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WriteOncePublishEverywhere

The possibility of writing something one time in one format and then publishing (printing, displaying, etc.) everywhere has intrigued me in the past few years. I hear of people writing books and articles in XML, but I don't know how they take the next step to go to PDF or something else. I am looking for tools, definitions, advice, and anything you can offer.

As background, I have used:

I want to write something with markup and then run a command that takes that to

Does anyone know a solution? Any partial solutions?

I ask because I have just gone through one more round of converting from ASCII text (my preferred writing format - I use the Vim editor - please no one throw rocks) to MS Word. I have written a few utility programs that help me along the way, but I always run into a manual stage that takes time and introduces errors.

DwaynePhillips 19 July 2006

Hi, Dwayne-

I don't know of any commercially available solutions. I do know of one system, but it's proprietary.

EstherDerby 07192006

No rocks, Dwayne, but I'm fascinated to learn anyone (still) uses TeX! --FionaCharles 19-Jul-2006
The MikTeX distrubution of TeX includes pdftex that takes a TeX file and outputs PDF. http://www.miktex.org That has worked well for me in the past, though my current installation is broken. -- ShannonSeverance 2006.07.19
It is fun to observe the EMACS versus vi wars that still rage at the local universities among the CS faculty. But I am not sure they throw any rocks.

A friend indicated the following to me:

A document written in Open Office.org 2.0 (http://www.openoffice.org/) or later can be saved (or exported using the built-in PDF export tool) to all of the listed formats except Tex. Supposedly there is an add-on that will support that as well.

Not exactly what you are looking for, but I thought I would pass it along.

DennisCadena 2006.07.20

I use open office and have used it to go to word and back. I haven't used any other options yet.

I am amazed that there is still the hoohaw between vi and emacs. I like both. I use both. For stuff I save I still like ASCII with tags for formatting. NROFF and TROFF still live! TeX will do too. CharlesAdams 2006.07.21

On the Mac, there are a lot of conversions built in, mostly based on software called MacLinkPlus. And any printable document can be converted to PDF automatically. But are these any good. I suggest you try the idempotency test that we used so often in language translator testing. Using Software X, convert A form to B form. Then use software X to convert B form to A form*. Then use diff or something like it to compare A form to A form*. If they're not the same, you're probably in trouble. Unfortunately, nbody seems to be able to do this exactly. - JerryWeinberg 2006.07.23

I am still searching.

The closest thing I find is Doc Book with XML instead of SGML. It can convert to HTML and RTF. These are readable by Open Office which can then do lots of different things.

Using Apple computers makes it easier to go to PDF from anything. I catch myself wanting to write "Mac," but I don't use a Mac. I use an iBook. I guess this is now replaced by a Mac Book. I suppose the magic is in OS X. I am not sure, but with the swtich to Intel chips it is possible to run OS X on a machine built by Dell, Gateway, and many others.

TeX with La Tex still produces the a printed page that appeals to me more than anything else I have seen.

DwaynePhillips 27 July 2006

Dwayne, I don't know if it's (yet) possible to run the MAC OS on machines built by Dell, etc. It it, however, possible to run Windoze on various Intel-inside Macs (though why you would want to is beyond me). - JerryWeinberg 2006.07.27
Jerry,

One reason to run Windows on Apple hardware is so you can experience viruses. Maybe not a pleasant experience, but an experience none the less. And we know that with experiences come learnings.

DwaynePhillips 28 July 2006

Gee, Dwayne, I didn't know. But isn't flu caused by a virus? If so, I've already experienced them, so I'll pass on Windoze. - JerryWeinberg 2006.07.28

Updated: Friday, July 28, 2006