Well, I stand corrected. One of the linked articles clarifies that the kid is part Pakistany and part Saudi. That accounts for his name.
Also, the word XWEBS is already occupied/used by several other projects and pages (see Google).
Cliff,
I had similar experience (problems) with ms word but was enduring them until maybe year ago when it became to much to wrestle every day several hours with "intelligent" application that thinks that it knows how document should look better than I. The last straws were (and I can still reproduce them from time to time):
1) reformating one buleted list in complex document causes automatic reformating of all other bulleted lists in the same document,
2) changing block of the text into some of the header forms/fonts (or in the body text, etc...) changes all of the sudden location and default font family in which that text is displayed.
It is user (and not the application) who should be in control of the layout of the document and its appearance.
Since I could not avoid writing numerous documents (part of the job), I found following solution that works for me:
i) write document in XML,
ii) transform it (via XSLT) into html,
iii) load that html file into ms word, tweak it, export it in rtf (ms rich tect format) format,
iv) send the document to the other members of group
It took me couple of weeks of my free time (maybe 3 hours for dtd and 20 hours of work on xslt) to
develop the initial DTD and XSLT (this one was moderate pain to do) files, and now I keep changing them as I realise that some new tag or attribute is necessary/handy. XML IDE of choice (XML Spy) is able to display in parallel the source code (of XML) and its appearance as in browser so I can write documents quite rapidly.
Advantages of this approach are
A) separation of content (text and logical organization of data) and appearance/presentation,
B) documents do not depend on the version of any software (xml files is essentialy plain text, editable by any text editor),
C) formating of appearance can be spoiled (by msword) only at the very end,
D) i am planing to learn how to export data in pdf and other interesting/useful formats in the future
E) it is relatively rapid to redisplay partial content of the xml file using different xslt instruction file (so, I do not have to form new data/document file via cut and paste and change from the old one, but, instead, I am using excatly the same data/xml file for multiple presentations).
Downsides:
A) when ms word loads html file and export it as an doc or rtf, it still keeps some trace of "web-pagedness" in it, not allowing me to introduce page numbers and similar. However, that is the obstacle that I can get by at the moment.
B) I would like to learn how to export my xml documents directly to the msword format (ala xslt transformation of xml into html, or fo transformation of xml into pdf). It appears that at the moment there are no free solutions for that problem (at this moment) at the market. Ideally one would have to write only one style-sheet with instructions on how to transform an XML document into.doc. Any suggestions, anyone?
THanks,
Traco
ps. tex/latex is mighty thing to use, but it is comparably slow environment to write documentation in it. Also, it is not so portable into vareity of other document forms (how to produce.doc or.rtf format that majority of users in corporations expect?) Also, to see the display on tex document, one needs to always have parser (miktex,...) and dvi viever (or ps viewer) etc..., while xml can always be observed in the "low-tek" environment: just paste it onto ie (internet explorer) and it will be properly displayed.
I had similar experience with ms word but was enduring them until maybe year ago when it became to much to wrestle every day several hours with "intelligent" application that thinks that it knows how document should look better than I. The last straw were (and I can still reproduce them from time to time):
1) reformating one buleted list in complex document causes automatic reforating of all other bulleted lists,
2) changing block of the text into some of the header forms (or in the body text, etc...) changes all of the sudden location and default font family in which that text is displayed.
It is user (and not the application) who should be in control of the layout of the document and its appearance.
Since I cound not avoid writing numerous documents (part of the job), I found following solution that works for me:
i) write document in XML,
ii) transform it (via XSLT) into html,
iii) load that html file into ms word, tweak it, export it in rtf (ms rich tect format) format,
iv) send the document to the other members of group
I took me couple of weeks of my free time to
develop the initial DTD and XSLT files, and now I keep changing them as I realise that some new tag or attribute is necessary/handy. XML IDE of choice (XML Spy) is able to display in parallel the source code (of XML) and its appearance as in browser so I can write documents quite rapidly.
Advantages of this approach are
separation of content (text and logical organization of data) and appearance/presentation, my documents do not depend on the version of any software (xml files is essentialy plain text , editable by any text editor),
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I stand corrected. One of the linked articles clarifies that the kid is part Pakistany and part Saudi. That accounts for his name. Also, the word XWEBS is already occupied/used by several other projects and pages (see Google).
