On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 02:53:11PM -0500, Ryan D'Baisse wrote: > 2. It must be able to import to, and export from, Microsoft Word > format without any difficulties; and, You'll need to define "any difficulties" more specifically. This task is so close to literally impossible that for all practical purposes it _is_ impossible. However heroic the reverse engineering jobs done by many of the open source programs in existence, there's still going to be some rough edges. It'd be _nice_ if Microsoft used a totally open document format, but it'd be nice if Microsoft did a lot of things. > 3. It must have strong formatting abilities. For example, when I > mentioned "intelligent bulleting," I was referring to the ability to > hit <TAB> and have the editor indent a paragraph and renumber the > paragraph with the next appropriate hierarchy (i.e., I, A, 1, i, a, > etc.). OpenOffice and StarOffice attempt to do this, but they fail > after the second level. I think your definition of terms is a little off here. This isn't "strong", or "intelligent" -- it's just what you're used to. That said, OpenOffice does _exactly_ this, without any "failing" that I can detect. > Simply put, I need something where I can compose a professional > document, with as much ease as possible, and then hand that file to a > printer for mass publication without any retooling of the document to > make it pretty. I want to be able to write, and have the editor > handle formatting correctly and cosmetically, so my concentration can > remain on the subject matter. Pardon me for saying so, but this sounds at least one step down from "professional". At that level, you generally have a _professional_ person whose _job_ is formatting the document -- ideally _without_ any "retooling", because the logical description of the content is properly separated from its appearance -- that way, you can _totally_ concentrate on the subject matter. This is a huge advantage of something like LyX, which bills itself as a WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You *Mean*) document processor. And you don't have to learn LaTeX. -- Matthew Miller mattdm@xxxxxxxxxx <http://www.mattdm.org/> Boston University Linux ------> <http://linux.bu.edu/>
