-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/02/12 04:25, stefano franchi wrote: > Hi Rob,
Hi Rob I reply to Stefano's mail, as I agree with many points and don't want to repeat them. > > first: great project! I constantly struggle with converting file > to and from MS Word. I now use the Word-->OOffice--> Latex--> Lyx > Route, with the needed manual cleanup of Latex code and an > additional cleanup of ERT code from LyX after LaTeX import. It is > not fun. A project like yours would make LyX much, much easier to > use in an academic environment. Absolutely - I am working in biological sciences, and one can convince some Journals to accept submission in LaTeX, but one can not convince co-authors to use LyX ............ > > I am going to address your questions from the perspective of a > Humanities scholar. My observations may not be representative of > the vast majority of current LyX/LaTeX users. On the other hand, a > project like yours may potentially expand LyX's user base by an > order of magnitude, in my opinion. So here we go: > >> Is this a tool that would prove useful to yourselves, your >> collaborators, and others? What features would you consider >> essential? > >> >> (Right now, styles based conversion looks pretty easy -- going >> from Heading 1 in Word to Chapter, for example. But I'm not sure >> how well it would convert maths. This is something I'll still >> need to look at, and may require writing an additional module.) >> > > As I said, it would be very important. In my experience, there are > three main scenarios where the tool would be precious: > > 1. Conversion of personal legacy documents (all the stuff you > wrote before you discovered LyX) 2. Collaboration with colleagues > and students 3. Submission to journals (I don't know of a single > journal in my field and related fields that accepts Latex. They all > want MS Word.) For me, scenarios 2 and 3 are the most important, and 2 would require roundtrip conversion *with preservation of change tracking and comments* would be *very* important! In addition, highlioghting should also be maintained. > > > 1 and 3 are obviously one way (in opposite direction). 2 requires > a Word<-->LyX roundtrip > > I think the most important scenarios are 2 and 3. And obviously 2 > includes 3 and 1, so solving the collaboration scenario would be > optimal. > > Features: > > I think a good starting assumption is that final formatting will > NOT be provided by MS Word. If you (or your team) has to produce > camera-ready output at the end of the collaborative work, LyX is a > much better tool. If you submit to a journal or a press, they will > do the formatting.This means most Word-based typography can be > eliminated. I mean: margins, typefaces, font sizes, etc, with the > exception of different scripts, which are of course crucial > (although with Unicode this problem should be solved now). Only > semantic formatting should be kept: emphasis/italics, sectioning > info, lists, footnotes, etc. Plus all info about pictures and > picture placement, tables (these are not trivial, I guess) and > similar floats, and, mostly for books, indexing information. Agreed here - Section <-> Heading 1 and so on, formating of individual words (referred as semantic formatting) has to be maintained (italics for species names *very* important. > > Preserving tracking info wold also be very useful. See above. > > Cross-referencing would also be important (I have no idea how Word > does it, if at all). Agreed. > > Math, on the other hand, would not be very important. That is: I > assume math would be finally produced by Latex, if camera-ready is > required, or by the publishing house. A rough approximation would > be sufficient (this from a Humanities perspective, of course). Also agreed - could be to image, from whatever source, and the original one could be maintained in a special comment field behind, so that on re-import this could be used? In Word, the LaTeX code could even be edited. > > References would be very very important. Essential I would say. Problem might be to maintain BiBeX. > >> What is the best tool to look at for guidance in creating a new >> script for word2lyx? tex2lyx? > > I would look at Word2Tex, which is proprietary, however. In > general, though, most existing tools try hard to preserve the look > of a document instead of following the approach I recommend, > thereby getting into all sort of complications. There was a very > useful tool for Framemaker <--> LyX conversion that stuck to the > semantic-only approach and worked pretty well (I was a Framemaker > user before moving to LyX). It was very simple and I believe it is > still available: http://pages.cs.brandeis.edu/~pablo/mif2lyx. It is > a Perl script. > > >> Does the script need to support special cases, such as importing >> Word "track changes"? > > See above > >> Just how important do you consider "round-tripping" a document, >> e.g., going from LyX to Word and back to LyX. Very imortant - see above. > > Yes! > >> Is there anyone who might be interested in collaborating on >> this? >> > > I am afraid I cannot help with coding. But I am willing to help in > other ways if needed. Same here - testing, commenting: definitely available. This could become an essential tool to further the adaptation of LyX. Cheers, Rainer > > Cheers, > > Stefano > - -- Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany) Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology Stellenbosch University South Africa Tel : +33 - (0)9 53 10 27 44 Cell: +33 - (0)6 85 62 59 98 Fax : +33 - (0)9 58 10 27 44 Fax (D): +49 - (0)3 21 21 25 22 44 email: [email protected] Skype: RMkrug -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk8qT+oACgkQoYgNqgF2egrKwgCfRbIbNmVHIksjzlvxNPmheIF6 q/IAn3WiOGgBVRGrU+NSgv3Y+QxKEBOY =Zkn6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
