RE: [sca-bindings] ODF or Word format for the OASIS Specs??

["Mary McRae" <mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org>]

Hi everyone,

  I would just like to interject for a moment, being a "doc" person (that's
someone who's spent the last three decades working with
documents/documentation/reference publishing, not meant to imply .doc)

  I strongly advise against trying to use two different applications. Each
time you transpose the information from one app to another, something will
change, be lost, or appear different. I think most are familiar with moving
a document from on version of the same application to another - things often
change. It's much worse when moving from one application to another. While
the pain can be acceptable for a one-time switch, going continually back and
forth is a recipe for disaster. I suggest the editors agree on a specific
app to be used, and reviewers either use that app or PDF. 

  I would also like to say that while ODF is an OASIS Standard, any
application of that specification is not. I have encountered numerous
problems with outline numbering in OpenOffice, and the HTML conversion is
poor at best. Lotus Symphony, another ODF implementation, doesn't even
support HTML export. I have no experience with kOffice or other apps built
on ODF. You can create an ODF file from Microsoft if that's the desired
goal, but know that when that file is opened in an ODF-based application, it
will very likely lose some formatting and possibly mess up numbering as
well.

  You are free to choose an application of your liking, and remember that
any documents submitted must conform to the OASIS templates and naming
guidelines. Switching back and forth is likely to break those templates and
will require extra time for cleanup.

  Now back to your regularly-scheduled programming.

Mary 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Johnson [mailto:eric@tibco.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 2:10 PM
> To: Simon Nash
> Cc: OASIS Bindings
> Subject: Re: [sca-bindings] ODF or Word format for the OASIS Specs??
> 
> Simon Nash wrote:
> > As I understand it, this would require us all to change from Word
> > to OO3 when making edits for proposed issue resolution text.  Having
> > recently made the change from Word 2003 to Word 2007, I'm not very
> > keen to change again.
> Well, not *all* of us would have to switch.  :-)
> >
> > If others prefer to make edits using OO3 (for similar reasons to
> > mine), I wonder if we could allow both formats for issue proposals
> > while retaining .doc for TC working drafts and committee drafts.
> I've run into at least one problem where round-trips between ODF and
> DOC
> don't quite work with our documents.  (Line numbers are just one
> example.)  I'd want to test more before assuming that we can use both.
> If you don't update the table of contents properly before converting to
> ODF, OpenOffice might mangle the links.
> 
> Tests I've been doing just now show that once saved as an ODT file,
> OpenOffice doesn't show line numbers automatically upon reopening, even
> though the option is turned on.  Could be that this is a bug in OO
> 3.0.0
> which is fixed in 3.0.1 - I'd need to test.
> 
> Even though I'd be happier if we switched, I do recommend some caution
> here.
> 
> OO does a *much* better job of generating PDFs.
> 
> -Eric.
> >
> > Isn't it easy to solve the line numbering problem by publishing
> > PDF versions together with .doc/.odt versions for all documents
> > uploaded to the OASIS respository?
> >
> >   Simon
> >
> > Mike Edwards wrote:
> >>
> >> Folks,
> >>
> >> Following points made by Eric and by Anish, I did a little more
> >> investigating of using Open Office for handling the SCA
> specifications.
> >>
> >> Eric is right in that, with a little work, it is possible to get the
> >> line numbering sorted in Open Office so that it does basically
> >> match the line numbering of the same document in Word format.
> >>
> >> One thing to be careful of is that Open Office only has the display
> >> of changes in the form of showing the deleted words inline
> >> - there is no option to display them in balloons on the side.  This
> >> has the unfortunate effect of changing the line numbering of
> >> the document when flipping between "display changes" mode and
> "final"
> >> mode.
> >>
> >> I suspect that with Open Office 3, we could make a decision to move
> >> from using Word format to using ODF format as the
> >> basis for the SCA specifications.  It might be worth doing this even
> >> at this late stage since it should enable us all to be
> >> consistent when editing and viewing the files.  What do people think
> >> about going in this direction?
> >>
> >>
> >> Yours,  Mike.
> >>
> >> Strategist - Emerging Technologies, SCA & SDO.
> >> Co Chair OASIS SCA Assembly TC.
> >> IBM Hursley Park, Mail Point 146, Winchester, SO21 2JN, Great
> Britain.
> >> Phone & FAX: +44-1962-818014    Mobile: +44-7802-467431  Email:
> >> mike_edwards@uk.ibm.com
> >>
> >>
> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----
> >>
> >> /
> >> /
> >>
> >> /Unless stated otherwise above:
> >> IBM United Kingdom Limited - Registered in England and Wales with
> >> number 741598.
> >> Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hampshire
> >> PO6 3AU/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that
> > generates this mail.  Follow this link to all your TCs in OASIS at:
> > https://www.oasis-
> open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that
> generates this mail.  Follow this link to all your TCs in OASIS at:
> https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php