Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Alan L Tyree]

On 11/03/17 07:32, Samuel Wales wrote:

On 3/10/17, Eric S Fraga  wrote:

I would say Markdown if you are collaborating with someone not familiar
with Emacs. The Pandoc version will do a surprising amount.  Org-mode
for nearly everything else, but if you need more, go on to LaTeX.

Excellent summary.

the pandoc version of ...?  org->markdown->pandoc->word?
The opinion is mine (I don't want Eric embarrassed by my opinions!!). 
The pandoc version of Markdown is what I meant. And I definitely prefer 
org-mode, but the context was one of collaboration with someone who has 
never used Emacs. I had no hope of converting him from Word to 
Emacs/org-mode, but he was happy with Markdown. The text was simply 
enough that none of the complexities that you mention below arose.


Also, on export to Word: my export path actually was org -> LaTeX -> 
LibreOffice. The last step uses a special script that is part of the 
tex4ht (I even got the name wrong before) package: oolatex.


For some reason, the Debian Jessie package does not install oolatex on 
the PATH. On my system it is installed at /usr/share/tex4ht/oolatex.


oolatex will pause periodically, at least on a long manuscript. Restart 
by typing 'x'.


Cheers,
Alan



i think a major feature would be working with internal links.  so
you'd export a subtree, and links to locations in the subtree would be
supported.  does markdown do that?

also, org-export-with-tasks can't be supported by pandoc, because
presumably it doesn't go off and inspect your .emacs, but can it
support the properties drawer equivalent?




--
Alan L Tyreehttp://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel:  04 2748 6206  sip:typh...@iptel.org

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Samuel Wales]

On 3/10/17, Eric S Fraga  wrote:
>> I would say Markdown if you are collaborating with someone not familiar
>> with Emacs. The Pandoc version will do a surprising amount.  Org-mode
>> for nearly everything else, but if you need more, go on to LaTeX.
>
> Excellent summary.

the pandoc version of ...?  org->markdown->pandoc->word?

i think a major feature would be working with internal links.  so
you'd export a subtree, and links to locations in the subtree would be
supported.  does markdown do that?

also, org-export-with-tasks can't be supported by pandoc, because
presumably it doesn't go off and inspect your .emacs, but can it
support the properties drawer equivalent?

-- 
The Kafka Pandemic: 

The disease DOES progress. MANY people have died from it. And ANYBODY
can get it at any time.

The NIH, FDA, and CDC are not there for you.  Not without activism.

"You’ve really gotta quit this and get moving, because this is murder
by neglect." ---
.

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday, 10 Mar 2017 at 16:14, Uwe Brauer wrote:
> Now this is interesting. I have been using LaTeX for the last 20 years
> or even more, always with (X)Emacs + AuCTex. While I see the benefits of
> org mode (especially its excellent table support) I see its deficits (in
> my opinion) when it comes to editing mathematical equations.

I put complex mathematics within #+begin_export latex ... #+end_export
and open these with C-c ' which then puts me in AuCTeX mode so all the
convenience is still there.  Actually, I do this for tikz pictures as
well.

And, by the way, exporting to ODT with latexml conversions of the maths
works reasonably well these days...  although I do look forward to
seeing what John comes up with in ox-rtf!

-- 
Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D)


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Uwe Brauer]

>>> "John" == John Kitchin  writes:

   > It is on Melpa I think:
   > https://melpa.org/#/ox-clip

Right, thanks, works nicely!

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[John Kitchin]

It is on Melpa I think:

https://melpa.org/#/ox-clip

On Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 11:24 AM Uwe Brauer  wrote:

> >>> "John" == John Kitchin  writes:
>
>> Sometimes I just use ox-clip to copy org-mode into word with
> formatting.
>> It works pretty well for simple things.
>
> I looked around for ox-clip. This is not a package available in elpa,
> melpa and friends. I only found https://github.com/jkitchin/scimax
>
> Is this correct? Have you thought of providing it as a melpa package?
>
> I downloaded it from github, but then
>
>  make
>
> returned
>
> cask exec ert-runner
> make: cask: Command not found
> make: *** [test] Error 127
>
> What I am supposed to do now?
>
> Thanks
>
> Uwe
>
-- 
John

---
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Uwe Brauer]

>>> "John" == John Kitchin  writes:

   > Sometimes I just use ox-clip to copy org-mode into word with formatting.
   > It works pretty well for simple things.

