On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 10:11:31PM -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:
> Rob Mahurin wrote:
> > I know you've settled on OOo, but it's worth pointing out that TeX is
> > a simple language if you're writing a simple document. In particular
> > you are already writing valid plain TeX in your email. Copy the above
> > (without the >'s) into file.txt; change /'thinking'/ to {\it thinking}
> > and "saying" to ``saying''; type "pdftex file.txt" and "\end".
> > file.pdf looks like http://sns.phys.utk.edu/~mahurin/du/09-25.pdf,
> > which I think is what you're after.
>
> Uh, no. It's more than that. You're forgetting loading in the templates
> and the entire structure.
Sorry I wasn't clearer. I made the output linked above using /plain/ TeX;
the only \command was the italics. LaTeX is a set of templates and macros
for typesetting structured documents with TeX, which it sounds like you
don't need. When I was writing MLA-formatted papers as an undergraduate I
used plain TeX like this and was pretty happy with it.
Your other complaints, though, are all perfectly reasonable. It sounds
like you want to write your fiction using a word processor, not a
typesetting language. Great --- that's why the word processor was
invented, after all.
Let me see if I remember what you want:
1. revision control, including
- resurrect erased text
- merge changes from two computers
2. shallow learning curve, so you can focus on the writing
3. export to .doc that preserves italicization.
You're concerned (I think) about not being able to merge changes in
OpenOffice's data files using revision control, because those files
aren't straightforward text. Someone else mentioned Abiword, which
saves uncompressed XML; but there's metadata in there too, which might
not merge correctly. It looks like Abisource offering revision control
for collaborative writing, http://collaborate.abisource.com/faq/, but
that's probably not what you want either. These options give you #2 and
#3, maybe #1, or maybe a broken document after a certain level of
complexity is reached.
Many of the replies have been about TeX, its macro packages, etc. You
complain that gives you #1 at the expense of #2 and #3.
You mentioned you're not afraid of programming, so here's an idea.
You could just write in plain text, and use /italics/ the same you
have on this list. You said the publishers you've spoken to accept
plain text; that additional markup is easy enough to read.
If you /must/ send someone a .doc, you could write a Word macro (or a
macro in a program that produces Word files) to match and italicize text.
For that matter, a three-line perl (or whatever) script could
1. escape TeX's special characters, $%&#\{}^_~
2. replace / with "\it " (italicize) or "\rm " (roman) in alternation
3. run pdfTeX on the output
giving you something nice to print out. You should call the converter
SLIPTT, Steve Lamb's Italicized Plain Text Typesetter.
Don't want to print? Publisher can read plain text? You're all set.
The fact is that any document formatting specification is going to be in
SOME language, whether that language is embedded in the file format by
the word processor, marked up by the author, or whatever. Most of the
open-source revision control systems are for marked-up text, or code,
where the author can tell if the merged text is right or not. File
formats that warn "don't change this file manually," as AbiWord and
OpenOffice do, probably require specialized version control software
that's aware of those formats. The conclusion of this thread seems to
be that debian users are using source-controlled LaTeX markup, and that
there's not yet a good solution for source-controlled word processor
output. I'll be interested to know what you decide to do.
Good luck with your writing.
Rob
--
Rob Mahurin
Dept. of Physics & Astronomy
University of Tennessee phone: 865 207 2594
Knoxville, TN 37996 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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