Getting Started book: a question and an explanation

Happy New Year to all, even though many of you are still in 2010.

I'm putting together a full Getting Started book so Friends of OpenDocument
Inc can have a printed copy available for display at their table at the
linux.conf.au Open Day at the end of January.

Do you think we should make this book available for sale to the general
public (through FoOD's store at Lulu.com), or wait until all the chapters
have been updated and declared published? I can easily replace the book's
interior PDF with a new one when the officially published book is ready.

While I am working on the book, I am discovering the occasional item that
needs to be changed. I don't have time to make the changes as I go, so I'm
reporting some of them here on the list, including some that might be
considered enhancements rather than corrections. When I've finished with
publishing the book, I intend to go back to the chapter files and make the
changes, if someone else hasn't already done so.

Why, you might ask, am I not making the changes in the chapter files and
using the master document to recompile an up to date book? The full book has
two serious problems left over from its incarnation as an OOo book: a
selection of buggered-up cross-references, and a bunch of pictures that go
missing when the PDF is created. Both problems can be solved after exporting
the master document to an ODT, removing the links to the chapter files (thus
embedding the contents of those files in the ODF), and deleting (not just
hiding) the copyright and TOC pages in the chapter files.

At some point, we (and/or the OOo Docs team) need to do something to clean
up these files so they behave themselves, but that will be a major project
that we don't have time for right now.

Hal

Hal,

Can you change the font of the book title to Liberation Sans in the template? And if possible, please use the versions of chapters that I uploaded yesterday. There were a few errors that I corrected. Thanks.

Ron

Ron, I have now changed the book title font (sorry for overlooking that) and
I did pick up the latest version of the chapters, I hope.

I have made some changes to Appendix B and uploaded a new ODT and PDF. Added
info on saving to MSO .docx etc files, and corrected one instance of
LibreOffice that should have been OOo (in reference to the old 1.x formats).

I've finished compiliing the book and will upload it later today. I'll let
you know when that's done.

Hal

Good work. Thanks.

I have now uploaded the ODT and PDF of the compiled book, and put in links
from the Documentation and Documentation/Development pages on the wiki.
While I was at it, I added links from the Documentation page to the PDFs of
the chapters, since they are on the wiki anyway.

David, up to you whether you add the full book to the main website.

Hal

Hi Hal, :slight_smile:

I have not uploaded documents to the website, I have only linked to
the documents on the wiki.

David Nelson

Yes, I know. I should have said "up to you whether you link to the files
from the website", but I was typing too fast and left out a few words.

Hal

Hi Hal, :slight_smile:

If you haven't changed the file names then the links are already there... :wink:

David Nelson

I don't see any links to the compiled book, only links to the individual
chapters. I was talking about the full book in my earlier note, when I said
it was up to you whether to link to the book or not.

Hal

Hi Hal, :slight_smile:

Ah, yes, excuse me, my attention was elsewhere. Yes, of course, I will
put a link to the complete book, with all the added value from the
work you guys have been doing on it. A big thank you for that, by the way. :wink:

David Nelson