Re: Documentation in OpenOffice format

[Stefan Urbanek]

On Mon, 2005-08-29 at 11:08 -0400, Adrian Robert wrote:
> On Aug 29, 2005, at 4:56 AM, Stefan Urbanek wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > I would like to write StepTalk documentation in OpenOffice.org
> > writer/draw/impress format. Can I upload such documentation into CVS?
> > Also, should I put PDF versions there too or generate PDFs only
> > for .tar.gz?
> >
> > There are several reasons why I would like to do that:
> > - it is much faster to write docs there
> 
> 
> > - no need to waste time on various tags, focus on the contents
> 
> Not to be a pedant but actually this is one of the main points of  
> markup-style systems, ranging from ROFF to LaTeX and texinfo to HTML  
> and XML -- minimal markers indicating logical structure that are  
> translated into appearance separately, as opposed to WYSIWYG where  
> you can dabble all day deciding between 12-point bold and 14-point  
> Italic for heading level X, then changing your mind (about what level  
> X signifies, then as well how it should look), and..  True there is a  
> learning curve for the tags used in markup, but I have yet to see a  
> WYSIWYG that doesn't have at least as significant a curve overall.   
> (Think of getting figure placement right in Word, for example..)

Well, I see no difference in functionality in OO and TeX: in OO you have
styles for that. It is not about marking heading as '14pt
Helvetica-Bold' but about marking heading as 'Heading 1' style. I never
set direct fonts in my documents, I use styles - as I was doing in LaTeX
few years ago (at uni).

Moreover, advantage of WYSIWYG is that you do not have that disturbing
tag-noise while you still have look abstraction layer (styles).

> But OO.org has many other advantages as you point out, and if it  
> makes you more motivated to write docs, that's the most  
> important.. ;-)  Can it export HTML?
> 

Yes, it can export quite nice and clean HTML.

Stefan Urbanek
-- 
http://stefan.agentfarms.net

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then
you win.
- Mahatma Gandhi