[texinfo-pretest] Texinfo and Open Office.

[vale.it at tiscali.it]

Hello,

I need your help: is anybody capable to explain me how to import and export Texinfo files from and to Open Office?

First a short introductory note: I prefer writing directly in Texinfo documentation format also, and typeset them with TeX. The problem is that sometimes you must share documents with other people you are working with. Moreover, sometimes you must use pre-defined templates not so much for the content of the document, but for the layout and image of the workgroup.

I saw so far that Texinfo supports xml and docbook when outputting the source. I am personally convinced that Office Suites like Open Office, Koffice and others should be learned, in medium term, to read and compile directly and dinamically texinfo source files. This because Texinfo is very mature dialect, and still very simple to learn and use (much simpler than any TeX or XML dialect). 
But this is future and a personal belief: that Texinfo source is the most easy, complete and universal documentation format ever created, resulting in the possibility for Texinfo files to be created and compiled on any piece of hardware, regardless of power, dimensions, operating systems eccetera...

Now we are in the present, helas!!!

And so, for the time being I would like to find the way to import into Open Office texinfo processed content and to make Open Office apply automatically the formatting styles.

I think that this is theoretically possible in one of the three following ways:
(1) Export / Import XML from / into Open Office.
(2) Export / Import Docbook from / into Open Office.
(3) Create a macro into Open Office capable to apply Open Office styles to the corresponding Texinfo "@" command words.

The problem is that 
(1) I cannot manage to import of XML, Open Office has a very complicated system for importing documents I (not being a programmer) cannot understand or use.
(2) I tried to follow the instructions on http://xml.openoffice.org for importing and exporting docbook, with no success (I guess that docbook filters were written for StarOffice and this is why they do not work in Open Office, but I am not sure);
(3) I did not understand how to create a "search to the end of document" macro (i.e. a macro containing a while cycle) in order to change "@" command words starting from the beginning of a document and finishing to the end of the same.

In all cases I believe that exchange between Texinfo and Open Office would be an excellent feature for Texinfo.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks and have a nice week-end.


vale.it at tiscali.it