Jonathon Coombes wrote: > > Maybe you could give some details as to the problems you have > experienced? Did you file a bug report or feature request to get > improvements into OOo?
Here is one thing I couldn't easily find: to number only a few equations in a series of equations (like in a derivation). Also, cross-referencing an equations could be more easy (creating a equations variable in the Insert-Fields... dialog itself is a bit convoluted process), and the dialog to insert a cross-reference to equation needs cleaning up (the equation numbers are listed in a weird way, "..(3" for example). > >> As far as technical writing is concerned, the bibliography feature sucks >> big time. Without this feature working intuitively and conveniently, OOo >> will not be adopted by the technical writing community. > > How do you define "working intuitively and conveniently"? Will your > definition also be applicable for say a doctor doing research using > OOo's bibliography? Does the technical writing community see the > bibliography tool in OOo as the biggest hurdle or is there some other > reason? How does the tool "suck" and can you describe your needs in a > more technical manner so that maybe some help could be offered? I define "working intuitively and conveniently" in working with bibliography context as allowing the user to work with citations and references without too much hassle coming from other word processors used to any other bibliography software. I did not mean that OOo uses a new terminology in this context. Only that creating a database and then using it is not straightforward but could be. And it should help all people who works with bibliography irrespective of their fields. Now, IMHO, if I cannot get bibliography up and working without problems, how can I use it to prepare a technical document? Please understand that even if OOo makes huge improvements in other respects (Outline Mode and grammar checker comes to mind), it will be of little consequence if a document cannot be completed. Missing a robust bibliography feature will then definitely be a biggest hurdle, and talking to a few of my friends around in the univ. tells this is actually so. Just do a little google search about bibliography and OOo, web pages describing it as primitive are quite common! Well, I did use the word 'suck' for a good reason :) Last night it appeared that my citations were not working as I had expected. I was citing a www document, and looking at the Type field in Bib. Databases of OOo, it looked as if the type was not the correct one being displayed in the document. I couldn't find the problem, I just deleted all the references from the document, all bib. items from the database and redid adding all those items again in the database and then in the document. This time the problem went away. Now, the bibliography had started out as okay, but it appears that the database got corrupted along the way. But redoing the whole database is just not acceptable. If a person is writing an important paper and encountered this scanario, trust me, s/he is going to just paste the whole document in MS Word or LaTeX and continue there. The other problem is in the way the list of references are formatted in the document (the index is included usually at the end of a document). It took me quite a while to see how to number this list and I still cannot get to work as I desire. It was not straightforward at all to get the numbering done (for Bibliography 1 style). Also, there appears to be no method to configure how the citations appears within the document. For example, some papers require multiple citations with a range bunched together, e.g. [3-10]. Then there appears to be 50 character limit in a hyperlink in www document bibliography item. What's up that? Finally, I think it took me longer to figure out to anything our of the bibliography database than to figure out to work with table of contents, numbered and un-numbered formulae, footnotes, and a host of other stuff in OOo. And I am no stranger to document preparation! I have tried on some basic things a bibliography software is supposed to do. I am yet to delve in to multiple bibliography (yes, there are situations where they are required). Also, there appears to be no hyper linking between the bibliography and citations. >> I hope that this features is being worked on in the newer features. Any >> news how it is coming along? > > There are a number of different methods that allow OOo to be extended or > improved. One such way is via plugins. Have you seen the Zotero tool and > the plugin that provides intergration into OOo, as well as many other > useful packages and Internet sites? I would recommend trying this out > and see if that is more to your needs. > > http://www.zotero.org/documentation/plugins I took a look at this after I sent my first post on this topic. I haven't had time to try it out yet. > >> On the other hand, if this features is of low priority, then I will have >> to conclude that OOo is not for serious technical report and paper >> writing in its present shape. > > Low priority for who?! It is of limited use to somebody who does It is quit easy to make that out from the context of my post: to students, professors and researches in academia, for example. To all technical writers. To all writers who have to write any document with bibliography. To research writers in *all* fields, from ancient history to modern computer scientists. > computer programming, maybe of some importance to secretarial workers > and it seems to be of major importance to technical writers. The > features however are rated and developed based on the needs of all users > and this feature may take back seat to something more important such as > database reporting or integrating draw capabilities better with Writer, > for example. Yes, I see your point. I was actually afraid this was the cause. Since I wrote the first post on this topic, I have realized if the outline mode has been ignored (which is a *hugely* popular feature request) the way it has been, getting a huge improvement in the bibliography part would of course be a wishful thinking :) Please understand that I am not dissing OOo. I am just laying out the problems it has in its present state so that others may read these posts and also be aware and perhaps contribute in their own way. Also, since posting the first post on this, I have discovered: http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/ So it appears that work is underway to imprive this but perhaps it will be fruitful in a year or so. Plus, there appears to be Bibus and Zotero, which you mentioned already. Regards. > > Regards > Jonathon --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
