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On Thu, 2008-11-13 at 09:09 +0000, Tom Potts wrote: > On Wednesday 12 November 2008 21:53, Aaron Trevena wrote: > > 2008/11/12 Paul Sutton <zleap@xxxxxxxxx>: > > > writing formulas in to documents, i am not sure if plain text is the > > > answer, however LaTeX would classify as plain text, as it simply needs > > > compiling in to say PDF, I am sure with tools such as text2tags then > > > this is possible to go from LaTeX to html, not sure how things would > > > look though; PDF is a waste of time. If you want a printer-compatible output that can be viewed but not modified, use PostScript files. That at least limits the problems of looking different on different printers. If you want a generic output that can be modified, then that format must be based on plain text, so LaTeX is one option, DocBook is another - depending on the type of content. If you want display output that can be modified, use HTML with CSS or any of the text formats that can be converted to HTML, like DocBook. > > You can use LaTex, I can use OpenOffice Formula or even Scribus and > > then export to PDF - both LaTex and HTML can be converted to PDF > > trivially (as can word, etc) and you can be sure that your document > > looks the same to you as whoever is marking it. > But the problem can be 'looking the same'. Which doesn't work any better than > simple image formats anyway - it only 'looks' the same if your printer has > exactly the same properties as the printer the person used to print it. It is wrong to assert that PDF ensures that your document looks the same to everyone - it does not. PDF *tried* to do that but as soon as printers get involved or as soon as you start to use some of the "advanced" features of the non-free Adobe software, everything breaks. > > > Word processing is not always the best tool, and is not always used, Word processors are rarely the right tool, let alone the best. Word processors are for the semi-brainless to prepare documents for printing. Nothing more. Anything more advanced than transcribing what would be a hand-written note into a printed A4 page is beyond the scope of any word processor. Translation? No. Portability? No. Modification? Unlikely. Various word processors have tried to enable team features and group editing - none are compatible with any other type. If you want to support more than one language, use LaTeX or DocBook. If you want to support more than one format, use LaTeX or DocBook. If you want to support more than just printing, use LaTeX or DocBook. If you need complex graphics, particularly those that are generated within the document - use LaTex. If you want simple, clear documentation with sections, table of contents, index and simple page layout, use DocBook. If you want a presentation, use LaTeX. If you want to work on a document in a group, use Gobby. $ sudo apt-get install gobby http://packages.debian.org/sid/gobby If anyone hasn't used Gobby, take a look. Best for meetings where a variety of people need to work on the same document at the same time and know who edited which part of the document - particularly useful when everyone in the meeting is on the same private LAN. (Things get more complex if you are serving a Gobby session across the internet.) It's becoming the norm in conferences like DebConf where brainstorming sessions involving several hundred people can be easily recorded on-the-fly by various people at the same time. It means that as one person is speaking, others are contributing and others are writing up the notes / minutes. Combine that with Gobby running on the laptop running the presentation and everyone gets to see what is going on. If someone writing the minutes needs to make a contribution to the discussion, someone else takes over the notes seamlessly. At DebConf8, the video team provided real-time streaming video of the sessions and those who could not attend were able to watch the video stream (showing Gobby along with the voices of speakers) and contribute via a dedicated IRC channel. With a few people at the meeting adding Gobby input whilst following IRC, you can get a good consensus on the final report *during the meeting itself*. The final document is simple plain text - advanced groups could choose to write directly in LaTeX but that would probably slow down the process. The more people you have, the easier the process becomes. > > LaTeX is an acceptable format for working in, but if you're preparing > > a final document then you want something print oriented and looks the > > same to anybody reading / marking it. LaTeX does that for you - via PostScript conversion. The point is that you should always retain the format best suited for modification and generate "static" versions from that. > I practically only ever do printing with PDF documents - its the only format > that forces me to use my computer as a piece of insentient hardware that I > cant interact with. Or to put it another way I only print documents that are > useless to a computer. And if I choose to print them to my A5 dot matrix > printer - and who are you to say I have to buy the same printer as you - they > are not going to look like your originals. PDF doesn't do anything it says on > the tin. Agreed - PDF is not what it claims, never was. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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