On Sunday 05 April 2009 10:06:38 Rich Shepard wrote: > On Sun, 5 Apr 2009, Wolfgang Keller wrote: > > In fact in collaborative environments (e.g. companies), where several > > people work together on the same document, Word documents _always_ end up > > like that - A hopelessly tangled spaghetti mess. In fact I never managed > > to figure out how to copy and paste content from two different versions > > of a document, which are both perfectly well "styled" and which were > > created using the same "template" in such a way that the resulting > > document isn't messed up. > > I'm surprised that no one seems to use the most reasonable solution for > collaborative text: have everyone use plain text and only futz with > formatting when you agree on a final version. It may not look pretty, but > it's efficient. > > Rich
The problem with that suggestion is that very often, if not always, proper formatting is actually part of the content and therefore object of the various collaborative tasks. I'll just give you a not so silly example from academia: grant proposals have severe constraints on how and how long your various descriptions, proposal, work, etcetera shoudl be expressed (and understandably so). As you can imagine, "proper formatting"---right fonts, correct headings, etcetera---becomes an essential part of the output which cannot, therefore, be added "at the end." What if, for instance, a different formatting makes the project description too long and its essential punch line must be cut? S. ______________________________________________________________ Stefano Franchi Department of Philosophy Ph: (979) 862-2211 Texas A&M University Fax: (979) 845-0458 305B Bolton Hall fran...@philosophy.tamu.edu College Station, TX 77843-4237
