Hi All, Thanks John.
Also, you may wish to be aware that we have functionality in the wiki, that allows pdf exporting, which preserves formatting. www.wikieducator.org/WikiPublishing There is talk about exporting to other formats -- and I'll cc this to technical resources in our community for their response. Cheers, - Randy On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 2:47 AM, john stampe <[email protected]> wrote: > I am not sure exactly what your question is, but I will attempt a reply > anyway. > > First, I think you are confused a little with some concepts. > > A text editor is for typing text. It does not directly give you formatting. > The resulting product is simply a text file. MS Word or OpenOffice on the > other hand is a word processor, it can add formatting, tables, etc. The > problem with sharing them is actually in the format used, usually each > program has their own format. OpenOffice has helped by using the > standardized XML format. > > Wiki's and other structured text systems such as LaTeX are another > different thing. Word processor files contain all the formatting hard coded > into them, like a binary file. However, for structured text (wikis) the > files are actually text files with the formatting indictated, like computer > code. The underlying wiki software then turns that code into what you see in > your browser (it slightly more complicated, but I won't go into detail). > > Yes, wikis are not WYSIWYG, but they are simply text formats, not locked in > formats. But there is being developed WYSIWYG editor for wikis right here on > WE, it is being tested on our test site. > > If you understand wiki syntax, then you can actually work on stuff offline. > It is what I normally do as I do not have a permanent internet connection. I > write my stuff offline in a text editor using wiki syntax and then paste it > on to the web when I am connected. Again this is because the wiki page is > simply a text file. (See here for my guide > http://www.wikieducator.org/Help:Editing_using_a_text_editor) > > I am not sure what you mean by rich formatting. Most of the formatting > problem I think you are refering to is a limitation on html not in the wiki. > And as most professional designers will tell you what looks good on a screen > is not what looks good when printed and vice versa. (As the scribus website > http://www.scribus.net says "Graphics used on a website are almost always > unusable for commercial printing".) > > Hope this helps. > John > > http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS > http://johnsearth.blogspot.com > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* 2web3 <[email protected]> > *To:* WikiEducator <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Sat, November 21, 2009 1:36:16 PM > *Subject:* [WikiEducator] Collaborative Document sharing > > > I have a somewhat generic question related to editors in general. I > feel this discomfort with current state of document creation. Let me > explain. > > In the beginning there were just simple text editors. Then they got > more sophisticated, visual, WYSIWYG, culminating with products such as > MS Word and alike. This is all great, but the document is stored in > individual files (silos) and is hard to share and collaborate with a > team. Of course, you can send via e-mail, but then the proliferation > of versions and comments makes this kind of collaboration difficult. > > Then came centralized systems such as SharePoint that allow to store > the documents in one place, lock the document so that only one person > can edit it. However this again is far from perfect: I cannot easily > track the history, who did what, what has really changed. And I still > cannot properly comment on the document. But is better than e-mail. > > Then wikis came along. They made a whole bunch of stuff easy > (versioning with diff, easy access to information, search, permissions > etc). But they lack several important features a modern editor has: > * They are not truly WYSIWYG. Any wiki is light-years behind Word > from editing capabilities. This is a major impediment why wikis are > not widely used in our organization. > * They are not easy to work with in offline mode (when traveling on > a plane) > * They generally rapidly degrade in performance as more users use a > wiki installation > * It is not easy to just send a wiki "document" to somebody, > especially to an external partner, when the wiki is on intranet. It > has to be opened to external users, security policies need to be put > in place etc. E-Mail is just light years easier in this respect. > * Wikis, being web application, poorly support rich formatting that > we've come to expect from a Word doc. I cannot easily take a wiki > "document", print to PDF and send it to external partner - usually the > document will not look professional. And to make it look professional > in wiki will take way more time and resources than just to write it > from scratch in Word. > > So here's my dilemma... Can anybody help me point out to a solution? > Or if you experience the same issue - share your feelings as well, let > me know that I'm not suffering alone. > > > > > > -- Open Education is a sustainable and renewable resource. ________________ Randy Fisher, MA, OMD Senior Consultant & Facilitator, Intersol Group, Canada Senior Consultant, Organization & Business Development International Centre for Open Education / OER Foundation, New Zealand Elected Member, WikiEducator Community Council, www.wikieducator.org +1 613.230.6424 x144 (EST) Skype: wikirandy Twitter: wikirandy * Stakeholder Engagement, Change / Transition Management & Performance * Organization Design & Development * Sustainable Project Implementation & Community-Building * E-Learning, Online Collaboration & Communities of Practice * Coaching & Facilitation * My Bio: http://www.communitybuildingexpert.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. 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