I looked around for ox-clip. This is not a package available in elpa,
melpa and friends. I only found https://github.com/jkitchin/scimax

Is this correct? Have you thought of providing it as a melpa package?

I downloaded it from github, but then

 make

returned

cask exec ert-runner
make: cask: Command not found
make: *** [test] Error 127

What I am supposed to do now?

Thanks

Uwe 

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Uwe Brauer]

>>> "John" == John Kitchin  writes:

   > Over the past few years I have looked at pandoc a few times:
   > http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2014/07/17/Pandoc-does-org-mode-now/
   > 
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2015/01/29/Export-org-mode-to-docx-with-citations-via-pandoc/
   > 
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2015/06/11/ox-pandoc-org-mode-+-org-ref-to-docx-with-bibliographies/

   > Of the exports, to Word is still the least well developed (in my opinion
   > of course).

   > Sometimes I just use ox-clip to copy org-mode into word with formatting.
   > It works pretty well for simple things.

That is a good suggestion, I will look into it.

   > I started https://github.com/jkitchin/scimax/blob/master/ox-rtf.el s an
   > alternative path to word. It works kind of minimally, but it does not do
   > everything, and I have not worked on it in a while.


What's with math equations, do you cover those?

   > You might see the first three entries of
   > 
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2014/08/08/What-we-are-using-org-mode-for/
   > which talk about the blog, two large "books" I wrote in org-mode, and a
   > few of the scientific papers we have written in org-mode and converted
   > to Latex then pdf (there are over 15 now I think).


Now this is interesting. I have been using LaTeX for the last 20 years
or even more, always with (X)Emacs + AuCTex. While I see the benefits of
org mode (especially its excellent table support) I see its deficits (in
my opinion) when it comes to editing mathematical equations. Sure I can
use cdlatex, a minor mode, which is very good and I use it even within
auctex. But there are a lot of things cdlatex can not do, nor does it
claim it could. So I am curious to know how you deal with these
structures.





Uwe 

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Saša Janiška]

Alan L Tyree  writes:

> I have also written in rst: it is a slightly richer language out of
> the box with provisions for sidebars, cautions, etc, but unless you
> really need those things, I would stick with org-mode. I find the
> syntax of rst to be very fiddly. Most of the special effects can be
> obtained with css in any case.

Thank you.

> Org-mode for nearly everything else, but if you need more, go on to
> LaTeX.

Thanks a lot! Yeah, I did some books in the past using LyX/LaTeX when I
wanted high-quality output, so that option is always on here…in the
meantime I just want something mroe easy for authoring and it looks that
org-mode is good enough for such purpose…

> This may be more than you wanted to know :-).

Not at all. ;)


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[John Kitchin]

Over the past few years I have looked at pandoc a few times:

http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2014/07/17/Pandoc-does-org-mode-now/
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2015/01/29/Export-org-mode-to-docx-with-citations-via-pandoc/
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2015/06/11/ox-pandoc-org-mode-+-org-ref-to-docx-with-bibliographies/

Of the exports, to Word is still the least well developed (in my opinion
of course).

Sometimes I just use ox-clip to copy org-mode into word with formatting.
It works pretty well for simple things.

I started https://github.com/jkitchin/scimax/blob/master/ox-rtf.el s an
alternative path to word. It works kind of minimally, but it does not do
everything, and I have not worked on it in a while.

You might see the first three entries of
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2014/08/08/What-we-are-using-org-mode-for/
which talk about the blog, two large "books" I wrote in org-mode, and a
few of the scientific papers we have written in org-mode and converted
to Latex then pdf (there are over 15 now I think).

