Re: Organizing and taming hectic Academia work (faculty viewpoint)? Tips or a good guides sought after :)

["Julian Burgos" <julian@hafro.is>]

Hi Ken,

This is a good idea! I will give it a try.  Thanks!

Julian

> Hi Julian,
>
> On 2015-06-10 at 10:16, Julian Burgos <julian@hafro.is> wrote:
>> a) I first write in org-mode. Export to Word, either exporting first
>> to ODT and then to Word, or to LaTex and then use pandoc to convert
>> LaTex to Word. My coauthor can edit the document as he wishes, using
>> the "Track changes" option. Then, I transcribe their edits back into
>> the org-mode document. Advantage of this approach: your coauthor
>> receives a clean word file, that could include figures, references,
>> etc., and he/she uses the tools she likes to edit the file.
>> Disadvantage: you have to manually incorporate the changes to the
>> org-mode file each time there are edits.
>>
>> b) I write the manuscript in org-mode. Then I send the org-mode file
>> to my coauthor. Because the org-mode file is just a text file, my
>> coauthor can use Word to edit it. I ask him/her *not* to use "track
>> changes" and to save the edited version also as a text file. Then,
>> when I receive it I use ediff in emacs to compare both documents and
>> incorporate the edits I want. Advantage of this approach: the merging
>> of the documents is easy using ediff. Disadvantage: your coauthor has
>> to edit a weird-looking document, with markup, code blocks, etc.
>
> It seems like with a bit of extra (scriptable?) work you could remove both
> disadvantages.
>
> Why can't you use method (a) above, and then DOCX -> Org via pandoc (with
> --accept-all option)?
>
> I know pandoc introduce some of its own changes to the Org syntax but not
> the document itself. You can get around this. You can remove the
> pandoc-generated changes automagically so that only co-author changes
> appear in Org format, which you can then use with your (b) above and emacs
> ediff.
>
> Original: Your Org source
> A: Org -> DOCX for co-authors (using pandoc)
> B: Org -> DOCX -> Org (using pandoc).
> C: A -> Org (using pandoc and --accept-all-changes)
> D: B-Original
>
> The difference between B and Original are pandoc-introduced changes that
> you do not want. Ignore/remove these changes from C, call it D and then
> the difference between D and the Original are your co-author comments. Now
> your authors can edit DOCX with Track Changes and you can work on those
> edits with Emacs ediff.
>
>   -k.
>