On 6/20/07, Frank Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Oh, if there is a way to view/download/print the entire "manual", there wouldn't be a need for PDF per se. All I'm saying is that we need an offline delivery channel that will enable users to download and print a manual (collection of pages). I don't bother what process to use, but PDF seemed to be the most straightforward choice to me.
But remember that most computer users worldwide are still using dial-up internet connections. PDF takes far more bandwidth than, e.g., (X)HTML. I think the question of what software to use deserves more research. I don't think a wiki is the ideal tool. E.g., Drupal CMS has a collaborative book publishing feature. See < http://drupal.org/node/284>. Drupal also has version control, plus tons of add-on modules for other features. An even stronger candidate would be SiSU,<http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/>. It's specifically designed for book publication (originally legal texts) and other complex texts. It outputs the same markup file to a variety of formats including ODT, PDF, XML, HTML, XHTML, LaTeX, and SQL (MySQL or PostgreSQL). Lots of bells and whistles, including automatically generated cross-references, tables of contents, subject matter indexes, site maps, links to downloads in other formats, etc. I've played with SiSU a bit on my own system. For my money, its mnemonic markup is far more intuitive than MediaWiki markup. Clicking on search query results take you directly to the object containing the terms, which can be e.g., headings, paragraphs, verse, tables, images, etc. etc. Lots of tools for document structuring with automagic object numbering a particularly strong feature. Foot notes and end notes are supported. There are probably others.