A long time ago I was enamored by rst, and Sphinx documentation in
Python. These days I vastly prefer the simpler, and more functional
org-mode markup. The functionality (links, executable code, flexible
export, etc) could be made to work in rst too (it is emacs after all),
but I find it easier to do it and extend it in org-mode (but that is
mostly my experience with org-mode speaking). I like keeping it all in
emacs, and not switching over to a browser to get access to
documentation. That is certainly a preference of mine, but one that is
so strong I wrote an emacs pydoc module to show python docstrings in
emacs, and started writing those in org-mode so I could have equations,
figures and links in them ;)

I think about org-documents in a fundamentally different way than I
think about Latex/rst/html. My org-documents are simultaneously
narrative functional text and documents that contain human readable,
machine-addressable information, e.g. contacts, bibtex entries,
meetings, etc. that I can use in other documents or applications, while
retaining the capability to export the documents to other formats that
are considerably more limited, but that a publisher might demand.


Uwe Brauer writes:

>> On 10/03/17 09:03, Saša Janiška wrote:
>
>> The only problem that I have had is converting org-mode to Word files
>> as required by my publisher. The ODT export module is fiddly and often
>> chokes on my longer documents. When it does choke, it is hard to trace
>> the problems. Markdown + Pandoc seems much better in this regard, but
>> the outlining features in Emacs do not seem to be as good for the
>> Markdown mode. To get a decent export in my latest manuscript I had to
>> export to LaTeX then use ht4tex. Not a pretty workflow.
>
> I had good experience with pandoc exporting from org mode to docx, but
> maybe your documents are more complex.
>
> Uwe Brauer


--
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Eric S Fraga]

On Thursday,  9 Mar 2017 at 23:27, Alan L Tyree wrote:

[...]

> I would say Markdown if you are collaborating with someone not familiar 
> with Emacs. The Pandoc version will do a surprising amount.  Org-mode 
> for nearly everything else, but if you need more, go on to LaTeX.

Excellent summary.

I've been writing technical articles and funding proposals fully in org
(well, with some LaTeX assist using org export directives) for several
years now.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 26.0.50.1, Org release_9.0.4-242-g2c27b8


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Uwe Brauer]

   > On 10/03/17 09:03, Saša Janiška wrote:

   > The only problem that I have had is converting org-mode to Word files
   > as required by my publisher. The ODT export module is fiddly and often
   > chokes on my longer documents. When it does choke, it is hard to trace
   > the problems. Markdown + Pandoc seems much better in this regard, but
   > the outlining features in Emacs do not seem to be as good for the
   > Markdown mode. To get a decent export in my latest manuscript I had to
   > export to LaTeX then use ht4tex. Not a pretty workflow.

I had good experience with pandoc exporting from org mode to docx, but
maybe your documents are more complex.

Uwe Brauer 

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Alan L Tyree]

Is there any direct way to get the "see 4.6.1" form of reference? I 
doubt it since it clearly requires a double pass of the manuscript, 
first to assign section numbers and labels, then to put in the 
appropriate reference. LaTeX does that. 


To answer my own question: Don't have any text in the cross reference: 
RTFM section 4.2 Internal Links.


Is there a customisation that allows a regular type link which I like in 
HTML export, but a simple section number when called for a printed output?






--
Alan L Tyreehttp://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel:  04 2748 6206  sip:typh...@iptel.org

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Alan L Tyree]

On 10/03/17 11:17, Samuel Wales wrote:

On 3/9/17, Alan L Tyree  wrote:

The only problem that I have had is converting org-mode to Word files as
required by my publisher. The ODT export module is fiddly and often
chokes on my longer documents. When it does choke, it is hard to trace
the problems. Markdown + Pandoc seems much better in this regard, but
the outlining features in Emacs do not seem to be as good for the
Markdown mode. To get a decent export in my latest manuscript I had to
export to LaTeX then use ht4tex. Not a pretty workflow.

your answer seems very helpful.  not sure what you mean in this par though.

just to clarify:

are you referring to exporting to word from org-mode?
Yes, my publisher demands Word manuscripts (I don't know why -- they 
immediately use some other publishing software).

   - odt [is that word format?]

LibreOffice, but LibreOffice exports nicely to Word.

   - org -> markdown -> pandoc [presumably word]
Or even org -> Word using pandoc; the result was a bit of a mess though 
whether going via markdown or directly. Actually two problems:


  - Lots of html markup in the result; noting the earlier posts in 
this thread, that might have been overcome;


  - Internal references were links where the text of the link was 
the text of the target section; what I wanted was the link text to be 
the section number. In other words, the result was "see Holder in Due 
Course" instead of "see 4.6.1". The links were correct in each case, but 
the descriptive text was different.


