[OLPC library] end-user doc update, 12/14/07

[Seth Woodworth]

On Dec 16, 2007 2:56 AM, adam hyde <adam at flossmanuals.net> wrote:

> hi,
>
> Pleased to meet you all. I'm very excited to be working on the OLPC
> documentation and to be working to migrate the Simple Users guide to
> FLOSS Manuals.
>
> I thought I should pip in with a 'hi' and mention that if anyone would
> like to know anything about FLOSS Manuals, how the system works, what we
> have in place in terms of workflow/toolchains and what our plans are
> then please don't hesitate to ask.
>

Yes, I would very much like to speak with you at length about your workflow
and ongoing projects.  FLOSS Manuals looks like a very neat project.
Perhaps we could work out a skype or messenger conversation.


> >
> > Seth - from Adam I learned that the formatting of the print versions
> > out of the Floss Manuals wiki uses Scribus - http://www.scribus.net/.
> > We should explore ways to leverage your layout work with the FM work.
>

Hrrm.  I am not familiar with Scribus nearly as much as I would like.  I
don't know how much of my work in indesign can be ported over to this new
system, other than using my layouts as guidelines.

But if Scribus will allow us to flow new versions and translations into
something press-ready, I'm all for it.  As happy as I am personally with
non-free InDesign, it would be best not to use it for such a FOSS program.


>
> I believe I met Seth at Wikimania during his (excellent) talk on
> participation and Wikipedia. Good to met you again!


Sorry, not I.


>
> I'm very interested in what you have done the area of print preparation
> Seth. It would be very nice if there is a possibility to combine tools
> and ideas.
>
> To prepare the print ready PDFs for Print in Demand we use Scribus.
> Scribus has a nice internal scripter (python) and so we have written a
> script to import a manual in HTML and lay it out with our styles etc. We
> still need to tweak the content once it is in Scribus but with this
> method I can produce a nicely designed print-ready manual in less than a
> day. We are currently extending the script to make the process quicker,
> and to work easily with different page layouts and styles.
>

Depending on SJ's input here, we're looking at a fairly short time frame
that this should be ready by.  As much as I would prefer to have a process /
workflow in place before we produce any output, that may not be possible,
and we may need to get something Out before we have polished methods of
replication.

I look forward to working with you,

Seth Woodworth
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