I like LyX for complex documents because I can set a document up and not have to worry about the fact that so many people who claim to understand how to use styles don't bother to use them with any consistency in practice with any word processing software.
On Thursday 25 January 2007 09:37 am, John Kane wrote: > Beats me but there are quite a few books out there > done with OOo including the collaboratively written > OOo documentation based on a well constructed template > and well defined styles. I think "a well constructed template and well defined styles" explains it. I've been using word processing software for literally a couple of decades, and frankly, the worst piece of engineering garbage that I've ever had the misfortune to use was MS Word. Even OOo Writer 1.0 ran circles around it (all released versions of MS Word) for features and stability. Most of the "features" people claim are in MS Word that aren't in OOo Writer are really 3rd-party applications (and pricey ones at that). Only the grammar checker and visual basic that were in MS Word were not in OOo Writer 1.0. OOo Writer 2.0 is light-years ahead of MS Word (even with the new "features" 2007 is supposed to come with). As someone else mentioned, you are likely to bring over MS Word's problems when you import the file into OOo Writer and what you're seeing are the problems that were in your MS Word document. Complex MS Word files almost never look the same on two different computers -- even when both computers have the exact same release of MS Word installed. This has been a constant complaint for both the people trying to provide finalized documents for production on MS Word systems other than their own and the people receiving those documents. This is why savvy MS Word users always provide a copy of the file in PDF so that the recipient can see what the file was actually supposed to look like. Check out the Authors' Guides for OOo -- there are versions for 1.0 and 2.0. Getting lists and such to be stable in OOo Writer is not a problem, assuming you set them up correctly for what you want and assuming you adequately cleaned up the MS Word file and templates you're working from. http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/index.html deedee -- Registered Linux User #327485 The Writer's Place, http://www.thewritersplace.com WordStar Users Group, http://www.wordstar2.com
