[Pc_Support] Microsoft still caters to people who write letters, not books ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

Damien McKenna wrote:
> So what do they use instead?

A strictly defined and fully documented XML with namespace, schema, etc...

Understand that Office 11 (2003) XML is not used for the documents
themselves.  It is only for integrating 3rd party XML and schema and
is not used by Office itself.  In other words, you have to be running
the "fat" software to interact at all, using VBA.  Especially for
translators and templates -- they don't work outside of the "fat"
software.

Office 12 (2007) has much of the same limitations.  Most of the
continued complaints are due to the fact that you still have to run
the "fat" software to access the namespace and schema via VBA,
although there is a huge swell and push to get Microsoft to fully
document them for external use.  Especially since the translators and
templates still rely on the "fat" software.

I personally think the problem is due to the fact that Microsoft still
hasn't made XML the true foundation, and it's non-native.  We'll see.

> And in what way is OOo any better?

It's not OOo, but the OpenDoc XML standard from OASIS, sponsored by
Boeing, Corel, Sun and others.  It's been fully standardized for years
now.  Everything is a modular and standardized mark-up, with namespace
and schema well-understood.  Where applicable, select schema is based
on existing W3C standards -- e.g., MathML for equations and formulas.

Now that on its own isn't enough.  Which brings me to 2 further points ...

1.  The namespace and schema have countless translators.  E.g., SGML
and LaTeX have extensive translators to/from ODT, as do other, common
(albeit subset) XML mark-ups such as DocBook XML.

2.  Any and all possible code/libraries to use ODT are fully available
as LGPL via OpenOffice.org.  If you want to write an external
application, you can link against those routines directly, without
using the "fat" software.

It's these two details that Microsoft will virtually _never_ provide,
especially #2.  Visual Studio for Microsoft Office is _not_ the same
as #2, and it's a bloated, crash-happy POS -- even for Office 12
(2007).

> A text editor with shortcuts for embedded printer control strings would work
> better for many people.

Or a text editor with a standard output language, like Postscript.

But in reality, for writing letters, MS Word is not ideal either.
It's better to use a lighter-weight "writer" program than not only MS
Office, but even Open/StarWriter.  And that's where the existing (and
new) crop of ODT compatible software comes in.  ;)

Open/StarWriter isn't perfect, but it's a _true_ mark-up/typeset
back-end thanx to ODT -- as is the rest of the
OpenOffice.org/StarOffice suite.  And anything that wants to do
anything it does can leverage its LGPL libraries -- back-end
processing, GUI, whatever and only exactly what it needs, with no
bloat.