Michele wrote:
Hello again,
I just noticed that among the "Save as" options of OOo there is also a
"docbook (.xml)". Could it be that this type of document is handled well by
FrameMaker?
Cheers,
Michele
The DocBook version used for exporting from OOo is the long-deprecated
version 4.1.2 (from August 2000). There have been numerous versions
since, and now DocBook development last summer was at version 5--which
is a near complete break from the older version 4.x, although DocBook
4.1.2 DTD version can be used as a small subset of DB 5.
Having DocBook 4.1.2 exported via OOo is analogous to buying a Ford
Fusion from a dealership and thinking that it has a prayer of being
raced on the NASCAR Nextel-cup circuit. No way--two entirely different
animals with similar nomenclature.
Although OOo is based upon XML, Writer is not an effective XML tool for
simple usage by writers/editors. For that, one of the big boys like
FrameMaker or (Ann Arbor Michigan's) Arbortext is better. However, I
have adapted the DocBook 5 DTD for my personal use with the DTD-based
FrameMaker of version 7. The DTD version of DB 5 is itself deprecated
because DB 5 development has drifted away from being DTD-based
(Structured FrameMaker 7).
Although I don't use DITA, it appears that current movement by
writers/editors to adopting XML is heading toward open-sourced DITA and
away from DocBook. DITA was supported by IBM, which also supports
open-sourced Eclipse, much as Sun promotes OOo.
But I digress... I don't advocate that OOoAuthors use any XML because it
is overkill for our purposes. But I do prefer using the cleaner
functions of OOo that convert well to DOC and avoid using those that do
not. I found out that I could adopt clean (frameless) OOo documents and
convert them to DOC and then to FrameMaker for converting them to
FrameMaker and then to Structured (XML) FrameMaker. There are other
open-sourced applications meant to do that, but FrameMaker's WYSIWYG
interface is quite easy for nonspecialists to work with.
Because OOo frames do not convert that cleanly to DOC, I just meant to
avoid using them and substitute tables instead. Nobody would convert our
ODT to DOC and beyond, and I never intended to imply that anybody would
or should. But, if ease of conversion of OOo to/from DOC was a serious
"selling point" for OOo, Writer should be developed to do those things
better, and much easier than at present.
For the Wiki, XHTML is the preferred format of the three formats it
uses, and eventually the other two will be deprecated, I think. I plead
ignorance on that because I don't do the Wiki myself because of personal
preference for something other than the abridged "Reader's Digest" of
the Internet (or its analog--US Today) and still prefer the quasi print
media (PDF) and "full-service" online.
Gary
--
Gary Schnabl
2775 Honorah
Detroit MI 48209
(734) 245-3324
