Quoting Jean Hollis Weber <[email protected]>:
Dave Stevens wrote:
Hi Jean,
Thanks for this and for lots of hard work.
I recently had a project to do (or to contract out, actually, but
it was my project) that involved a mail merge. I wanted to use
OpenOffice, planning to publish not only the merged document but
also a detailed description of the whole process so that the little
non-governmental organizations I work with could duplicate or
update the doc as they see fit and at no cost. At first I didn't
realize how to go about the job and was trying to use the Writer
Guide for OO v.2 with the OO v.3 program. A certain amount of grief
ensued until I was able to get advice about where to find the v.3
docs. Then everything went much better.
So I thought about what I might be able to to contribute something
back. In the past on another project a lot of documentation for a
project (mifluz) was being written in English by people who were
not native English speakers. So for a while I proofread these docs
to recast some statements in English idiom and
try to correct spelling and grammatical errors.
Perhaps it would be of value to make an offer to do this here? I
already proofread a magazine published by some friends of mine,
perhaps I could for this project too? What do you think? And who
should I be talking to?
I'm one of the people to talk to, because I try to coordinate the
work on the user guides. Numerous people have offered to help with
proofreading, but few have actually done anything, so you're
certainly very welcome to contribute!
Most of the user guide chapters have been worked on extensively over
the years and therefore are in fairly good shape in terms of English
expression, but a few can use some revision into plainer English or
a more how-to style.
This work is done on ODT files through the OOoAuthors website. I am
updating the list of files on our GoogleDocs spreadsheet to show
what level of work each chapter needs (updating to latest version of
OOo, technical review, serious editing, minor editing, indexing,
updating figures, etc.), but when you start reading anything on the
Review List, it's usually obvious what that chapter needs.
Unfortunately, the OOoAuthors website is down at the moment, but I
can send you a file directly if you wanted something to get started
on.
OK, why not send me one, I'm most familiar with writer so that would
make sense. It is useful for me to have some kind of clear expectation
about when you want to see what I have done and where I send the
reviewed material, etc.
Dave
BTW, the Google spreadsheet is here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Asjap9kyrWy_cEpMNl84S3NpVElHTUNDaWZkNlB6V2c&hl=en
In addition, there are many other pages on the Documentation wiki
that are not in the user guides but can definitely use some help
from someone familiar with improving English expression. The problem
for new members is how to distinguish between pages that are up to
date and accurate (but need improvements to wording or organisation)
and those that are out of date or incomplete and so need other work
before (or while) proofing. If you want to work on any of those
docs, it's probably best to ask first, preferably on the
[email protected] list (you need to subscribe first).
--Jean
Jean Hollis Weber
Co-Lead, OOo Documentation
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