Torsten Wagner <torsten.wagner <at> gmail.com> writes: > > > It's obviously not for everyone; I'm sure some Org users have no need for > > documents in a word processor and steer as far away as possible. Others may > > love it, though, and it could potentially bring more users to Org community. > > Well it becomes particular important if it comes to collaboration with > MS-Office people. I can write my stuff in org and make a LaTeX export > for the final submission, however, I can send co-authors ODT (and by > resaving doc) formats to allow them to make changes and comments to the > manuscript. Great point. On related note, did you see the tweak Jambunathan added a week or so ago to translate "note blocks" in Org into author-attributed comment bubbles in Word/LibreOffice: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/48585
Another benefit I just thought about with to exporting to ODT is the power it gives users to modify document formats. LaTeX is amazing, but it's not something where the average user is going to be able to tweak the output very easily. Word/LibreOffice, on the other hand, allow the average user to tweak formatting fairly easily, either after export by changing styles directly in the document, or (I assume) before export by changing the styles that are used by Jambunathan's exporter. Though I must say the formatting he's using right now seems very good. I particularly like the way section headings have slightly more whitespace above than they do below, makes for nice connection of headings to their text, which if I recall is a touch that's not done as nicely in many LaTeX classes. > > Having the possibility to re-import the ODT-file into org and make a > kind of diff which I simply step through and either agree or disagree > would be perfect. Emacs already has diff functionallity. What would be > needed is a way to re-import the ODT-file in a as much as possible exact > way like it was originally. > The ODF format is open and I wonder whether there is some kind of > metadata tag, which could be used to save the org-mode stuff directly > beside the odt text stuff... this would allow to restore the org-mode > file rather efficiently. That could be sort of a "holy grail" type of workflow, seamless export out and import back in from MS Word. I know Org's exports to other formats are also amazing, but the export to MS Word seems somehow more "magic". I think it's because I'm a relative old-time and still think of Word as being monstrosity from the days of proprietary binary formats. Now with ODT support it's (almost) like making it part of the plain-text crowd. Regards, Herb