Re: Word Processors

[Rebecca Ore <rebecca ore op net>]

On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, Steve Luzynski wrote:
>Rebecca Ore wrote:
>> I write fiction for Avon, a Hearst company.  They have one system allowed on
>> their machines -- Windows.  One word processor -- Word.  My disc that goes to
>> them will have to be Word compatible.
>
>Now I remember why I recognized your name. :)
>
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812539087/o/qid=905911875/sr=2-1/002-2425750-2442252
>
>5 stars, even. :)

GAIA'S TOYS, I presume.




>
>I am fortunate to work for a more technologically aggressive company
>(plus I work in Corporate IT...), so I get to play with Linux at work. I
>have an Apache proxy server I use instead of the nasty Netscape Proxy
>the general population uses and I run Linux on my Compaq Armada 7800
>laptop. I run the Microsoft Exchange email network so I enabled IMAP on
>my server so I could use Netscape mail. :) But even still, to
>meaningfully exchange data with the rest of the company I have to be
>able to save out files in Word 95 format. <sigh>

My present support job is three overnight shifts per week plus whatever fill-in
for others is needed at an ISP.  So I'm finding out just how much I don't know
and considering that Perl books are left on top of the Sun monitors before I
arrive, I think I've been given hints.  The editor one must master to be
properly acculturated is vi (not vim, though that is available).


>
>Personally I don't understand the attraction in graphical word
>processors. I wrote most of my papers for college in Emacs under OS/2.
>When it was time to print them out was when I would finally begin the
>painful process of launching the bloated monstrosity that is MS Word.

	I did some of the work on the present book in XEmacs .  I suspect
Maxwell or PW will do a fine job of basically printing this one.   The diskette
is the only thing that will have to be transmuted to Word, and maybe not even
that if they take an ascii file or rtf.

>
>I've lost track; have we picked out a WP to use as a starting point or
>are we better off starting from scratch? I will be willing to burn some
>free time on this project, as it's one of the few things I want badly
>enough to get into. :)

	I think we should steal like crazy from any source code that's not
nailed down.  My fantasy is one that changes the graphic appearance to match
the keybinding -- and to have both typical Emacs bindings and Word/WP etc
bindings.

	As I don't know any programming languages, I can patch and test.

	For me the ideal would be a lean and mean core, and loadable modules 
for the fancier stuff.  No chatty paperclips.   Maybe a couple of very
basic templates: letter, double column newsletter, memo, report, book
manuscript.  And it prints various sizes in landscape and portrait.

	So far, I haven't seen one  open source program that does all that I'd
want even a lean and mean wp to do.  Maxwell makes a stab at
printing envelopes but isn't quite there yet; PW doesn't import formatting
quite as nicely in rtf, doesn't even attempt to do envelopes, doesn't have
zoom, and has idiotic keybindings (non-standard for either emacs or Word/WP
family).  Maxwell is better with graphics as far as I can see .

	Reklaw has made objections to Maxwell not working on the command -line
to open with a file and to the lack of plug-ins and macros.

-- 
Rebecca Ore