# Word Processors

Even if you are not comfortable working DocBook's tagset in a text editor you can still produce valid DocBook documents using a word processor. Support at this point is very limited, but it does exist in the following programs. The up side, of course, is that things like spell check are built in to the program. In addition to this, support for DocBook (and XML) is constantly improving.

## Converting Microsoft Word documents

Even if you want to use MS Word to write your documents, you may find w2XML useful. Note that this is not free software--the cost is around $130USD. There is, however, a trial version of the software.

## Work on the content!

Remember that all formatting changes you make to your document will be ignored when your document is released by the LDP. Instead of focusing on how your document looks, focus on the content.

## AbiWord

Through word of mouth I've heard that AbiWord can work (natively) with DocBook documents. This will need to be tested by someone (possibly me) and should definitely be included if it is the case.

## OpenOffice.org

http://openoffice.org

As of OpenOffice.org (OOo) 1.1RC there has been support for exporting files to DocBook format.

Although OOo uses the full DocBook document type declaration, it does not actually export the full list of DocBook elements. It uses a simplified DocBook tagset which is geared to on-the-fly rendering. (Although it is not the official Simplified DocBook which is described in .) The OpenOffice simplified (or special docbook) is available from .

### Open Office 1.0.x

OOo has been tested by LDP volunteers with mostly positive results. Thanks to Charles Curley (charlescurley.com) for the following notes on using OOo version 1.0.x:

#### Check the version of your OpenOffice

These notes may not apply to the version of OOo you are using.

- To be able to export to DocBook, you must have a Java runtime environment (JRE) installed and registered with OOo--a minimum of version 4.2.x is recommended. The configuration instructions will depend on how you installed your JRE. Visit the OOo web site for help with your setup.

  Contrary to the OOo documentation, the Linux OOo did not come with a JRE. I got one from Sun.

- The exported file has lots of empty lines. My 54 line exported file had 5 lines of actual XML code.

- There was no effort at pretty printing.

- The header is: `<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd">`

- The pull-down menu in the File Save As dialog box for file format indicates that the export format is DocBook (simplified). There is no explanation of what that simplified indicates. Does OOo export a subset of DocBook? If so, which elements are ignored? Is there any way to enter any of them manually?

- There is NO documentation on the DocBook export filter or whether OOo will import it again.

Conclusions: OOo 1.1RC is worth looking at if you want a word processor for preparing DocBook documents.

However, I hope they cure the lack of documentation. For one thing, it would be nice to know which native OOo styles map to which DocBook elements. It would also be nice to know how to map one's own OOo styles to DocBook elements.

### Open Office 1.1

Tabatha Marshall offers the following additional information for OOo 1.1.

> The first problem was when I tried to do everything on version 1.0.1. That was obviously a problem. I have RH8, and it was installed via rpm packages, so I ripped it out and did a full, new install of OpenOffice 1.1. It took a while to find out 1.1 was a requirement for XML to work.

> During the install process I believe I was offered the choice to install the XML features. I have a tendency to do full installs of my office programs, so I selected everything.

> I can't offer any advice to those trying to update their current OO 1.1. Their 3 ways aren't documented very well at the site (xml.openoffice.org) and as of this writing, I can't even find THAT on their site anymore. I think more current documentation is needed there to walk people through the process. Most of this was unclear and I had to pretty much experiment to get things working.

> Well, after I installed everything I had some configuration to do. I opened the application, and got started by opening a new file, choosing templates, then selecting the DocBook template. A nice menu of Paragraph Styles popped up for me, which are the names for all those tags, I noticed (you can see I don't use WYSIWYG often).

> With a blank doc before me (couldn't get to the XML Filter Settings menu unless some type of doc was opened), I went into Tools XML Filter Settings, and edited the entry for DocBook file. I configured mine as follows:

> - Doctype `-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN`

> - DTD `http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd`

> - XSLT for export `/usr/local/OpenOffice.org1.1.0/share/xslt/docbook/ldp-html.xsl`

> - XSLT for import `/usr/local/OpenOffice.org1.1.0/share/xslt/docbook/docbooktosoffheadings.xsl` (this is the default)

> - Template for import `/home/tabatha/OpenOffice/user/template/DocBook File/DocBookTemplate.stw`

> At first, if I opened an XML file that had even one parsing error, it would just open the file anyway and display the markup in OO. I have many XML files that use &copy; and other types of entities which show up as parse errors (depending on the encoding) even though they can be processed through. But today I was unable to open any of those files. I got input/output errors instead. Still investigating that one.

> However when you do successfully open a document (one parsing with no errors), it puts it automatically into WYSIWYG based on the markup, and you can then work from the paragraph styles menu like any other such editor.

> To validate the document, I used Tools XML Filter Settings, then clicked the Test XSLTs button. On my screen, I set up the XSLT for export to be `ldp-html.xsl`. If you test and there are errors, a new window pops up with error messages at the bottom, and the lines that need to be changed up at the top. You can change them there and progress through the errors until they're all gone, and keep testing until they're gone.

> If you want to open a file to see the source instead of the processed results, go to Tools XML Filter Settings Test XSLTs, and then under the Import section, check the Display Source box. My import XSLT is currently `docbooktosoffheadings.xsl` (the default) and the template for import is `DocBookTemplate.stw` (also default).

> I think this might work for some people, but unfortunately not for me. I've never used WYSIWYG to edit markup. Emacs with PSGML can tell me what my next tag is no matter where I am, validate by moving through the trouble spots, and I can parse and process from command line.

> With OpenOffice, you have to visit http://xml.openoffice.org/filters.html to find conversion tools.

## WordPerfect 9 (Corel Office 2000)

http://www.corel.com/

WordPerfect 9 for the MS Windows platform has support for SGML and DocBook 3.0. WordPerfect 9 for Linux has no SGML capabilities.

If you are using WordPerfect on the Linux operating system, please read: WordPerfect on Linux FAQ

## XMLmind's XML editor

Although strictly speaking, it is not a word processor, XMLmind's XML editor allows authors to concentrate on the content, and not the markup. It has built in spelling and conversion utilities which allow you to transform your documents without having to install and configure an additional processing tool such as jade. There is a free standard edition, which is a simplified version of their professional edition.

## Conglomerate

According to their web site, Conglomerate aims to be an XML editor that everyone can use. In particular, our primary goal is to create the ultimate editor for DocBook and similar formats. It aims to hide the jargon and complexity of XML and present the information in your documents in a way that makes sense.

## Vex: a visual editor for XML

According to their web site, The visual part comes from the fact that Vex hides the raw XML tags from the user, providing instead a wordprocessor-like interface. Because of this, Vex is best suited for document-style XML documents such as XHTML and DocBook rather than data-style XML documents.