T
Timasmith
Talk about banging ones head agains a wall. I guess ascii and ascii
is art is great.
I really want, really want word processing which is cross platform and
outputs beautifully on reports.
Yes, I know it is impossible. But surely, if all 100,000 of us put
our heads together we could do it...
Lets see the problems:
a) Format
i) RTF - cannot output naturally on the web.
ii) HTML - cannot output with precision layout.
iii) PDF - perfect output for reports and printing, editing not
possible.
iv) XML - ODF can be converted to HTML, PDF, MS Word, RTF so seems
the best choice.
b) Tools
i) RTL - nothing cross platform
ii) HTML - cross platform if you run a browser, not useful for a
fat client and most of them use Javascript (ugh)
iii) PDF - no tool to directly edit
iv) XML - ODF in the form of MS Word, Open Office, KWord but
nothing that can be embedded in an app/applet
v) Google docs - problem the only one with half decent paste from
MSWord
So I guess my main choice was to have a browser embedded in a frame,
running Google word processing with the ability to save it locally
(into my database, yum).
Still, even then it is clumsy. I hope someone, one day will write an
amazing, open source, word processing Swing app which outputs ODF,
PDF, HTML and if it rocks I will make sure you get a slice of my pie...
is art is great.
I really want, really want word processing which is cross platform and
outputs beautifully on reports.
Yes, I know it is impossible. But surely, if all 100,000 of us put
our heads together we could do it...
Lets see the problems:
a) Format
i) RTF - cannot output naturally on the web.
ii) HTML - cannot output with precision layout.
iii) PDF - perfect output for reports and printing, editing not
possible.
iv) XML - ODF can be converted to HTML, PDF, MS Word, RTF so seems
the best choice.
b) Tools
i) RTL - nothing cross platform
ii) HTML - cross platform if you run a browser, not useful for a
fat client and most of them use Javascript (ugh)
iii) PDF - no tool to directly edit
iv) XML - ODF in the form of MS Word, Open Office, KWord but
nothing that can be embedded in an app/applet
v) Google docs - problem the only one with half decent paste from
MSWord
So I guess my main choice was to have a browser embedded in a frame,
running Google word processing with the ability to save it locally
(into my database, yum).
Still, even then it is clumsy. I hope someone, one day will write an
amazing, open source, word processing Swing app which outputs ODF,
PDF, HTML and if it rocks I will make sure you get a slice of my pie...