OT? Information processing

Jerry Avins wrote:
> Rune Allnor wrote:
>> Hi all.
>>
>> I am drafting some documents which end format has not yet been
>> decided.
>> Right now I am using MSWord, but the documents might become a lot
>> more useful if available on HTML format.
>>
>> By nature, I am quite lazy; I hate to do twice what needs only be done
>> once.
>>
>> Does anybody have any sugegstions about how to organize the work such
>> that I only draft the text or contents once, and then produce MSWord,
>> HTML
>> or other formats?
>>
>> Some sort of XML-based system comes to mind, but how does one
>> actually
>> work with that sort of thing? Editors, file systems, the logistics,
>> etc.
> 
> Use Open Office, an open source word processor that can save documents 
> in both the formats you want. http://www.openoffice.org/
> 
> Jerry

I use OOo exclusively, except for one client who has me come on-site -- 
for them I use their copies of Word (and I curse at at).

OOo will save to HTML.  So will Word, but OOs generates HTML that's a 
good sight better than what Word produces.  OOo shouldn't be used for 
authoring pages because it doesn't make the best HTML documents in the 
world, but it does OK.

OOo will save to .doc.  If you make the World's Most Complicated 
Document with macros and forms and tables inside of tables and figures 
that include text that include pictures that include drawings then it 
won't look good coming out the other end.  If, on the other hand, you 
stick to simple formatting it'll work pretty well.  I send documents to 
customers in .doc format and rarely hear complaints about weird 
formatting -- when I do it's generally because I'm working with 
something that _they_ sent _me_, and going from Word to OOo and back has 
created problems.

-- 
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

On May 4, 9:23 pm, Rune Allnor <all...@tele.ntnu.no> wrote

> I am drafting some documents which end format has not yet been
> decided.
> Right now I am using MSWord, but the documents might become a lot
> more useful if available on HTML format.
>
> By nature, I am quite lazy; I hate to do twice what needs only be done
> once.
>
> Does anybody have any sugegstions about how to organize the work such
> that I only draft the text or contents once, and then produce MSWord,
> HTML
> or other formats?
>
> Some sort of XML-based system comes to mind, but how does one
> actually
> work with that sort of thing? Editors, file systems, the logistics,
> etc.

The closest thing I've seen to what you're talking about is a
commercial product from (now) Adobe: Framemaker.

http://www.adobe.com/products/framemaker/

Ciao,

Peter K.

Rune Allnor <allnor@tele.ntnu.no> writes:

> On 5 May, 16:44, Heinrich Wolf <hwmu...@willis-werkstaette.de> wrote:
>> Rune Allnor <all...@tele.ntnu.no> writes:
>> ..............
>> d) LaTeX.  I don't use it but it would be the first thing I would
>> suggest to--- say--- a student of engineering who just wants to write
>> a thesis or such.
>
> Have used it for personal stuff the last15 years. Not an option
> in my current workplace.
> ..........
>> ..................
>> I can't say much about how to convert from a TeX etc. based document
>> to MS Word.  Indeed, I am wondering why you would want this.  Do your
>> customers insist on MS?  Wouldn't they be satisfied with PDF?
>
> For better or for worse, MSOffice is the de facto standard where I
> work.
> Everything is stored and communicated as either MSWord or Excel files.
> I don't mind the format as such, but handling all the info is a pain.
> Extracting everything to XML format would enable me to handle
> the info once and then use a parser/translator to generate exactly
> the type of document I want. As well as make background programs
> which could sync documents and databases etc.
>

As you are an experienced LaTeX user and ``they'' live in the
Microsoft ghetto, you might be interested in the following pages:

http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html
http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/pctotex.html

-- 
hw