Re: [tlug] Poll: OpenOffice or LibreOffice?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Benjamin Tayehanpour writes:

 > But text documents? Aren't they usually started by one person,
 > finished by the same person, and then passed on *as a final
 > product* to, well, whomever?

Obviously you've not worked with a coauthor on an academic paper, or a
policy committee (it's the latter that are the bane of my life, forms
generated by real bureaucrats are just a PITA).

For practical purposes all of the documents I use Word for are either
such committee documents or bureaucratic forms:

 > Sure, I suppose filling forms is an exception. But that's what PDF
 > form elements are for. If you fill a form by editing the form
 > itself, you're doing it wrong[1]. You make the form, export it as a
 > fillable PDF, and then pass it on.

What software do you suggest for filling in PDFs?  I have enough
trouble finding a viewer for Linux that doesn't want nepomuk and the
rest of the Semantic Desktop, or 4.5GB of GNOME libraries.  Are any of
the standlones ones capable of handling fill-in PDFs?  Are any viewers
at all capable of DTRTing with multiline text boxes that accept up to
500 Japanese characters?[1]

This makes a lot more sense as a web app to me (Monkeyshow's brain-
damaged implementations notwithstanding).  PDF forms really don't make
sense to me (except maybe to Adobe stockholders): PDF is such a
limited, opaque format.

 > I suppose another exception would be when one person is doing the
 > logorrhœa, another is doing the proofreading, and a third is doing
 > the design and formatting. But then I don't see why anyone but the
 > third person would have a need to use a word processor[2], as the
 > first and second person aren't concerned with anything but the text
 > itself. A simple text editor would suit them.

Mathematics.  Diagrams.  In-progress tables (OLE spreadsheets can be
convenient).

For all these purposes I'd prefer working in LaTeX, even with complete
LaTeX novices, but they tend to want to use Word as the editor. :-(


Footnotes: 
[1]  Preview is one of the Mac apps I would really rather not give up.