Web Kracked [mailto:webmas...@krackedpress.com] replied to Michelle, who had replied to me:
> Michele Zarri wrote: > > > > > OOo on the other hand is not meant to replace professional desktop > > publishing applications so there is a bit of compromising to accept. > > I'd like somebody knowledgeable to state what the "compromise" is, and why it's necessary, programmatically. > The only "professional"/dedicated type of desktop publishing > software that I know about that is also open source, i.e. free, > is Scribus - http://www.scribus.net/ > > According to their web site Scribus 1.3.5.1 was released > August 11th and Windows updated November 6th. I have not > tried it for a few years, since my "clients" require me to > use PageMaker or InDesign. I stuck with PageMaker 7 since the > newer Adobe products "require/steal" over a gig of drive space > for its program/installed files. > > There always has been documentation troubles with Scribus, > or so I understand, but it was designed to do desktop > publishing, while OOo was not. Neither was MS Word, but > that does not stop them from implying they can do it "well > enough" to not need Adobe's products for your business needs. For professional documentation writing, the weapon of choice has been FrameMaker. I don't know if InDesign has caught up, but the first few iterations were lacking in the structured, long-document, and cross-reference areas, among others. Same for any other page-layout tool. "Desktop publishing" is all very fine until you need to make substantive changes and updates to a 500-page document that's bursting at the seams with cross-references, conditional text and graphics, and other sorts of stuff that DTP programs either don't know or don't do well. Besides, DTP is for fine typographical and graphic control. Look and feel. What I want from my writing tool is pretty basic: - ability to place graphic thingies in the background (like watermarks and page backgrounds) such that they don't interfere in any way with ongoing editing and writing. - ability to place graphic thingies in the foreground (like illustrations and screen-caps and icons for notices and warnings), such that they stay with the text that needs 'em, regardless how that text gets pushed around the document. Graphic thingies should not place themselves arbitrarily, just because something has moved nearby. They should not arbitrarily decide to begin overlapping other graphic items or overlapping table cells or overlapping page text margins (when they're anchored to paragraphs or characters within the text). It shouldn't matter to any of this whether the document was originated in OOo, or whether it came from (say) Word. The rules for handling attached/embedded graphic items should be consistent. If Microsoft has done something ambiguous or silly - or allowed it to be done - in a Word document, then OOo does not need to be silly or ambiguous when importing such a document. If there is any question, then present the problem to the user in a dialog "We just encountered this situation while importing this document and this particular picture. How do you wish to handle it?" "Same for all similar pictures/drawings that we encounter during this import?" We are, after all, at version 3.x.x of OOo. And we're not talking about version 3.x "from scratch". It's not like word processors and junior DTP haven't been around for a couple of decades (and then some), so OOo began with a head start in the way of knowledge about what needs to be done and how it can/should be done. - KevinThe information contained in this electronic mail transmission may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected from disclosure. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your computer without copying or disclosing it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.org