  - org -> latex -> ht4tex [= word?]

No, I was wrong about that. ht4tex converted to HTML (but with the right 
form of cross reference) and then pandoc to word. The end result had the 
cross references in the form I wanted.


Is there any direct way to get the "see 4.6.1" form of reference? I 
doubt it since it clearly requires a double pass of the manuscript, 
first to assign section numbers and labels, then to put in the 
appropriate reference. LaTeX does that.

i was wondering, too, what format would be good to export to for a
nontechnical reader, from org, and can preserve org's external
hyperlinks and numbered outline structure.
The LibreOffice export is good when it works. I have just found it to be 
hit and miss. If the 'non-technical' reader can handle plain text, I 
would just send them Markdown, otherwise I guess you need to go for Word 
or RTF. It is a painful process.



to the original poster: org can also insert literal target format
code.  for example, you can put literal html code into your export as
needed.  dunno if that fits your needs.




--
Alan L Tyreehttp://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel:  04 2748 6206  sip:typh...@iptel.org

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Samuel Wales]

On 3/9/17, Alan L Tyree  wrote:
> The only problem that I have had is converting org-mode to Word files as
> required by my publisher. The ODT export module is fiddly and often
> chokes on my longer documents. When it does choke, it is hard to trace
> the problems. Markdown + Pandoc seems much better in this regard, but
> the outlining features in Emacs do not seem to be as good for the
> Markdown mode. To get a decent export in my latest manuscript I had to
> export to LaTeX then use ht4tex. Not a pretty workflow.

your answer seems very helpful.  not sure what you mean in this par though.

just to clarify:

are you referring to exporting to word from org-mode?

  - odt [is that word format?]
  - org -> markdown -> pandoc [presumably word]
  - org -> latex -> ht4tex [= word?]

i was wondering, too, what format would be good to export to for a
nontechnical reader, from org, and can preserve org's external
hyperlinks and numbered outline structure.

to the original poster: org can also insert literal target format
code.  for example, you can put literal html code into your export as
needed.  dunno if that fits your needs.

-- 
The Kafka Pandemic: 

The disease DOES progress. MANY people have died from it. And ANYBODY
can get it at any time.

The NIH, FDA, and CDC are not there for you.  Not without activism.

"You’ve really gotta quit this and get moving, because this is murder
by neglect." ---
.

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Alan L Tyree]

On 10/03/17 09:03, Saša Janiška wrote:

John Kitchin  writes:


Could you be more specific about what kind of richness you are looking
for?

In a general sense…iow, it’s a fact that rst markup is richer than
e.g. Markdown. Probably, Asciidoc(tor) also provides more semantic
richness and make it suitable markup for longer docs/books, so I wonder
where one can put org-mode’s markup on this scale?


Sincerely,
Gour

I write legal textbooks (up to 600 printed pages) using org-mode. They 
are structurally simple (no sidebars, no illustrations, no computer 
code). On the other hand, they have lots of citations and internal cross 
references.  Org-mode is the best for this kind of work because of the 
flexible outline structure, not just collapsing and expanding, but the 
"hoisting" facility that allows me to focus on smaller sections. The 
org-ref module does its work, and the internal cross referencing is the 
best.


I recently assisted a friend to put together a memoir that he wanted to 
publish as ePub and print. It had lots of pictures. He had originally 
typed it in Word and it was a nightmare. Images would not stay put, even 
the typeface would change. The on-line publishers like Lulu rejected it. 
We reformatted in in Pandoc Markdown and produced a very nice result. I 
would have preferred org-mode, but he had never been near Emacs. We got 
good ePub, xhtml and print from a single manuscript.


I have also written in rst: it is a slightly richer language out of the 
box with provisions for sidebars, cautions, etc, but unless you really 
need those things, I would stick with org-mode. I find the syntax of rst 
to be very fiddly. Most of the special effects can be obtained with css 
in any case.


The only problem that I have had is converting org-mode to Word files as 
required by my publisher. The ODT export module is fiddly and often 
chokes on my longer documents. When it does choke, it is hard to trace 
the problems. Markdown + Pandoc seems much better in this regard, but 
the outlining features in Emacs do not seem to be as good for the 
Markdown mode. To get a decent export in my latest manuscript I had to 
export to LaTeX then use ht4tex. Not a pretty workflow.


