[X4U] MS Office 2008 delayed

[Linda]

On 8/3/07 12:05 PM, Art Amolsch wrote:

> I've never understood why some people need Word. But maybe
> that's just me, and I'm really missing something.

A question directed to anyone:

Can you use Track Changes balloons/comments in Nisus Writer or Tex-Edit or
OpenOffice? What happens to the suggested edits when you open a Word doc
that has tracked changes? Can you read Word's Track Changes markup? Can you
respond in kind and send the doc off down the line?

Every major publishing house with which I've worked (such as Random House,
Fodor's, Wiley, Mosby, to name a few you'd recognize) requires Word in their
upstream process (during the collaboration on edits and changes between
authors and editors). That means I have to have it, too, to handle these
files.

Do Tex-Edit and/or Nisus Writer or OpenOffice offer indexing features? Other
clients of mine have their manuscript indexed in Word (which inserts
indexing codes next to terms that they want to appear in the final index),
and then I run a VBasic macro that converts Word's indexing codes to XPress'
IndeXTension indexing codes, so that I can automagically generate a usable
index from the final layout (done in QuarkXPress). Can someone tell me how
I'd do that in one of these other "does as much as Word" programs?

I'm pleased as punch that so many of you have found a way to live your life
without Micro$oft on your computers. I wish *I* could! Reality is, unless
you can show me totally invisible workarounds for the two scenarios up
above, not everyone can shed Word, and the insinuations that we could if we
really wanted to are pretty hurtful. Those of you who work in publishing --
other than self-contained, self- or small-press publishing -- know what I'm
talking about.

peace,
Linda (not upgrading to Word 2008 because it lacks VBasic and so none of her
sometimes-expensive macros will work...)