on-Demand books

[Sarah]

I am considering printing a 100+ page book through one of the print-on-demand services (like Create Space or Lulu) that needs to receive a ready-to-print PDF.

Someone advised me to take the .rtf file (from Atlantis) and import it into a program like Scribus, Lyx or LaTeX, or Serif PagePlus and use one of those programs to insert the graphics in the book and generally "pretty" it up.

So, I have three questions:

Is taking the .rtf file and preparing it for publication in another program good advice?

Can anybody give advice about the merits of Scribus, Lyx, LaTeX, or Serif PagePlus? I understand that the learning curve is pretty steep (particularly on the first three). In fact, I've read that you need to have a padded desk for hitting your head on when learning Lyx and LaTeX!

Does anybody have experience with CreateSpace or Lulu? Did the process go well, and the books turn out nicely?

By the way, I have had printed various booklets from PDFs from .rtf files produced by Atlantis -- however, they have not had many or any illustrations. The booklets all turned out very well, with the printing looking lovely.

[Robert]

Hi Sarah,
You might want to have a look at the following pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PagePlus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribus
http://www.scribus.net
HTH.
Cheers,
Robert