Introduction

Hi,

For years I've been using Linux and many free programs like LibreOffice. I've wanted to make a contribution to an open source project for a long time, but not being a programmer, I didn't know how.

About a month ago I started a course to become a technical writer and would like to help writing documentation for LibreOffice.

I'm in the process of reading the documents on http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development.

I would like to have a user account for the ODFauthors site and some suggestions about where help is needed.

I know the Writer best, followed by Impress and Calc. I have used Draw a few times, but I've never tried out Base.

Regards,

Franziska Schulthess

Hi Franziska,
nice to have you here. Some others will give instructions for the international work here, especially Jean as team lead.

It seems that you are German speaking so I want to invite you to help the German documentation team for producing documentation.
If you are interested then I will write some more descriptions in a private mail in German (it is much easier for me).

As requested, I've created your account for the ODFAuthors website.
You should receive an email with instructions on how to set your
password.

In addition to Klaus-Jürgen's suggestion about German documentation,
you are welcome to work on English docs as well. At this time we are
getting ready to update the user guides to LOv4.0. There are also
other things you could work on if you prefer; see the "Easy Hacks"
page, http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Easy_hacks and
especially the "More complex tasks" part of that page,
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Easy_hacks#More_complex_tasks

We won't have a beta of LOv4.0 until December, but there is an
extensive features list on the wiki, so we can work on the first step
of determining which topics should go into which chapters of which
user guide books. We can also look at the books in terms of any
improvements that might need to be made, for consistency or topic
order or level of detail or whatever.

The features list for v4.0 is here:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/3.7

The books will also need to include features from v3.6 and in some
cases v3.5. Those lists are here:
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/3-5-new-features-and-fixes/
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/3-6-new-features-and-fixes/

--Jean

Hi,

Thanks, Jean, for the account.

For the moment I'll work with the German documentation team.
I plan to work on English docs as well, once I'm more familiar with the process.

Regards,
Franziska

One very helpful thing you could do, later if not now, is to translate
some documents FROM German TO English. Right now we are translating
the Base Handbuch, but I am sure there are other German docs that
could be translated and help us build up a larger library of English
docs.

--Jean

Hi Jean,

I'll keep it in mind. For the moment, the small chunks in the German wiki are of a good size for practice and finding a good way to approach the work.

Franziska