Groups | Search | Server Info | Login | Register

Groups > comp.sys.dec > #275

Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

Show all headers | View raw

On Apr 20, 2:54 am, urbancamo <m...@wickensonline.co.uk> wrote:
> On Apr 19, 10:27 pm, ChrisQ <m...@devnull.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > urbancamo wrote:
>
> > > Microsoft Word is quite possibly the worst piece of software I've ever
> > > used (and I've used a good few versions now!) - bugs introduced early
> > > on have to be treated as features to maintain compatibility over
> > > sanity.
>
> > > Mark.
>
> > Like much modern packaged software, word probably satisfies and
> > frustrates users to an equal degree, Providing you don't want to do
> > anything too clever, it gets the job done, but suffers from excess
> > featuritis, when all you want to do is write a letter. I use an older
> > pre uSoft version of Visio and other packages for drawing and they too
> > get the job done without too much drama. We might all bemoan the quality
> > of old, but the world has moved on and present day graphics intensive
> > applications would be unusable on older dec hardware. Sad fact, but true.
>
> The problem with Word is that fundamental stuff that was broken in
> early versions is still broken.
> Put it this way, I recently tried to create a letter template with a
> special header and footer on the first page. Doesn't sound too
> complicated, does it?
> You can't do it in Word. Bugs prevent it, and if you search the web
> you find Microsoft employees who are equally frustrated that they
> can't fix the bugs either, because it must remain backwards compatible
> (probably for software that hooks into the word engine and creates
> documents automatically). Of course this smacks of bad design. I had
> to literally jump through hoops to get *anything* to look right, after
> having to think creatively about what other features I might be able
> to bring to bear.
>
> Please note, I'm not a Microsoft hater - Publisher for example is a
> good tool that does what you expect it to. What saddens me the most is
> that people who use it don't know any better and accept such poor
> quality software as the norm.
>
> Mark

You should download and try both OpenOffice and IBM's Lotus Symphony.
I have used both to layout my books in the past.

This book:
http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com/soa_book.html
Was written with OpenOffice and Gimp for the screen shots.  I don't
remember which opensource answer to Visio I used for the system flow
on the cover, but believe it was the KDEOffice component.

This book:
http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com/xbase_book.html
Was also done with OpenOffice (later version) gimp for the screen and
the KDEOffice answer to Visio for the cover diagram.

This book:
http://www.infiniteexposure.net/order.html
was done with Lotus Symphony 1.x.  I did hire out the dust jacket to
someone in Canada who did dust jackets for a living.  No idea what
they used to size and layout, but I gave them the initial cover and
concept.

These three books were all done with WordPerfect and the last
sacrificial Windows partition I had.
http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com/logic_book.html
http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com/app_book.html  (actually mostly
done with Lotus WordPro until I needed PDF for printing firms)
http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com/java_book.html

Back to comp.sys.dec | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation urbancamo <mark@wickensonline.co.uk> - 2011-04-19 01:26 -0700
  Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation ChrisQ <meru@devnull.com> - 2011-04-19 12:58 +0100
    Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com> - 2011-04-19 14:00 +0200
    Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation "John Reagan" <johnrreagan@earthlink.net> - 2011-04-19 08:42 -0400
      Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation ChrisQ <meru@devnull.com> - 2011-04-19 16:55 +0100
        Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation billg999@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) - 2011-04-19 16:07 +0000
          Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation urbancamo <mark@wickensonline.co.uk> - 2011-04-19 12:54 -0700
            Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation ChrisQ <meru@devnull.com> - 2011-04-19 22:27 +0100
              Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation John Wallace <johnwallace4@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-04-19 15:29 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Paul Sture <paul.nospam@sture.ch> - 2011-04-20 08:14 +0200
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation ChrisQ <meru@devnull.com> - 2011-04-22 12:11 +0100
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Paul Sture <paul.nospam@sture.ch> - 2011-04-22 15:09 +0200
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation John Wallace <johnwallace4@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-04-23 03:32 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Paul Sture <paul.nospam@sture.ch> - 2011-04-25 11:07 +0200
              Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Hans Bachner <Hans@Bachner.priv.at> - 2011-04-19 23:55 +0000
              Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Paul Sture <paul.nospam@sture.ch> - 2011-04-20 06:38 +0200
              Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation urbancamo <mark@wickensonline.co.uk> - 2011-04-20 00:54 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation seasoned_geek <roland@logikalsolutions.com> - 2011-04-21 11:08 -0700
      Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Marc Van Dyck <marc.gr.vandyck@invalid.skynet.be> - 2011-04-23 22:03 +0200
        Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Paul Sture <paul.nospam@sture.ch> - 2011-04-24 07:24 +0200
          Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@comcast.net> - 2011-04-24 09:20 -0400
            Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> - 2011-04-24 09:49 -0700
              Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2011-04-25 02:30 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2011-04-25 02:40 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> - 2011-04-24 23:07 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) - 2011-04-25 08:15 -0500
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> - 2011-04-25 10:58 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) - 2011-04-25 15:25 -0500
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) - 2011-04-25 20:54 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2011-04-25 21:25 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2011-04-26 04:59 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) - 2011-04-26 10:11 -0400
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2011-04-28 00:15 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2011-04-25 16:01 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> - 2011-04-25 11:03 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2011-04-25 21:29 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> - 2011-04-25 23:40 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2011-04-28 00:34 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> - 2011-04-27 20:42 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation MetaEd <metaed@gmail.com> - 2011-04-26 08:19 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> - 2011-04-26 09:46 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation MetaEd <metaed@gmail.com> - 2011-04-27 12:19 -0700
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation legalize+jeeves@mail.xmission.com (Richard) - 2011-04-28 00:24 +0000
                Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@comcast.net> - 2011-04-25 08:02 -0400
              Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Paul Sture <paul.nospam@sture.ch> - 2011-04-25 10:53 +0200
          Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) - 2011-04-25 08:14 -0500
            Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation Paul Sture <paul.nospam@sture.ch> - 2011-04-25 23:13 +0200
  Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---undress to reply) - 2011-04-19 20:21 +0000
    Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation   VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG - 2011-04-19 21:15 +0000

csiph-web