Dede Lamb via luv-main <luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:
When I need to produce documents I write them in markdown, convert them to html using pandoc and then convert that to pdf using wkhtmltopdf. I style the html document using css which is the easiest way i know of to apply styles, very little code is required to get something fairly snappy looking.
I like Markdown and Pandoc for relatively simple documents; where greater control of presentation is desired, I use LaTeX.
I've gotten to writing makefiles for common sets of documents like my cv and accompanying cover letter.
My makefile can also produce HTML slides from Markdown source (again using Pandoc to do all of the work).
I'm loving the office-free life! And whenever someone sends me a .docx now i html it and read in less
In my current work environment, there's a heavy dependence on Microsoft Office, but I still write most of my work in Pandoc or LaTex. When editing the work of colleagues, however, the only reasonable option is the Microsoft tools. As I'm using a screen reader for accessibility reasons, I need working assistive technology support. LibreOffice has been declining in that respect ever since Sun (with their accessibility group then intact) left the scene. Apple's word processor doesn't yet support the accessibility of comments and change tracking in docx (Office Open XML) files. Google Docs has given me problems too. At least the Microsoft solution works (for the most part), though it crashes more frequently than anything else that I've encountered, so the statement that it "works" comes with significant qualifications. Some journals also demand precisely formatted docx or rtf files, for which one really needs a word processor. So, although the office suite-free existence isn't available to me at the moment, at least I write and edit most of my work in Pandoc Markdown or LaTeX (even if it's on a Microsoft machine running Emacs).