Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The image on the cover of Linux in a Windows World depicts members of the Native American Nez Percé tribe playing cards. In the mid-1850s, a treaty with the U.S. government made most of the Nez Percé lands (parts of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon) into a reservation. However, with the discovery of gold on the reservation, the government tried to push through a new treaty reducing the land to a quarter of its size. The tribe refused to accept it, and war broke out. After a long campaign, with his warriors facing starvation, Chief Joseph surrendered. The captured warriors were housed in a temporary village near Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, before being assigned to a reservation (not, however, with their people in the Northwest, as had been promised). Mary Anne Weeks Mayo was the production editor and copyeditor, and Marlowe Shaeffer was the proofreader for Linux in a Windows World. Sarah Sherman and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Keith Fahlgren and Lydia Onofrei provided production assistance. John Bickelhaupt wrote the index.

Emma Colby designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Hanna Dyer and Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with Adobe InDesign CS using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.

David Futato designed the interior layout. The chapter opening images are from the Dover Pictorial Archive; Marvels of the New West: A Vivid Portrayal of the Stupendous Marvels in the Vast Wonderland West of the Missouri River, by William Thayer (The Henry Bill Publishing Co., 1888); and The Pioneer History of America: A Popular Account of the Heroes and Adventures, by Augustus Lynch Mason, A.M. (The Jones Brothers Publishing Company, 1884).

This book was converted by Julie Hawks to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's The Sans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano, Jessamyn Read, and Leslie Borash using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. The tip and warning icons were drawn by Christopher Bing. This colophon was written by Mary Anne Weeks Mayo.