[OOo-Hebrew] A challenge - can OO do this?

[Shmuel Himelstein]

One thing I'd like to be able to do with OO is to design a "Mikra'ot
Gedolot" format, where the text is on the top and a few commentators are
underneath it, and where the program figures out how to space everything
from one page to the next. Does that sound impossible? Or is there some way
to get into the guts" of OO and to modify it to do this?



Shmuel

[Amir E. Aharoni]

Post by Shmuel Himelstein
One thing I'd like to be able to do with OO is to design a "Mikra'ot
Gedolot" format, where the text is on the top and a few commentators are
underneath it, and where the program figures out how to space everything
from one page to the next. Does that sound impossible? Or is there some way
to get into the guts" of OO and to modify it to do this?

"Mikra'ot Gedolot" format requires, among other things, a very
complicated typesetting mechanism with non-rectangular tables.

I don't think that even OpenOffice's biggest competitor - MS Word is
able to do that. Word and OpenOffice are good for letters, faxes,
simple homework and maybe technical manuals.

For really good typesetting you may try software in the TeX / LaTeX /
LyX family. Like OpenOffice, they are all free software, but they are
aimed at the user that requires high-quality typesetting and not just
faxes. My wife is not a computer geek at all and she uses LyX, which
has a very simple GUI, to write the papers for her M.Sc. degree and
she's quite happy about it. The printed output is just wonderful. (She
uses MS Word for letters, but never for anything serious.)
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[Shai Berger]

Post by Amir E. Aharoni

Post by Shmuel Himelstein
One thing I'd like to be able to do with OO is to design a "Mikra'ot
Gedolot" format, where the text is on the top and a few commentators are
underneath it, and where the program figures out how to space everything
from one page to the next. Does that sound impossible? Or is there some
way to get into the guts" of OO and to modify it to do this?

"Mikra'ot Gedolot" format requires, among other things, a very
complicated typesetting mechanism with non-rectangular tables.

If I understand correctly, the "frames" feature of KWord should be enough for
you. I would be somewhat surprised if it turned out that you can't set a body
of text in a square somewhere on the page and have other pieces of text flow
around it, either in MS Word or OO Writer.

Have fun,
Shai.
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[Amir E. Aharoni]

Post by Shai Berger

Post by Amir E. Aharoni

Post by Shmuel Himelstein
One thing I'd like to be able to do with OO is to design a "Mikra'ot
Gedolot" format, where the text is on the top and a few commentators are
underneath it, and where the program figures out how to space everything
from one page to the next. Does that sound impossible? Or is there some
way to get into the guts" of OO and to modify it to do this?

"Mikra'ot Gedolot" format requires, among other things, a very
complicated typesetting mechanism with non-rectangular tables.

If I understand correctly, the "frames" feature of KWord should be enough for
you. I would be somewhat surprised if it turned out that you can't set a body
of text in a square somewhere on the page and have other pieces of text flow
around it, either in MS Word or OO Writer.

I think that Shmuel wants OO to detect automatically the sizes of all
the frames, so the relevant commentary remains on the same page.

Come to think of it, i always wondered - how did the Jewish
typesetters in Lithuania over hundred years ago did it so perfectly
without any computers.

[Yitzchak Gale]

Post by Amir E. Aharoni

Post by Shmuel Himelstein
One thing I'd like to be able to do with OO is to design a "Mikra'ot
Gedolot" format, where the text is on the top and a few commentators are
underneath it, and where the program figures out how to space everything
from one page to the next. Does that sound impossible?

Nearly. It is even harder than it sounds.

I have a friend who used to do this kind of typesetting
professionally. He had a set of huge Word 6 macros
to do it. He left that business when he could no longer
run his macros on any existing computer.

He tells me that there is a specialized commercial
application that does this kind of typesetting. It costs
about $900, it is hard to use, and it comes with very
little documentation. There is nothing else that
comes even close.

Of course, you can always write yourself some macros
for your favorite typesetting software. Good luck.

Post by Amir E. Aharoni
Come to think of it, i always wondered - how did the Jewish
typesetters in Lithuania over hundred years ago did it so perfectly
without any computers.

By hand, placing each piece of letter and spacer type into
a frame one at a time.

Books used to be a lot more expensive than they are now.
Still a lot cheaper than manuscripts, though.

-Yitzchak
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