Jean On Thu, 2011-06-30 at 11:04 +1000, Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
> Now that we are getting close to having a full set of rebranded user > guides for LibreOffice (based on the OOo guides), I would like to put > forward for discussion some major changes to the Getting Started guide. > (I have made the same proposal to the OOo group, but the two guides do > not need to remain in parallel if the two groups choose different paths > to improve them.) > > > The Getting Started guide was originally intended to be no longer than > 200 pages, but it is now closer to 400 pages. I would like to cut out > some chapters and make them into standalone guides, drop some material > that is covered in other books and IMO is no longer needed in this one, > slightly reorganise what's left, and add some pointers to the other > books and documents. Details below. The main goal is to improve the > book's usefulness for new users; decreasing the page count is a > secondary goal. > > 1) Remove Chapter 8 (Getting Started with Base) and make it a standalone > document. It is 52 pages long (longer than the Math Guide) and I think > would be more useful to beginning Base users if it's standalone. Also, I > think the vast majority of new OOo users will NOT be using Base. > > 2) Remove Chapter 9 (Getting Started with Math) because it duplicates > the first part of the Math Guide and is therefore not needed here. > > 3) Remove most of Chapter 12 (Creating Web Pages) because the info is > given in the guides for Writer, Impress, etc and is really little more > than an export function; it could be mentioned briefly in the chapter on > Printing, Exporting etc. Info on hyperlinks needs to be put somewhere > else; I don't have a specific suggestion on this, but it didn't really > fit in this chapter anyway, since it's relevant to more than web page > creation. > > 4) Combine Chapter 2 (Setting up OOo) and Chapter 14 (Customizing) and > leave the result at the end of the book. This is similar to the way the > topics are handled in the other books. > > 5) Drop Appendix A (Keyboard Shortcuts) and put a brief mention in > Chapter 1 with a pointer to the Help. > > That's the major changes. I have a few other changes to suggest in > various chapters. In total the reorganisation should cut the page count > down below 300 pages and make the book more useful for the majority of > new users. > > Comments? > > --Jean > > I agree about dropping the Base chapter. Most MSO users do not even have Access installed or even know how to use it even at a rudimentary level. -- Jay Lozier [email protected] -- 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
