DOCBOOK-APPS: Re: DOCBOOK: Query.

[Alexander Kirillov <kirillov at math dot sunysb dot edu>]

On Tue, 2002-04-09 at 15:35, Sumit Dhar wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Apr 2002, Jirka Kosek wrote:
> 
> > documents -- doing really good, generaly usable and flexible conversion
> > from LaTeX to other formats like HTML is impossible. However this is
> > possible with DocBook where grammar of document is precisely defined by
> 
> Say for someone who doesnt wish to define his/her own macros, wont
> packages like latex2html, pdflatex be able to generate the required
> format?? 
> 
> Also in real life, it is possible people are not *that* interested in
> defining their macros... Personally, I might find what LaTeX gives
> me is good enough? Will then too DocBook have any advantages over LaTeX?
> 
> I might be over critical, but one of the reasons for that is I have a
> good WYSIWYG editor LYX for Latex, which even my non-technical people
> can use... But for DocBook, wont they face problems? 

It depends on what you want. If you want technical papers or docs, with
printed (PS, PDF) output only, LateX is the way to go. It gives great
quality. You'll need some experience to customize the style files to
change the appearance, but simple modifications are easy. BTW, do not
believe that LyX is the perfect Wysiwyg editor for LaTeX - it is not. It
is a WYSIWIG editor that allows you to use *some* of LaTeX
functionality. Almost all people I know who do  serious work in LaTeX
use a plain text editor (usually emacs), not LyX. And almost certainly,
sooner or later you'll need to define your own macros. 

If you need other formats, including html - better use DocBook.
latex2html gives tolerable results converting simple LaTeX files to
simple HTML pages. If "tolerable" and "simple" are not good enough for
you, then forget about LaTeX->HTML transformation. Suffices to say that
mathematical formulas are converted to image (gif) files which results
in rather poor quality. 

I use LaTeX for writing (mathematical) papers and books and DocBook to
write computer documentation. 

  
Sasha