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Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] Tools for DocBook authoring by non-hackers


On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 08:07:30AM +0000, W. Borgert wrote:

> In the company, we are using XXE (XMLmind XML editor) under Windows
> XP and NT.  It is a Java application that runs also under Linux
> (Debian) w/o problems.  Most people were using MS-Word and
> QuickSilver before and were able to use XXE.  Of course, working
> with highly structured, semantic formats such as DocBook/XML is
> totally different from working with unstructered chaos, like word
> processors.  People have to learn the difference first, otherwise
> they may get frustrated.

Thanks.  I'll take a look at XXE.

> > I have an upcoming Word->DocBook conversion project in which one
> > of
> 
> I don't believe, that Word->DocBook or OpenOffice->DocBook will ever
> work.  Please prove me wrong.

It's not so much the format conversion I am worried about.  The input
will not be using any significantly complex features of Word.  I have
used Majix in the past with reasonable success.  (I think I noticed
some negative comments about Majix on this list recently, so I guess
other people's mileage has varied.)  Anyway, it only needs to be done
once, as the plan is to abandon Word in favour of XML.  Further
authoring will hopefully be in DocBook.  It's the spiritual conversion
that worries me.  I'm beginning to suspect that the requirement that
authoring be performed by general office-type staff is going to be
unachievable.  These are not technical people who will pick up on the
ideas as they go---it's a government department, and essentially a
Microsoft shop.

> > the requirements will almost certainly be that my involvement is a
> > one-off, and I will need to leave an environment (probably just on
> > a single machine) where new documents can be authored, and the
> > various output formats can be generated, by office staff whose
> > computing skills are probably limited to Microsoft applications.
> > Training will
> 
> That's the way we do it, too.  People edit their DocBook/XML
> documents with XXE under Windows or Linux or they use Emacs+nxml or
> Emacs+psgml or whatever they like.  Transforming to CHM or HTML or
> PDF happens on a dedicated server.  We are not using FO, so I cannot
> answer about that.

What I'm envisaging is (possibly hugely) customising the interface
(which looks feasible from my brief browse at xmlmind.com) to present
a very non-scary subset of DocBook which the non-technical authors can
use to add content to some pre-existing template documents.

Am I dreaming?


-- 
Paul.

mailto:paulh@logicsquad.net
mailto:phoadley@maths.adelaide.edu.au


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