[Zope] - Docs: Printed vs Screen: Techniques

Robert OConnor rocon@pivot.net
Fri, 29 Jan 1999 09:16:47 -0500


Hi Amos,  {and list members}

I'm impressed with the documentation that 
you recently published -- the three new
user guides.

It's nice to see that they come in 4 delicious
flavors:

>  * Online HTML
>  * Online PDF
>  * gzipped tarred Postscript
>  * gzipped tarred HTML

http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Guides


For a printed copy, I prefer the PDF format 
because the page breaks, margins and
alignment are just as you, the author, intended.

If I print the HTML from the browser, I usually
change to the smallest font and hope for the
best.  Sometimes lines still print off the page
and page breaks can be in ugly places.

***Ok, so how do you do it?

What word processor and native format do you
use?  Is it based in HTML and converted to 
PDF and Postscript?

I'm looking for the optimal WEB document 
tool but also want to have good looking paper 
documents.

In the past, I have published *fancy* 
paper reports using VenturaPublisher (Old v4).  
A series of FoxPro programs scanned the 
DOS data to produce Ventura marked up 
ASCII files. Ventura could then print the 
fancy paper reports.

Ok so we want to move this process to the
web ...reports that look great both on the 
web and on paper SO.....

***What are the best tools Today?

****Are there tools that take a user query and
make it fancy both for the screen and for paper?

For example,  can the PDF format be created
automatically on the fly?  ... Always print
an intro page then print the results of a 
data query.  Made available as a link
for download/view on a Zope page?

*----
Also related:  I currently have a number of
WordPerfect DOS files to convert to HTML
Again, the best - easiest tools to use.

Thank you.

-bobo connor  bob@rocnet.com