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

["W. Borgert" <debacle@debian.org>]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 06:22:29PM +1030, Paul A. Hoadley wrote:
> I am interested to know what (Microsoft Windows-based) tools people
> are using to allow non-hackers to author DocBook documents.  (By
> non-hackers, I mean people who almost certainly have never used a
> command line, and whose document authoring experience is probably
> limited to Microsoft Word.)

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.

> 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.

> 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.

Cheers,
-- 
W. Borgert <debacle@debian.org>