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With Pandoc you can convert from many formats to many other formats, including DOCX and PPTX. Nothing prevents you from using Emacs, or Vi(m), write in Markdow

by nextos 8y ago

With Pandoc you can convert from many formats to many other formats, including DOCX and PPTX. Nothing prevents you from using Emacs, or Vi(m), write in Markdown, Org or whatever and deliver a DOCX. The amazing thing is that you can even work with people that use Word track changes, while staying in Emacs, Vi(m) or any other text editor and using Pandoc.

kmonad 8y ago
really? i did not know that. that's cool. are there resources I can look at how this would work with comments/edits tracked by collaborators?
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  Pandoc can be given instructions on what to do with changes and comments on a per-document basis, but not a per-change and per-comment basis. It does mark the changes/comments in the output file, though, so they could be processed in other ways. Personally, it's not really useful for my workflow, but it might work for some others.
chipotle_coyote 8y ago
Pandoc is an amazing tool! I've used it to convert both Markdown and DOCX files to TeX for typesetting. But, using a plain text editor and Pandoc for conversion is a lot like using Scrivener and "compiling" to DOCX: it's a one-way process. If your editor gets back to you with a marked-up Word file, you're going to need to address those comments/revisions in Word. (Or Pages or LibreOffice or something else that can round-trip those.) And from that point on, keeping your original "source document" and the Word document in sync becomes a bit of a juggling act.
bitwize 8y ago
Suck it up and use Word. Your editor is going to want to back-and-forth that manuscript with you, adding annotations as necessary, and it's much easier to just do it all within Word than to import/export to some other tool that cannot guarantee 100% compatibility. When it comes to producing text for humans to read, there's a tool that virtually everybody uses and that's Word. You will simplify your life considerably by using it, too.
- nextos 8y ago
  There's no reason why my editor would see I'm using Pandoc in a back and forth exchange if we use a decent DOCX template. Furthermore, DOCX is an open format, and I don't have the luxury of a Windows or Mac machine plus an Office license. In fact, all documents I typeset with Pandoc -> DOCX look like really carefully typeset documents on Word because the style is so consistent and in line with what latest versions of Word encourage: separation of content and presentation.
  - emgee_1 8y ago
    You probably want then to exchange both the .org file and .docx file and let them make changes to the .org file. They will quickly see how the docx file looks very much the same to the .org file Then you can diff the modified .org file with the original. Using git you incorporatecthe changes
    - nextos 8y ago
      That's the ideal situation, but I'm often interacting with people that have trouble using Word, let alone Git! They don't even know what a VCS is.
- krylon 8y ago
  I am all for pragmatism, and if I was to try to publish a novel, I would probably use .docx. But if you discover a good text editor, be it Emacs or Vi or something else, it changes the way you edit text. There are things that a good text editor does exceedingly well that are painfully hard - if even possible at all! - in a program like Word. Some of these are specific to programming, but some are specific to editing text -- Which kind of is what writers do, isn't it? ;-) -- and once you crossed that barrier, going back to Word - useful as it may be - is like going back to chiseling your writing into slabs of rock.

by nextos 8y ago

kmonad 8y ago

really? i did not know that. that's cool. are there resources I can look at how this would work with comments/edits tracked by collaborators?

chipotle_coyote 8y ago
Pandoc can be given instructions on what to do with changes and comments on a per-document basis, but not a per-change and per-comment basis. It does mark the changes/comments in the output file, though, so they could be processed in other ways. Personally, it's not really useful for my workflow, but it might work for some others.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago

Pandoc is an amazing tool! I've used it to convert both Markdown and DOCX files to TeX for typesetting. But, using a plain text editor and Pandoc for conversion is a lot like using Scrivener and "compiling" to DOCX: it's a one-way process. If your editor gets back to you with a marked-up Word file, you're going to need to address those comments/revisions in Word. (Or Pages or LibreOffice or something else that can round-trip those.) And from that point on, keeping your original "source document" and the Word document in sync becomes a bit of a juggling act.

bitwize 8y ago

Suck it up and use Word. Your editor is going to want to back-and-forth that manuscript with you, adding annotations as necessary, and it's much easier to just do it all within Word than to import/export to some other tool that cannot guarantee 100% compatibility. When it comes to producing text for humans to read, there's a tool that virtually everybody uses and that's Word. You will simplify your life considerably by using it, too.

nextos 8y ago
There's no reason why my editor would see I'm using Pandoc in a back and forth exchange if we use a decent DOCX template. Furthermore, DOCX is an open format, and I don't have the luxury of a Windows or Mac machine plus an Office license. In fact, all documents I typeset with Pandoc -> DOCX look like really carefully typeset documents on Word because the style is so consistent and in line with what latest versions of Word encourage: separation of content and presentation.
- emgee_1 8y ago
  You probably want then to exchange both the .org file and .docx file and let them make changes to the .org file. They will quickly see how the docx file looks very much the same to the .org file Then you can diff the modified .org file with the original. Using git you incorporatecthe changes
  - nextos 8y ago
    That's the ideal situation, but I'm often interacting with people that have trouble using Word, let alone Git! They don't even know what a VCS is.
krylon 8y ago
I am all for pragmatism, and if I was to try to publish a novel, I would probably use .docx. But if you discover a good text editor, be it Emacs or Vi or something else, it changes the way you edit text. There are things that a good text editor does exceedingly well that are painfully hard - if even possible at all! - in a program like Word. Some of these are specific to programming, but some are specific to editing text -- Which kind of is what writers do, isn't it? ;-) -- and once you crossed that barrier, going back to Word - useful as it may be - is like going back to chiseling your writing into slabs of rock.