Now that we are getting close to having a full set of rebranded user
guides for LibreOffice (based on the OOo guides), I would like to put
forward for discussion some major changes to the Getting Started guide.
(I have made the same proposal to the OOo group, but the two guides do
not need to remain in parallel if the two groups choose different paths
to improve them.)
The Getting Started guide was originally intended to be no longer than
200 pages, but it is now closer to 400 pages. I would like to cut out
some chapters and make them into standalone guides, drop some material
that is covered in other books and IMO is no longer needed in this one,
slightly reorganise what's left, and add some pointers to the other
books and documents. Details below. The main goal is to improve the
book's usefulness for new users; decreasing the page count is a
secondary goal.
1) Remove Chapter 8 (Getting Started with Base) and make it a standalone
document. It is 52 pages long (longer than the Math Guide) and I think
would be more useful to beginning Base users if it's standalone. Also, I
think the vast majority of new OOo users will NOT be using Base.
2) Remove Chapter 9 (Getting Started with Math) because it duplicates
the first part of the Math Guide and is therefore not needed here.
3) Remove most of Chapter 12 (Creating Web Pages) because the info is
given in the guides for Writer, Impress, etc and is really little more
than an export function; it could be mentioned briefly in the chapter on
Printing, Exporting etc. Info on hyperlinks needs to be put somewhere
else; I don't have a specific suggestion on this, but it didn't really
fit in this chapter anyway, since it's relevant to more than web page
creation.
4) Combine Chapter 2 (Setting up OOo) and Chapter 14 (Customizing) and
leave the result at the end of the book. This is similar to the way the
topics are handled in the other books.
5) Drop Appendix A (Keyboard Shortcuts) and put a brief mention in
Chapter 1 with a pointer to the Help.
That's the major changes. I have a few other changes to suggest in
various chapters. In total the reorganisation should cut the page count
down below 300 pages and make the book more useful for the majority of
new users.
Comments?
--Jean