From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 5 02:10:02 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C8F7A16A479 for ; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 02:10:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jahnke@sonatabio.com) Received: from smtp.wizwire.com (smtp.wizwire.com [209.218.100.6]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ADD0913C46E for ; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 02:10:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jahnke@sonatabio.com) Received: from [192.168.0.100] (207-104-43-151.starstream.net [207.104.43.151]) (authenticated bits=0) by smtp.wizwire.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id l9527QsK014659; Thu, 4 Oct 2007 19:07:27 -0700 From: Frank Jahnke To: Aryeh Friedman In-Reply-To: References: <1191546543.61533.202.camel@pinot.fmjassoc.com> Content-Type: text/plain Organization: Sonata Biosciences, Inc. Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:05:20 -0700 Message-Id: <1191549920.61533.214.camel@pinot.fmjassoc.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.12.0 FreeBSD GNOME Team Port Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-WizWire-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-WizWire-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: jahnke@sonatabio.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: good replacement for open office X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: jahnke@sonatabio.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:10:02 -0000 On Fri, 2007-10-05 at 01:20 +0000, Aryeh Friedman wrote: > > > > 1) Collaboration (complex). > Read/write .doc, pdf and rtf mainly > > > 2) Document creation. > > WYSIWYG editing for the above including embedded graphics and equations > > I also want to keep the learn curve as small as possible (I know > enough troff to be dangerous) My suggestion would be to buy Textmaker/Planmaker -- it is well worth it -- but if you are really heavily into math, learn TeX or troff for document input. TeX (and its various packagings) is the better of the two to learn, since most journals take TeX input files but not troff. (I still consider the eqn preprocessor for troff as the most brilliant user-level software program ever written.) Most publishers do take pdfs, but they complain. Oh, and if you want to read pdf files and do any editing, you need Adobe Acrobat (Windows and OS X). There is nothing in the open-source world that comes anywhere close. I run it in a VM and on Windows boxes. Writing to pdf files from many input formats is handled well with ghostscript, which is used by many open-source programs.