MISTA Conference: Proceeedings

I wonder if there is a good (and I mean simple) way to produce conference proceedings?

In a previous post, I was talking about the MISTA conference that I chair and that we were in the process of collecting all the papers and registrations. This is now done and, with the conference just a week away, we are trying to finalise the proceedings.

It could be worse. In 2003 we had hardcopy proceedings so we had to get things sorted out a lot sooner as we had to deliver the proceedings to the printers. At least, with the proceedings on CD, the timescales are not so tight and we are in charge of our own fate. On the downside you effectively have to develop another web site to enable the delegates to access the papers in a variety of ways.

But that is not the main problem (time consuming as it is). The main problem (at least for me) is three-fold

1. Ensuring that all the papers actually make it to the proceedings and that all the authors and titles are spelt correctly in the contents pages.
2. Making sure that the contents pages have the correct page numbers on (for reasons I won't go into now, it's important that we have page numbers).
3. Putting together an accurate author index so that authors can easily find their papers.

I have put together a number of conference proceedings in my time but I have never found a quick, simple and reliable of doing it, other than just taking your time and constantly checking that you have not missed anything.

Any suggestions welcome, for the next time.