Re: [O] Video showing Jambunathan's ODT exporter

[Herbert Sitz]

Torsten Wagner <torsten.wagner <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> > It's obviously not for everyone; I'm sure some Org users have no need for
> > documents in a word processor and steer as far away as possible.  Others may
> > love it, though, and it could potentially bring more users to Org community.
> 
> Well it becomes particular important if it comes to collaboration with 
> MS-Office people. I can write my stuff in org and make a LaTeX export 
> for the final submission, however, I can send co-authors ODT (and by 
> resaving doc) formats to allow them to make changes and comments to the 
> manuscript.
 
Great point.  On related note, did you see the tweak Jambunathan 
added a week or so ago to translate "note blocks" in Org into 
author-attributed comment bubbles in Word/LibreOffice:
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/48585

Another benefit I just thought about with to exporting to ODT is the
power it gives users to modify document formats.  LaTeX is amazing,
but it's not something where the average user is going to be able
to tweak the output very easily.  Word/LibreOffice, on the other
hand, allow the average user to tweak formatting fairly easily, either 
after export by changing styles directly in the document, or (I assume)
before export by changing the styles that are used by Jambunathan's
exporter.  Though I must say the formatting he's using right now seems
very good.  I particularly like the way section headings have slightly
more whitespace above than they do below, makes for nice connection
of headings to their text, which if I recall is a touch that's not 
done as nicely in many LaTeX classes.

> 
> Having the possibility to re-import the ODT-file into org and make a 
> kind of diff which I simply step through and either agree or disagree 
> would be perfect. Emacs already has diff functionallity. What would be 
> needed is a way to re-import the ODT-file in a as much as possible exact 
> way like it was originally.
> The ODF format is open and I wonder whether there is some kind of 
> metadata tag, which could be used to save the org-mode stuff directly 
> beside the odt text stuff... this would allow to restore the org-mode 
> file rather efficiently.

That could be sort of a "holy grail" type of workflow, seamless export 
out and import back in from MS Word.  I know Org's exports to other 
formats are also amazing, but the export to MS Word seems somehow
more "magic".  I think it's because I'm a relative old-time and still
think of Word as being monstrosity from the days of proprietary
binary formats.  Now with ODT support it's (almost) like making it
part of the plain-text crowd.

Regards,

Herb