Re: PDF Export

> Ah, so there it is, hiding in my print dialog.

For the record, we do not "hide" anything in the print
dialog. We merely use the standard Gnome Print dialog,
which comes with whatever features that Gnome Print
provides.
 
> That is incredibly unobvious. I'm sure you are
> aware that the
> OpenOffice.org team see this as important enough to
> provide it's own
> entry in the 'File' menu and it is listed as a main
> feature.

How OOo achieves this effect and how we achieve it are
fundamentally different, though that may be of limited
usefulness in the present discussion.

From a technical standpoint, it is equally unobvious
that you can "Save As" a DOC to PDF. A DOC contains
lots of logical and semantic data from which a visual
represenation can be formed. A PDF is a vector graphic
- a pretty picture of how one app thinks the document
should look like. The best and (to date) most common
way of achieving this is via printing, though by no
means is this the sole way.

Further, what OOo markets as features and how it does
so is OOo's business. If it indeed be a useful enough
feature to include on its own merit, then so be it.
OOo's marketing strategy is nonwithstanding and
carries no weight with me. The "but everyone else is
doing it" argument is bs. Find out why they're doing
it, and argue those merits instead.

> Should AbiWord go to similar lengths or should users
> RTM?

Not that I dislike "solutions" versus "tools", but I
think that here it is appropriate that we act as a
tool in part of a larger environment. We should enable
our users to accomplish their tasks, and I believe
that we currently do so, albeit with a modicum of
effort. But I don't believe that exerting a modicum of
effort is necessarily a bad thing.

Dom

        
                
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Received on Sun, 15 Aug 2004 14:42:45 -0700 (PDT)