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Re: [dq-rules] Plain Text Files Preferred



I am with Viktor. They can be easily taken from Word to a more portable format (PDF TXT whatever) why not start with word and down grade if needed. I think the emphasis that formatting, bold text, tables, colors is invaluable to a written text. We have spent a couple of decades trying to get away from plain text... At the risk of sounding combative... TXT would be a huge mistake in my opinion.


On May 27, 2004, at 2:12 PM, Viktor Haag wrote:

rthorm@cornellbox.com writes:
 > I'm not sure what benefit we would get from RTF.

 I can think of several reasons to use a proper word processor
 for this project:

 1) Tables. Rolegames have lots of tables, and creating and
    manipulating tables in a word pro is much much easier than in
    plain text.

 2) Cross references. DQ is *littered* with cross-references;
    having a word processor take care of this for you is *far
    easier* than trying to manage cross references by hand.

 3) Auto-numbering, especially with section numbering. Trying to
    keep numbering consistent by hand in long documents is
    devilishly difficult, especially if you have more than one
    person working on the project. Using a word-processor that
    can handle this for you takes care of a lot of that worry.

 4) Building lists of tables, sections. Can be automated with a
    word processor.

 5) Building indexes. Good word-processors can provide good tools
    to help with this and make the job much easier.

 6) Some limited amount of formatting actually makes it easier to
    work on the document. With visual clues in place (like
    different faces and weights used for headings, bullets,
    indented text, emphasis, and the like) it's actually easier to
    write large documents because these visual clues provide you
    with non-"word" context that's valuable for the writer.

 7) Automated error checking. Nothing can replace the need for a
    good proof-read, but automated spelling and grammar checking
    can make it far easier to produce a cleaner first draft.

 If what you're worried about is access, then I think Open Office
 is an excellent suggested tool -- it has decent features, and is
 available on many platforms, and it is available for free.

 There are other open source word processors available as well,
 but I seem to think that Open Office provides the best feature
 set at the moment.



 --
 Viktor Haag : Software & Information Design : Research In Motion
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