On 15 Jun 2001, at 22:23, Rachel Greenham wrote:

Paul Abrahams wrote:

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I'm currently dealing with the following problem: I have a document I'm going to be creating that I have to distribute to a number of people, most of whom aren't particularly technically oriented and (I have to assume) aren't using Linux and aren't going to. I hate to resort to using an MS Word file, but I really see no practical alternative. (No, I'm not going to go down in flames as a Linux evangelist in this context.)

PDF

I would suggest HTML. regards, Bill

Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:

* bilbo [Jun 15. 2001 14:42]:

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I'm currently dealing with the following problem: I have a document I'm going to be creating that I have to distribute to a number of people, most of whom aren't particularly technically oriented and (I have to assume) aren't using Linux and aren't going to. I hate to resort to using an MS Word file, but I really see no practical alternative. (No, I'm not going to go down in flames as a Linux evangelist in this context.)

PDF

I would suggest HTML.

How about LaTeX/.dvi?

How many non-geeks are going to have a dvi viewer on their Windows box? The aim is to establish a good lingua franca. -- Rachel

bilbo wrote:

On 15 Jun 2001, at 22:23, Rachel Greenham wrote:

...

Paul Abrahams wrote:

...

I'm currently dealing with the following problem: I have a document I'm going to be creating that I have to distribute to a number of people, most of whom aren't particularly technically oriented and (I have to assume) aren't using Linux and aren't going to. I hate to resort to using an MS Word file, but I really see no practical alternative. (No, I'm not going to go down in flames as a Linux evangelist in this context.)

PDF

I would suggest HTML.

HTML is also good. Depends how important the layout/presentation is - with PDF you can be more certain of what the end-user is seeing. Also images etc. don't have to be included as separate files. -- Rachel

I don't know about 'federal' but I believe RTF is an ISO standard, so should be supported on all platforms Regards Anders On Friday 15 June 2001 23:59, Paul Abrahams wrote:

Rachel Greenham wrote:

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Paul Abrahams wrote:

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I'm currently dealing with the following problem: I have a document I'm going to be creating that I have to distribute to a number of people, most of whom aren't particularly technically oriented and (I have to assume) aren't using Linux and aren't going to. I hate to resort to using an MS Word file, but I really see no practical alternative. (No, I'm not going to go down in flames as a Linux evangelist in this context.)

PDF

If the document were only to be printed, yes. But PDF isn't editable.

Paul

RTF is totally editable, just like .doc, only more so. I've edited rtf in MS-Word, Word Perfect, and Star Office, even in a text editor. Even when I used MS-Word I saved documents in .rtf format with no loss of important information. The files were often one-tenth to one-fifth the size of the .doc files. WHat is that bloat anyhow? C -- Corvin Russell

Paul Abrahams wrote:

Rachel Greenham wrote:

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Paul Abrahams wrote:

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I'm currently dealing with the following problem: I have a document I'm going to be creating that I have to distribute to a number of people, most of whom aren't particularly technically oriented and (I have to assume) aren't using Linux and aren't going to. I hate to resort to using an MS Word file, but I really see no practical alternative. (No, I'm not going to go down in flames as a Linux evangelist in this context.)

PDF

If the document were only to be printed, yes. But PDF isn't editable.

It needs to be editable? You're fscked then. :-) Even Word isn't safe to hand around Windows users in that case, and different HTML editors will make a royal hash of things. Wait for OpenOffice to come up with the goods and then campaign for wide usage. My preference in this case would be to use LyX over CVS, and while there is a Windows version of LyX I don't know if your lot would take the learning curve. -- Rachel

Paul Abrahams wrote:

Rachel Greenham wrote:

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[The distributed document] needs to be editable?

You're fscked then. :-) Even Word isn't safe to hand around Windows users in that case, and different HTML editors will make a royal hash of things. Wait for OpenOffice to come up with the goods and then campaign for wide usage.

I guess I wasn't sufficiently clear about what I was proposing: adoption of the MS Word format, but *not* MS Word itself, as a FIPS.

No, that's a really terrible idea. The Word format itself is little more than a memory dump of Word's workspace; that's why other software (and for that matter other versions of Word) has such a problem with it. XML is the way to go here - hence OpenOffice being a good thing to push if actual official Standards are to be recommended. -- Rachel