Please see an earlier note from me on all the reasons why this would not be an efficient way to do it at this point, including the fact that we already have a large body of OOo info that can be readily adapted to LibO, and that OOo info is in ODT format.
Whether users would rather find info on a website or in downloadable file depends entirely on the users, and that depends a lot on the product and the level of knowledge and experience of the users of that product. My work at OOo suggests that a large number of ordinary users prefer PDFs that they can print out. Others, of course, prefer web-based. I am also highly dubious that more actual work would be done on the user guides if they were on the wiki instead of in ODT. That has not happened at OOo; there, the writers, editors, and reviewers overwhelmingly prefer to work in ODT, and many of them (including me) are actively unwilling to edit on the wiki. Of course, LibO documenters may be different. --Jean On Fri, 2010-12-03 at 20:07 -0500, Jeff Prater wrote: > I'm probably the only other person here to say this, but I agree with > Narayan on how initial documentation should be developed. I work for a > rather large county government and all of our documentation is developed and > maintained on our intranet website. All of our documentation is web-based, > and only once a year do we export the data and create publishable user > guides for training and archival purposes. We've always found it easier to > use a web-based documentation platform to collaborate, create, edit, and > publish documentation because the documentation will always be up to date. > Plus, our users only access this documentation via the intranet website so > there is no need for them to search through multiple physical documents. > Plus, I think users would rather find all the documentation on a searchable > website than to download ODT/PDF files. > > I understand the desire to create these ODT files since it's an intuitive > method to showcase the capabilities of LibreOffice, but I believe our time > could be better spent creating an up to date support site where any of us > can edit the documentation. Then, maybe once a year, the data can be > copied/exported to ODT as a printable, hard copy of the documentation. > > I know most people here will disagree with me, but this is just my $0.02. > > Jeff > > On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 10:23 AM, Narayan Aras <[email protected]>wrote: > > > > > Hi all, > > > > I do not know if this is the right forum (and the right time) to put this > > idea, but why are we circulating odt/pdf files for proofreading? > > > > I have written a 380-page user manual in odt; and also written several help > > docs in wiki format. > > The difference was odt writing was a single-author effort, but wiki was > > supposed to be collaborative. > > > > Besides, mediawiki has extension that can export to odt/pdf any time and > > make it available for offline reading or printing. > > > > See the example here: http://www.den4b.com/wiki/ReNamer > > At the time of starting the wiki, I already had written most of the manual > > in odt format. > > So I saved the individual chapters in mediawiki format, and pasted them in > > the wiki pages. > > I had to upload all figures separately and link them. But on the whole the > > experience was smooth. > > > > Wiki also eliminates the proofreading effort, as the others can directly > > edit the original effort. > > > > Just my two cents. > > > > Regards, > > Narayan > > > -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] List archive: http://www.libreoffice.org/lists/documentation/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
