Thread: [Embedlets-developer] Re: OpenOffice vs. Forrest (Page 2)
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From: Ted K. <tk...@ya...> - 2003-02-03 01:17:06
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Jac, > * OpenOffice > + free full blown office suite with editor and graphics module > + wysiwyg > = XML based storage, however with proprietary DTD > - large (a lot of disk space and not very fast) > - no pdf creation without commercial plugins (afaik) Why do you say the DTDs are proprietary? I thought they were open? Also, OpenOffice outputs in PDF format out of the box. Just go to File -> Printer Setup, select PDF as the print format and then select Print To File when you print. This generates very nice PDF files of both text and graphics! Ted __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com |
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From: Jac K. <j.k...@th...> - 2003-02-03 20:10:00
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On Sun, 2 Feb 2003, Ted Kosan wrote: > Why do you say the DTDs are proprietary? I thought they were open? Is anyone (apart from OpenOffice) using them? > Also, OpenOffice outputs in PDF format out of the box. Just go to File > -> Printer Setup, select PDF as the print format and then select Print > To File when you print. This generates very nice PDF files of both text > and graphics! I seem to remember the StarOffice 6 manual refering to some commercial tool needed for PDF creation, but I'm unable to find the reference right now. Just tried it with SO and it refuses to write the output to a file. It's always using the printer, so I'm unable to verify if it's outputting PDF or PS. This is probably a problem in my setup, so I'll have to fix it. :-/ Ok, if OO is able to output PDFs and HTML we should be set, shouldn't we? Regards, Jac -- Jac Kersing Technical Consultant The-Box Development j.k...@th... http://www.the-box.com |
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From: Nicola K. B. <nic...@ap...> - 2003-02-03 23:05:33
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Jac Kersing wrote:
...
> Ok, if OO is able to output PDFs and HTML we should be set, shouldn't we?
There is a very simple way of making PDFs out of *any* document: print
to a PS printer and redirect to file. Then run Ghostscript on it and you
get the PDF. For Wintel there is FreePDF that automates these steps, so
you print and see the PDF right away.
But one thing is producing a document, another is making a site...
--
Nicola Ken Barozzi nic...@ap...
- verba volant, scripta manent -
(discussions get forgotten, just code remains)
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From: Christopher S. <cs...@oo...> - 2003-01-29 07:10:22
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My opinion is that the end product should definitely conform to the one of two accepted standards: pdf or html. This has the advantage that the effort is exposed openly and early. Until I downloaded the Office Suite I felt a little excluded and had to scramble to be able to read the existing docs. The source tools should be irrelevant and not consume a lot of valuable discussion time. I loaded the Office Suite because I happen to like it and if there is a choice that has to be made Office Suite is as good as any. My personal style is to use a drawing tool (Word, Visio or OfficeSuite/StarOffice) to create the graphics then drop them into an WYSWYG html editor (FrontPage, OfficeSuite, Dreamworks) as jpegs. That way the final documentation output is produced as you go and does not have to be reformatted for formal presentation. -----Original Message----- From: emb...@li... [mailto:emb...@li...]On Behalf Of Ted Kosan Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 10:28 PM To: emb...@li... Subject: [Embedlets-developer] Re: OpenOffice Brill, > The problem is not that its an XML file format... the problem is that in > order to use it, I have to install and use a not-insignificant application > that I have no interest in using (though I'm sure its a great app). Well, you know, it pretty much installs itself and if one is mostly only going to be typing text and leaving the formatting chores up to others then the learning curve is very short. You should be up and running within 20 minutes max. > So, that's why I suggest HTML. If formatting is essential, doesn't > OpenOffice have a WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage or something? > The current version of FrontPage is actually pretty good... not a lot of > garbage... surely OpenOffice has something like that? Sure, OpenOffice has a WYSIWYG editor but any WYSIWYG editors are going to fight each other to have the document's tag selection and formatting placed in its own pet style. I have tried this and it does not work well at all. Here is my perspective. I have downloaded and read through a number of specifications like the Servlet spec, the JavaBeans spec, the EJB spec and most recently the new Sun ACE spec. Most specifications contain a ton of typing, formatting, sectioning and sub-sectioning. A number of them also contain a significant number of diagrams. Since I bet I have more free time than anyone else on the list (you guys have no idea how much free time a university faculty member has!) the responsibility for typing in, formatting, reformatting and maintaining the specifications we generate will probably fall on my shoulders. As I analyze this I am not at all looking forward to the prospect of having to do this work using raw text or even HTML. Beyond this, if our core working documents are in raw text or HTML I also do not want to have to go through the work of copying them into an office suite for formatting every time a new version of the specification is released. I am kind of stuck on this issue right now because it looks like we are within a week or so of actually starting work on developing the specification documents and I would personally rather resolve this issue sooner rather than later. What do other people on the list think? Are we going to encode the core specification documents inside of a modern, open, XML based office suite format or are we going to chisel it into clay tablets? ;-) Again, if everone mostly leaves the formatting chores up to me, entering and editing text using OpenOffice is quite easy. Ted __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com _______________________________________________ Embedlets-developer mailing list Emb...@li... https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/embedlets-developer |
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From: Ted K. <tk...@ya...> - 2003-01-29 07:44:38
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Christopher, >Until I downloaded the Office Suite I felt a > little excluded and had to scramble to be able to read the existing docs. Ok, it took a little bit of effort to download OpenOffice and install it but now that you did, do you have any comments on the pluses or minuses of having intimate access (and instant editing capabilities) to all of the documentation (including drawings) that was present there? From my perspective, all of the information is in one place under the control of one tool and can be easily edited and maintained. Actually, the OpenOffice files that are in the CVS are just my personal scratchpad documents that I decided to place under version control in my little corner of the repository. I bet you are the first person that has looked at them besides myself! (BTW, anyone that wants to place a personal scratchpad folder in the CVS feel free!) As for the core documents I agree, our next step is definitely to start developing them... as soon as we can agree on a file format. > My personal style is to use a drawing tool (Word, Visio or > OfficeSuite/StarOffice) to create the graphics then drop them into an WYSWYG > html editor Well, what do we do when it is discovered that one of the drawings has an error in it or that it needs to be updated? My opinion is that the source drawing document that the JPEG snapshot was taken from needs to be under version control and in a format that is easily editable using open tools. And really, I do not care what tool we select as long as it has the power of an office suite, uses open XML file formats and is open source. It just so happens that OpenOffice meets these criteria but I would gladly look at other alternatives that meet them too. Ted __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com |