On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 09:36 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Ross, > > Thank you for your help. > > I'm a little confused, though. Do you mean that XML/HTML is the > *only* way to change text options when outputting to an OO file from a > program?
You wanted simple text formatting options and HTML is the simplest format (of many) that OOo can read that will give you that. > HTML , with variable-length tags and many deprecated options, is a really > messy option for documents generated by a program. I realize I am not running > a > mainstream application :-) but it's not a difficult concept. For an > open-source product, it seems awfully difficult to get this very basic info > on OO. For simple text formatting it should be easy enough to keep to standard HTML and avoid deprecated or non-standard HTML tags. After all, what you originally described was VERY simple formatting options. > And if XML is used, why not allow CSS coding too, and make OO really > flexible and current? It is very definitely flexible and current. OOo's native document format is the OpenDocument standard, which is an XML based format. The specification is 700 pages of dense reading (not that I've read it) and you can get it at http://www.oasis-open.org/specs/index.php#opendocumentv1.0 But this certainly isn't what you want. > Among other things, two-sided tags were (sometimes) not carried over > to the next line in the test document. This will be a production application, > so I can't afford a flaky implementation, even if the flakiness might be > caused by user error. I don't know how your application is intended to be used - only that it's going to output text with some simple formatting. I had assumed that it would be able to ensure properly formatted HTML. > I am using OO because I don't want to use Word if I can avoid it. Can Word do what you want to do? What format would you use there? > I > don't own or know Postscript, and I have a deadline, so I don't want to learn > PS, or XML, or any other package just to format text. Ok, lets forget the extra packages. But whatever your application produces has to be something already known. Hence everyone so far has suggested HTML. > Best, > Carl > > > > Is there some reason you particularly want to use OpenOffice for this? > > > > If all you want is to generate PDF from text, and you have Windows > > versions of these tools: > > > > groff: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/groff.htm > > ghostscript: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ > > > > then you can convert text with simple formatting information directly > > into PDF. > > > > Groff outputs Postscript, which ghostscript can convert to PDF. > > > > These have been around for years, so there are probably much better > > options around now. > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
