On Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:51:05 +0200, Nathalie Sequeira <
n@n-faktor.net>
wrote:
> I am currently looking for a docBook editor that is directed towards end
> users
> ...
> - And especially:
> ability to import and transform rtf documents preformatted in a
> specified way by contributing authors (or at least open them and
> reformat, instead of having to cut and paste single text blocks, which
> seems to be the necessary procedure e.g. in XMLmind?)
Three or four years ago, we had to start our project with MsWord. Once we
had XMLMind, we imported the Word doc into XXE (= XMLMind Editor) using a
tool which I have long since forgotten. The tool worked reasonably well,
and we were able to import the doc as a whole; I think we had to do some
clean-up after we got it into XXE. Unless you're doing this conversion on
multiple documents, I would consider that a one-time cost, and a small one.
I haven't looked at tools to convert Word to DocBook since then, but I
would guess that they have gotten better. I don't know whether there are
tools that do both the import and allow editing; conceptually, those are
rather different tasks.
There was a slight learning curve for XXE, but we have now at least half a
dozen people who have learned it and are reasonably happy with it. (Some
are happier in XXE than in Word 2007, but your mileage may vary.)
I do have a few minor gripes about XXE:
1) It doesn't handle right-to-left text well (that's probably not an issue
for most people!)
2) It doesn't do "track changes" (yet; that's on their list, and there are
work-arounds if you don't mind having the changes flagged only in your
PDFs)
3) It mungs the XML code by adding newlines in places no human would add
them (but that's only an issue if you want to hand-edit the XML in a
programmer's editor; it has no practical effect otherwise)
I will also mention that they have an active mailing list for users, and
they are *very* responsive to reasonable requests.
Unless you are lucky, you will need someone who can figure out how to
modify the standard configurations for XXE, and for DocBook as a whole, to
do what you want. Our own setup is decidedly non-vanilla, and it does take
some work to keep on top of things.
In sum, we are satisfied customers of XXE. (We have gladly paid for the
Professional version.)
Mike Maxwell