[OT] Migrating from non-free programs to LibreOffice

[Michael Torrie]

On 01/06/2014 08:53 AM, Grant Edwards wrote:
> Yea, I think laying out a book with something like MS Word or
> LibreOffice is nuts.   Depending on her formatting needs, a
> lighter-weight mark-up language (something like asciidoc) might suite:

I've laid out a book with LibreOffice and it actually is quite capable.
 In fact when used correctly, LibreOffice can function much like a
markup language.  Instead of markup, you use styles (page, paragraph,
character).  The styles form the structure of the book (H1, H2, H3,
etc).  In fact the default styles mirror html to a degree.  I tend to
add my own for quotes, captions, etc.  After composing the document,
then you modify the styles to set the spacings, fonts, indentations,
border lines, etc.  The workflow is very similar to using LyX, or even a
plain markup language for that matter.

The weakest part of LibreOffice is embedding images.