On Thursday, 23. June 2011 16:13:56 Marc Paré wrote: > We are essentially saying the same thing. For necessary files where > the ODF cannot be read due to the inability of having LibreOffice > installed to read ODF files then falling back on .pdf's is fine.
PDF has a different purpose: to show a document in identical layout on any output media. ODF in contrast is the preferred data format for supporting all kinds of documents needed in an office environment. To support office productivity is a substantially different aspect from supporting media independant layout. > If > there is a need to create a quick and dirty ODF reader, then we > should put this to the dev's as a project -- a "LibreOffice Reader". > We should not be advocating the use of any other format unless we > really have to. If our documents are so important for a user to want > to read, then they should download our product to read our wonderful > manuals. This ist questionable, sorry. To use a complex software, you need as much help and support as possible. This is true on any level of skill. So no software supplier would leave out e.g. online help and state that anybody should read only ODF/PDF/whatever Manuals. Nobody would ignore wikis when trying to solve a problem because they are not ODF formatted. Or forums or mailinglists or whatever. Where do you live? We have to help the users to use the software best possible (and not to force them to use a certain output format if seeking help, what strange ideas do you people have?!)! For that, IMHO our ambition should be to offer the Manuals in as many formats as possible, so a user can decide which suites best his/her actual needs. So my statement would be: Stay with ODF as master (as long as there is not a more conveniant solution) and try to offer PDF /and/ HTML in addition. Ideally, the PDF and HTML conversion should be done as automatically as possible, so no need for additional manpower. > Otherwise, we relegate the ODF (and LibreOffice) to a secondary > position -- there will always be individuals inside our group who > will clamour for a .pdf version to add "universality" to our product > line. This is completely counter-productive. The request for .pdf > will never cease and all of our documentation will be in ODF/PDF > versions with no real reason to fully adopt the ODF format by any > user. Worse, corporate adoption of our product will be hard to get > if they will never see the benefits of using our products if they > only read it through .pdf formats for their convenience. ODF does have different advantages. Competing with PDF is not among them. Or at least, not yet. If the ESC decides to take that challenge, it might be an option in the future. But ATM it's out of scope IMHO. Nino -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
