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 animal on the cover of Java in a Nutshell, Fifth Edition is a Javan tiger, a subspecies unique to the island of Java. Although this tiger once offered unrivaled research opportunities due to its genetic isolation, these opportunities have been permanently lost due to human encroachment on the Javan tiger's habitat: in a worst-case scenario for the tiger, Java developed into the most densely populated island on earth, and awareness of the subspecies' precarious position came too late to secure the animals' survival even in captivity. The last known sighting of the tiger was in 1972, and it is now presumed extinct.

Jamie Peppard was the production editor and proofreader for Java in a Nutshell, Fifth Edition. Sarah Sherman, Darren Kelly, and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Ellen Troutman Zaig wrote the index.

Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book. 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. This book was converted by Andrew Savikas, Joe Wizda, and Ryan Grimm 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 TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe PhotoShop 6. Jamie Peppard wrote this colophon.

The online edition of this book was created by the Safari production group (John Chodacki, Becki Maisch, and Madeleine Newell) using a set of Frame-to-XML conversion and cleanup tools written and maintained by Erik Ray, Benn Salter, John Chodacki, and Jeff Liggett.