Linux Word Processors

[Matthew Miller]

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 at mattdm.org        <http://www.mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux      ------>                <http://linux.bu.edu/>