Welcome Kirsten, > Kirsten wrote: >> Anyway, I found my way here. The OOo site says there's something for >> everyone to contribute, but I wonder. Here's what I'm good at: >> Spelling, grammar, and (with review) clarity. That's what I was >> hoping I could help with, since I copy edit complusively anyway. >> >> Is this the place for me? Is there a place for someone who can't >> discuss programs very intelligently? I'm just easily overwhelmed by >> lots of information. > > Kirsten, I can certainly appreciate your frustration at trying to find > anything on the OpenOffice.org website... and the feeling of being > overwhelmed by so muchinformation. Don't think it's just you! I'm glad > you managed to find Documentation eventually. > > So, welcome! Indeed, yes, this is the place for you. Although a lot of > the recent talk on the list has been about technical issues, much is > going on behind the scenes with writing, editing, and reviewing user > guides, how-to's, faqs, and other material mainly aimed at ordinary users.
And I hope we will soon come to a stage where all of this will be much more transparent for everyone. > I have some specific suggestions for things you can work on: > > 1) The draft User Guide (produced by the late Gerry Singleton) needs > serious editing for grammar, clarity, and consistency. Someone else has > offered to recapture the screenshots for consistency, but AFAIK no one > is really working on the words. This is a very large book, so it can be > quite daunting for someone to tackle, but it is broken up into separate > chapter files. Work can be done one chapter at a time -- not quite so bad. Jean, I posted a query for that a while ago. Can you tell me where the sources for Gerry's User Guide are and what its status is? > 2) A slightly different set of user guides is being produced at the > OOoAuthors website (because many of us find it easier to use than the > OOo website for the production of materials). The results of that work > is then posted on the OOo Documentation Project's website. OOoAuthors > has quite a lot of material needing editing and reviewing. It is also in > separate chapters that are then combined into books for the different > components of OOo (Writer, Calc, Impress, etc). > > 3) We are in the process of collecting scattered FAQs into one place > (the wiki), editing them and bringing them up to date. FAQs are small, > bite-sized chunks of information, so some people prefer to start with them. > > In all cases, in addition to copy-editing, the documents do need to be > checked against the software. This is fairly easy (just follow the > instructions and see if it works, or if steps have been missed or don't > make sense, or if the screenshots are out-of-date) but it does take > attention to detail. > > If any of these interest you, let us know and we can give you more > specific instructions on how to get the necessary files, where the style > guides are, and so on -- and answer any other questions you may have. > And if none of the above appeals to you, we've got lots of other things > around that you could help with too. > > So... I hope you will stick around and enjoy working with us. Yes, please stick around and if you feel lost just call out to the list again. We're currently trying to move the project into a more collaborative direction to make it easier to contribute (and benefit). So if, on your journey through doc.oo.o, you have suggestions about how things could be made better, say it out loud here :-) best Frank -- Frank Peters, Co-Lead The OOo Documentation Project: SIGN UP - PARTICIPATE - CONTRIBUTE IT'S FREE! NO OBLIGATIONS! http://documentation.openoffice.org http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
