[FM Discuss] When to use FLOSS Manuals and when it's not the best tool / platform? your opinions

[Gregory Pittman]

On 5/15/19 6:06 PM, Maren Hachmann wrote:
> Hi Mick,
> 
> I'm still following this list, even though I have switched to using
> sphinx/readthedocs some time ago, and I'm happy to help you, and to help
> the users to make a good decision.
> 

At least what I can quickly poke away at with sphinx/RTD, it looks exactly what I don't like about formatting documentation/books -- a lot of lingo to learn, and more or less programming. If I wanted that, I would stick with TeX, which I already have some experience with.

Booktype in the past has been easy to use, and has and more intuitive interface. The problems I have had recently is that it seems to be broken for turning your documents into something useful, like ePubs or PDFs. I tried writing a manual and ended up scraping out the raw material and making my PDF with Scribus, where at least I felt I had control of the layout.

The problem with TeX is its handling of images, which as far as I know still remains rather clumsy, but if you don't need images, and like the automatic way of creating footnotes, endnotes, and tables, and well at math symbols, it can be useful. 

What one wants to achieve is something that can handle both the production of rigid sorts of layouts like PDF and also the more flexible needs of ePubs.

Greg