Re: FN-FORUM: A better word processor?

date posted 1st April 2007 11:03

> 1. It doesn't use html as its default format (you have to export)

HTML is a flexible format: it's designed for web browsers and on-screen
reading. HTML does not have many page-layout features, so is not good for
paper-based output.

> 2. It doesn't have external style sheets.

Why do you want external style sheets?

Normally you want everything in one file for printing, so you only need to
send one file to the printer and everything is consistent. If someone
else applied an external style sheet that changed the font size, for
instance, the document wouldn't print as you designed it. PDF takes this
to the logical limit, with images, fonts, etc. included in the printer
file, so that it's as consistent a definition of the printed page as you
can get.

You can get the benefits of external style sheets, in terms of consistent
styles across multiple documents, with OpenOffice, Word, etc. using their
style manipulation tools: in fact you could save your favourite document
styles in a suitable template file.

> The key question here is about whether html and css have matured enough
> to be used as general document creation formats

HTML isn't designed for paper output, although there are some things like
page-break included in CSS.

I doubt HTML will ever be useful for page layout, as the requirements for
paper documents are directly opposite the requirements for on-screen
documents.

OpenDocument is the format that is designed for paper layout, and this is
pretty mature. It's XML, so you can use XML tools to manipulate it.

Anthony
--
www.fonant.com - Quality web sites