Those pages are in Shiptary (north Albanian) language. His full name is a Shiptary one.
Cliff, I had similar experience (problems) with ms word but was enduring them until maybe year ago when it became to much to wrestle every day several hours with "intelligent" application that thinks that it knows how document should look better than I. The last straws were (and I can still reproduce them from time to time): 1) reformating one buleted list in complex document causes automatic reformating of all other bulleted lists in the same document, 2) changing block of the text into some of the header forms/fonts (or in the body text, etc ...) changes all of the sudden location and default font family in which that text is displayed.
It is user (and not the application) who should be in control of the layout of the document and its appearance.
Since I could not avoid writing numerous documents (part of the job), I found following solution that works for me:
i) write document in XML,
ii) transform it (via XSLT) into html,
iii) load that html file into ms word, tweak it, export it in rtf (ms rich tect format) format,
iv) send the document to the other members of group
It took me couple of weeks of my free time (maybe 3 hours for dtd and 20 hours of work on xslt) to
develop the initial DTD and XSLT (this one was moderate pain to do) files, and now I keep changing them as I realise that some new tag or attribute is necessary/handy. XML IDE of choice (XML Spy) is able to display in parallel the source code (of XML) and its appearance as in browser so I can write documents quite rapidly.
Advantages of this approach are
A) separation of content (text and logical organization of data) and appearance/presentation,
B) documents do not depend on the version of any software (xml files is essentialy plain text, editable by any text editor),
C) formating of appearance can be spoiled (by msword) only at the very end,
D) i am planing to learn how to export data in pdf and other interesting/useful formats in the future
E) it is relatively rapid to redisplay partial content of the xml file using different xslt instruction file (so, I do not have to form new data/document file via cut and paste and change from the old one, but, instead, I am using excatly the same data/xml file for multiple presentations).
Downsides:
A) when ms word loads html file and export it as an doc or rtf, it still keeps some trace of "web-pagedness" in it, not allowing me to introduce page numbers and similar. However, that is the obstacle that I can get by at the moment.
B) I would like to learn how to export my xml documents directly to the msword format (ala xslt transformation of xml into html, or fo transformation of xml into pdf). It appears that at the moment there are no free solutions for that problem (at this moment) at the market. Ideally one would have to write only one style-sheet with instructions on how to transform an XML document into .doc. Any suggestions, anyone?
THanks,
Traco
ps. tex/latex is mighty thing to use, but it is comparably slow environment to write documentation in it. Also, it is not so portable into vareity of other document forms (how to produce .doc or .rtf format that majority of users in corporations expect?) Also, to see the display on tex document, one needs to always have parser (miktex, ...) and dvi viever (or ps viewer) etc ..., while xml can always be observed in the "low-tek" environment: just paste it onto ie (internet explorer) and it will be properly displayed.
Cliff,
...) changes all of the sudden location and default font family in which that text is displayed.
I had similar experience with ms word but was enduring them until maybe year ago when it became to much to wrestle every day several hours with "intelligent" application that thinks that it knows how document should look better than I. The last straw were (and I can still reproduce them from time to time):
1) reformating one buleted list in complex document causes automatic reforating of all other bulleted lists,
2) changing block of the text into some of the header forms (or in the body text, etc
It is user (and not the application) who should be in control of the layout of the document and its appearance.
Since I cound not avoid writing numerous documents (part of the job), I found following solution that works for me:
i) write document in XML,
ii) transform it (via XSLT) into html,
iii) load that html file into ms word, tweak it, export it in rtf (ms rich tect format) format,
iv) send the document to the other members of group
I took me couple of weeks of my free time to
develop the initial DTD and XSLT files, and now I keep changing them as I realise that some new tag or attribute is necessary/handy. XML IDE of choice (XML Spy) is able to display in parallel the source code (of XML) and its appearance as in browser so I can write documents quite rapidly.
Advantages of this approach are
separation of content (text and logical organization of data) and appearance/presentation, my documents do not depend on the version of any software (xml files is essentialy plain text , editable by any text editor),