On Mon, 2008-08-25 at 02:37 -0400, H.S. wrote: > Hello, > > I am writing a technical report using Ooo 2.4.1 on Debian Linux. It is > an experiment to see how OOo performs for an engineering report or paper > writing.
Sounds like an interesting project. > In my experience, OOo has most of the features covered as far as text > body, headings and lists are concerned. Figure and table captions have > still somethings to be desired for but they work for most purposes. > Export to PDF is good, but hyperlinking in the produced PDF is not up to > the mark. Equations and math are also coming along great, though they do > not compare with LaTeX yet. Maybe you could give some details as to the problems you have experienced? Did you file a bug report or feature request to get improvements into OOo? > As far as technical writing is concerned, the bibliography feature sucks > big time. Without this feature working intuitively and conveniently, OOo > will not be adopted by the technical writing community. How do you define "working intuitively and conveniently"? Will your definition also be applicable for say a doctor doing research using OOo's bibliography? Does the technical writing community see the bibliography tool in OOo as the biggest hurdle or is there some other reason? How does the tool "suck" and can you describe your needs in a more technical manner so that maybe some help could be offered? > I hope that this features is being worked on in the newer features. Any > news how it is coming along? There are a number of different methods that allow OOo to be extended or improved. One such way is via plugins. Have you seen the Zotero tool and the plugin that provides intergration into OOo, as well as many other useful packages and Internet sites? I would recommend trying this out and see if that is more to your needs. http://www.zotero.org/documentation/plugins > On the other hand, if this features is of low priority, then I will have > to conclude that OOo is not for serious technical report and paper > writing in its present shape. Low priority for who?! It is of limited use to somebody who does computer programming, maybe of some importance to secretarial workers and it seems to be of major importance to technical writers. The features however are rated and developed based on the needs of all users and this feature may take back seat to something more important such as database reporting or integrating draw capabilities better with Writer, for example. Regards Jonathon --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
