Re: org-mode markup vs rst for general content

[Alan L Tyree <alantyree@gmail.com>]

On 10/03/17 11:17, Samuel Wales wrote:
> On 3/9/17, Alan L Tyree <alantyree@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The only problem that I have had is converting org-mode to Word files as
>> required by my publisher. The ODT export module is fiddly and often
>> chokes on my longer documents. When it does choke, it is hard to trace
>> the problems. Markdown + Pandoc seems much better in this regard, but
>> the outlining features in Emacs do not seem to be as good for the
>> Markdown mode. To get a decent export in my latest manuscript I had to
>> export to LaTeX then use ht4tex. Not a pretty workflow.
> your answer seems very helpful.  not sure what you mean in this par though.
>
> just to clarify:
>
> are you referring to exporting to word from org-mode?
Yes, my publisher demands Word manuscripts (I don't know why -- they 
immediately use some other publishing software).
>    - odt [is that word format?]
LibreOffice, but LibreOffice exports nicely to Word.
>    - org -> markdown -> pandoc [presumably word]
Or even org -> Word using pandoc; the result was a bit of a mess though 
whether going via markdown or directly. Actually two problems:

       - Lots of html markup in the result; noting the earlier posts in 
this thread, that might have been overcome;

       - Internal references were links where the text of the link was 
the text of the target section; what I wanted was the link text to be 
the section number. In other words, the result was "see Holder in Due 
Course" instead of "see 4.6.1". The links were correct in each case, but 
the descriptive text was different.

   - org -> latex -> ht4tex [= word?]

No, I was wrong about that. ht4tex converted to HTML (but with the right 
form of cross reference) and then pandoc to word. The end result had the 
cross references in the form I wanted.

Is there any direct way to get the "see 4.6.1" form of reference? I 
doubt it since it clearly requires a double pass of the manuscript, 
first to assign section numbers and labels, then to put in the 
appropriate reference. LaTeX does that.
> i was wondering, too, what format would be good to export to for a
> nontechnical reader, from org, and can preserve org's external
> hyperlinks and numbered outline structure.
The LibreOffice export is good when it works. I have just found it to be 
hit and miss. If the 'non-technical' reader can handle plain text, I 
would just send them Markdown, otherwise I guess you need to go for Word 
or RTF. It is a painful process.

> to the original poster: org can also insert literal target format
> code.  for example, you can put literal html code into your export as
> needed.  dunno if that fits your needs.
>


-- 
Alan L Tyree                    http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel:  04 2748 6206              sip:typhoon@iptel.org