Re: ntg-context digest, Vol 1 #581 - 7 msgs

Re: ntg-context digest, Vol 1 #581 - 7 msgs

[Christopher G. D. Tipper]

> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 01:27:34 +0100
> From: Giuseppe Bilotta <gip.bilotta@iol.it>
> To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
> Subject: Re[2]: [NTG-context] ConTeXt Switcher?
> Reply-To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
>
> Not that I see the purpose of using Word in the frist place.
> Any decent editor has enough macro power to do the same.
>
> -- 
> Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

You missed the point. You markup and style your document using Word
stylesheets, and then XML is a matter of search and replace. A hold load
better than a lame text-editor. If Word hadn't got such a stupid macro
installation technology (templates have never been promoted properly by
Micor$oft) this would be routine stuff. It would probably be a pain to
automatically markup tables, and handling image properties is something I
haven't investigated, but as a 50% solution it works for me. As for TOCs and
bibliographies, use Context. btw exactly the same technique works for
generating LaTeX commands. Context is just so much more elegant.

Christopher

Re: Re: ntg-context digest, Vol 1 #581 - 7 msgs

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Wednesday, December 10, 2003 Christopher G. D. Tipper wrote:

> You missed the point. You markup and style your document using Word
> stylesheets, and then XML is a matter of search and replace. A hold load
> better than a lame text-editor.

Ok, I see what you mean now. In this case OOo is even better,
then :)

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: ConTeXt Switcher?

[Christopher G. D. Tipper]

> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 01:27:34 +0100
> From: Giuseppe Bilotta <gip.bilotta@iol.it>
> To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
> Subject: Re[2]: [NTG-context] ConTeXt Switcher?
> Reply-To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
>
> Not that I see the purpose of using Word in the frist place.
> Any decent editor has enough macro power to do the same.
>
> -- 
> Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

You missed the point. You markup and style your document using Word
styles, and then XML is a matter of search and replace. I am not interested
in Word per se, but I find using emacs to insert markup during document
creation gets in the way of my thought processes. This way I can push markup
worries to the editorial stage.

People are fond of pointing out Words vices, and I wouldn't quibble with
arguments about its stability, but it is about time OpenOffice and its ilk
stopped resting on their laurels and started implementing some macro
capability. I notice that AbiWord has a DocBook output format, but how well
integrated this is I don't know.

On Micro$oft's part if they had some real competition a real market in
third-party templates might arrive. As it stands I have a 50% solution that
handles footnotes and lists, but re-distribution is hampered by the way Word
handles its templates and virus worries. Theoretically I could do tables and
limited image markup using the same techniques. Leveraging the visual layout
tools of a word-processor makes so much sense I wonder at the mentality of
people still struggling with text-editors. I have emacs set up on my
machine, but it really looks like back to the future from my point of view.
I use WinEdt when I'm booted into Windows.

btw you can use the same technique to generate native Context markup. It
needs hand-editting, but as a rough draft, this works fine for me, and I
don't have to re-invent the wheel every time I have a new document.

Christopher

Re: Re: ConTeXt Switcher?

[Bob Kerstetter]

Hi Christopher,

On Dec 11, 2003, at 11:16 AM, Christopher G. D. Tipper wrote:

>> Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 01:27:34 +0100
>> From: Giuseppe Bilotta <gip.bilotta@iol.it>
>> To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
>> Subject: Re[2]: [NTG-context] ConTeXt Switcher?
>> Reply-To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
>>
>> Not that I see the purpose of using Word in the frist place.
>> Any decent editor has enough macro power to do the same.
>>
>> -- 
>> Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta
>
> You missed the point. You markup and style your document using Word
> styles, and then XML is a matter of search and replace. I am not 
> interested
> in Word per se, but I find using emacs to insert markup during document
> creation gets in the way of my thought processes. This way I can push 
> markup
> worries to the editorial stage.
>
> People are fond of pointing out Words vices, and I wouldn't quibble 
> with
> arguments about its stability, but it is about time OpenOffice and its 
> ilk
> stopped resting on their laurels and started implementing some macro
> capability. I notice that AbiWord has a DocBook output format, but how 
> well
> integrated this is I don't know.
>
> On Micro$oft's part if they had some real competition a real market in
> third-party templates might arrive. As it stands I have a 50% solution 
> that
> handles footnotes and lists, but re-distribution is hampered by the 
> way Word
> handles its templates and virus worries. Theoretically I could do 
> tables and
> limited image markup using the same techniques. Leveraging the visual 
> layout
> tools of a word-processor makes so much sense I wonder at the 
> mentality of
> people still struggling with text-editors. I have emacs set up on my
> machine, but it really looks like back to the future from my point of 
> view.
> I use WinEdt when I'm booted into Windows.
>
> btw you can use the same technique to generate native Context markup. 
> It
> needs hand-editting, but as a rough draft, this works fine for me, and 
> I
> don't have to re-invent the wheel every time I have a new document.
>

You're point is well taken. I once wrote a complete Windows Help system 
generator using Word Basic macros and nothing else. If fed correctly 
structured documents, the macros would mark up all topics for display, 
page browsing, cross references, context sensitivity and indexes. It 
would then call the compiler. It took about 40 minutes to markup and 
compile a help system equivalent to 400 pages of text, graphics and 
all, on 1993-era Windows machines. The macros could also clean the 
files and start over if major changes were needed in the text. It was a 
freebie and efficient alternative to RoboHelp.

I have just lost too much work to Word-corrupt files and Word-crashed 
systems to continue with MS. TeXShop (Mac OS X) has never crashed or 
hung in 15 months of use. The files have never become corrupt. I am 
looking at Nisus, or perhaps the OS X native TextEdit, as visual 
editors for the reasons you applaud Word. They both write rtf natively. 
I'm also looking at TeX4ht with ConTeXt. For now, TeXShop, LaTeX and 
TeX4ht are more flexible and stable than Word. We'll see. :)

Take care.

BK