[wplug] Writing Tech Manuals

Bill Moran wmoran at potentialtech.com
Sat Jun 24 11:02:40 EDT 2006


Gentgeen <gentgeen at linuxmail.org> wrote:
> 
> For the next school year, I know that part of my job description will
> include writing "tech manuals" (for lack of a better word).  These
> manuals will cover a number of issues that we see in our school (an
> on line virtual school).  Some will be for the parents, some for the
> staff, and some for the students.  These "manuals" will probably be
> pretty short, kind of like the Linux mini-howtos.
> 
> I am currently thinking that I would like to do them with LaTeX (maybe
> via LyX) so that I can create HTML, PDF, etc all from the same source. 
> If I recall properly, there is even something like CSS for LaTeX, so I
> could easily make all the files similar in appearance.  I am also
> thinking that with LaTeX I will be able to use CVS type software to help
> keep track of the changes.  Since I am not very familiar with either, I
> need to get an early start so that by the time they tell me what topics
> to work on, I will be ready.

Consider using DocBook.  It seems to be the current solution to this kind
of requirement.

> Would OpenOffice work nice with CVS?

No.  One of the bigger mistakes the OOo people made was the inability to
safe OOo files as uncompressed XML (OOo files are natively compressed
XML)  If that had been an option, OOo would have been wonderfully useful
with version control systems.  Alas, they don't seem to have considered
that.

-- 
Bill Moran

Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
FreeBSD: Are you guys coming or what?



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