"Light" word processor plus the occasional spreadsheet

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 20:47:04 -0500, illoai at gmail.com wrote:
> Maybe because 20+ years ago I learnt wordstar, so if
> you grew up on pointin' & clickin' you'll be sorely dis-
> appointed, but I enjoy the jstar mode of editors/joe
> (or actually editors/jupp, some dif'rence, mostly).

Fully agree for text _creation_ (e. g. as LaTeX sources),
joe is a very productive environment if you're familiar
with the WS/TP interface.



> Pathetic writer, from siag isn't half bad, but you'll have
> to build from sources all by your lonesome, & it ain't
> gonna work at first.

In this regards using already _ported_ software seems to
be easier. I've spend some time here to get a "customized"
version of OpenOffice (german language variant, _no_ KDE,
_no_ Gnome, but sadly _yes_ CUPS even though I don't need
it due to a perfectly capable PS/PCL printer).

Of course, it's not as easy as "pkg_add -r de-openoffice"
anymore. You could install the whole office suite _plus_
the localized dictionary (today missing, needs additional
fiddling!) and it worked out of the box.

"Modern" software can be different. :-)

Luckily, using Abiword doesn't require that much dependencies.
Only some Gtk parts ("Gnome parts") are required, but you
don't get a full Gnome install "for free".



> The downside is the general inability to simply open
> /certain proprietary formats/ which libre- & open-office
> have.

That's correct - LibreOffice and OpenOffice can even open
formats that their native producers can't open anymore,
like memory garbage left behind by "quick safe" and data
files from older "Word" versions which their "modern"
successors refuse to open.

As long as text is "pure text" or at least some kind of
markup or macro language, simply using the preferred
text editor will be _the thing_. But people often tend
to make things more complicated than they are - for
themselves and for others. :-)

And maybe new problems arise when working "through"
different ISO encodings and UTF... this is where the
use of a word processor could avoid problems (if all
the required _fonts_ are installed... oh, I'm just
substituting one problem with another)...



> But then I'm a fan of editing & writing with a simple
> editing & writing program & saving all the font & other
> extraneous formatting nonsense to a proper layout
> program (the old Aldus PageMaker was nice back
> in the 1990s, haha):  print/scribus might be an option,
> except that it pulls in every accursed KDE/qt4 thing
> on Earth.

That's a different approach that might even go into the
direction of layouting or even DTP. In this case, word
processors are the wrong tool.

So after all, if it's just "people send me some strange
'Word' files and want be to open and maybe change it",
a standalone word processor like Abiword looks like the
easiest solution.



I'd finally like to point to this document which might help
to make people aware of _what_ they are actually doing when
they're sending memory dumps around:

http://en.nothingisreal.com/wiki/Please_don't_send_me_Microsoft_Word_documents

Also see the links to "Word processors: stupid and inefficient"
and "What has WYSIWYG done to us?" at the end of the page.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...