I would say Markdown if you are collaborating with someone not familiar 
with Emacs. The Pandoc version will do a surprising amount.  Org-mode 
for nearly everything else, but if you need more, go on to LaTeX.


This may be more than you wanted to know :-).

Regards,
Alan


--
Alan L Tyreehttp://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel:  04 2748 6206  sip:typh...@iptel.org

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Saša Janiška]

John Kitchin  writes:

> Could you be more specific about what kind of richness you are looking
> for?

In a general sense…iow, it’s a fact that rst markup is richer than
e.g. Markdown. Probably, Asciidoc(tor) also provides more semantic
richness and make it suitable markup for longer docs/books, so I wonder
where one can put org-mode’s markup on this scale?


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you
are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider
yourself the cause of the results of your activities,
and never be attached to not doing your duty.

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Uwe Brauer]

>>> "John" == John Kitchin  writes:

   > org does not deal with javascript or css for me. Those are defined by
   > the static blog engine (blogofile in this case).

   > I wrote some posts quite a while ago on the setup here:
   > 
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2013/09/27/Installing-and-configuring-blogofile/
   > 
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2013/09/27/Publishing-to-blogofile-using-org-mode/

Thanks for the clarification and the links.

Uwe 

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[John Kitchin]

org does not deal with javascript or css for me. Those are defined by
the static blog engine (blogofile in this case).

I wrote some posts quite a while ago on the setup here:
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2013/09/27/Installing-and-configuring-blogofile/
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu/blog/2013/09/27/Publishing-to-blogofile-using-org-mode/

If I was starting from scratch I would do something similar, but might
go more for Nikola, Pelican, or maybe one of the org-emacs solutions
that are around.

Uwe Brauer writes:

 "John" == John Kitchin  writes:
>
>> Could you be more specific about what kind of richness you are looking
>> for? Many people blog from org-mode, including myself. I use org-mode to
>> generate html that is rendered with blogofile
>> (http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu) but others do many other variations.
>
> Hi John
>
> I just had a look[1], that page contains java script and css, how does org
> deal with those?
>
> Uwe
>
> Footnotes:
> [1]  because I might be interested in doing something similar.


--
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Uwe Brauer]

>>> "John" == John Kitchin  writes:

   > Could you be more specific about what kind of richness you are looking
   > for? Many people blog from org-mode, including myself. I use org-mode to
   > generate html that is rendered with blogofile
   > (http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu) but others do many other variations.

Hi John

I just had a look[1], that page contains java script and css, how does org
deal with those?

Uwe 

Footnotes: 
[1]  because I might be interested in doing something similar.

Re: [O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[John Kitchin]

Could you be more specific about what kind of richness you are looking
for? Many people blog from org-mode, including myself. I use org-mode to
generate html that is rendered with blogofile
(http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu) but others do many other variations.

Personally, org-mode meets all my markup needs and exceeds what is
possible for me in rst, e.g. in rst I do not get to run code blocks,
collapse outlines, etc. (at least out of the box with rst mode).

Saša Janiška writes:

> Hello,
>
> I’m using org-mode for my task management and it works great…moving to
> static-site-generators which do support writing web-content/blog-posts
> using both org-mode and rst markup, so consider how does org-mode markup
> compare in comparison with the richness of rst markup when it comes to
> the general content (blog posts, articles etc.)?
>
> Anyone sufficiently familiar with both can help and shed some light,
> since, both markups have decent support withing Emacs itself?
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Gour


--
Professor John Kitchin
Doherty Hall A207F
Department of Chemical Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-268-7803
@johnkitchin
http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu

[O] org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Saša Janiška]

Hello,

I’m using org-mode for my task management and it works great…moving to
static-site-generators which do support writing web-content/blog-posts
using both org-mode and rst markup, so consider how does org-mode markup
compare in comparison with the richness of rst markup when it comes to
the general content (blog posts, articles etc.)?

Anyone sufficiently familiar with both can help and shed some light,
since, both markups have decent support withing Emacs itself?


Sincerely,
Gour


-- 
Perform your prescribed duty, for doing so is better than not
working. One cannot even maintain one's physical body without work.