Finished editing the Write chapter of the 7.6 Getting Started

Hi there,

I have finished a review of the GettingStartedWithWrite chapter in the 7.6 Getting Started Guide. It is named GettingStartedWithWrite_RT_Edit.odt and is located at:

https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/apps/files/?dir=/LibreOffice%20Documentation/English/Getting%20Started%20Guide/7.6/WIP&fileid=1318053

I did not see any needed updates for 7.6 but I did make a few changes to improve some sections. Since this is my first real review, please let me know how I did.

Rob

I had that chapter checked out, but I had not started working on it. I’ll review what you’ve done. Having just finished updating the Writer Guide, I know of several things that need adding or amending in the Getting Started chapter on Writer.

Jean

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Robert,
I haven’t gone through your edits in detail, but it’s clear that they would change the writing style in a direction that is very different from the style used in many of the other chapters in the book. Awhile ago several other contributors (in particular, @PeeWee Peter) chose to minimize the use of “you.” The Writer chapter already uses “you” more than several other chapters do, but for internal book consistency it’s probably best not to rewrite to increase that use. [If you wish to debate this usage, please start another thread.]

Things needing updating that you missed:
(pages 6-7) New item on Status bar: Status of the Accessibility Check. Need new images (copy from WG Ch1?), and add small description in list below the figures.

(pages 8-0) New deck in Sidebar: Accessibility. Also, order of icons on right has changed. Add new item to this list and to the decriptions. (copy from WG Ch1?)

(page 45) I suggest adding something brief about two new features: Accessibility checking and document themes, referring reader to Writer Guide.

Other changes in Writer (or LO in general) do not appear to affect things covered in this chapter. Some may affect the chapter on styles and templates.

General observation: I think this chapter could use a few more illustrations and perhaps more detail on some topics, though I have not taken the time to identify which might be useful. Writer is the most-used component of LibreOffice, and its user base includes the largest proportion of casual, non-technical users, so IMO this chapter should be a bit more detailed in ways useful to that audience. The very brief mentions of more advanced features still seem appropriate to me.

I encourage you to have another go at this chapter.

Jean

Jean,

Thanks for your feedback. Early on, I was trained to use “you” when I was in university, but I would be glad to follow the LO style as far as that is concerned.

As for the updates that I missed, thanks for the notice. Since I am a newbie, I still need to learn when a feature should be mentioned in the Getting Started section and when it should only be mentioned in the Writers Guide.

Do you think I should revert to the published version of the GettingStartedWrite chapter and only do the updates with minimal stylistic changes on my part? As usual, I think my edits are better but I think it is more important to be consistent across the manuals.

If I was going to defend my changes, the only edits that I would want to keep were the ones that cleaned up the section involving hyperlinks and the cross-references–that was confusing and needed help. But even then, I am new so whatever the majority thinks.

Rob

Robert Thornton wrote:

As for the updates that I missed, thanks for the notice. Since I am a newbie, I still need to learn when a feature should be mentioned in the Getting Started section and when it should only be mentioned in the Writers Guide.

I’m often unsure, too, about what to include and in how much detail. The book as a whole, with chapters being written by different people, is inconsistent.

Do you think I should revert to the published version of the GettingStartedWrite chapter and only do the updates with minimal stylistic changes on my part?

Yes.

the only edits that I would want to keep were the ones that cleaned up the section involving hyperlinks and the cross-references–that was confusing and needed help.

Improvements to confusing material are always a good thing to do. Thanks!

Jean

Hi there Jean (and all),

Per our current conversation, I created an “RT_edit2” version of Getting Started Write and only made changes to Jean’s specifications plus I added my changes to the “Linking and cross-referencing within a document” section.

Here are my comments on how I did the updates:

  1. Status bar: Accessibility Deck symbol – First, I copied the status bar from the Writer’s Guide (Figure 7, Chapter 1) and pasted it into the window for Figure 2 in Getting Started Writer. Unfortunately, the fonts in the Writer’s Guide were a darker shade of red than the Status bar fonts in Getting Started. So I replaced Figure 3, Getting Started Writer, with a copy of Figure 8, Writer Guide (which had the dark red font like Figure 7, Writer Guide). This worked because both the Getting Started picture (Figure 3) and the Writer’s Guide picture (Figure 8) seem to be the same and both had the exact same title (“Writer Status bar, right end”).

  2. Sidebar update – There are no graphics in the Sidebar section. However, I did add the Accessibility Check deck to the list of decks.

  3. Sections on Accessibility Checks and Themes – Added a section on accessibility checks. While I edited the Sidebar’s Gallery deck section to mention that users can create new themes, I was not sure if we needed a section on document themes, since the Writer Guide’s Introducing Writer chapter does not have a intro section on themes. Should I go into the referred chapter (Chapter 11, Images and Graphics) then create a section on themes in Getting Started Writer, or just skip it?

  4. Per my previous message, I replaced old version of “Linking and cross-referencing within a document” with my version. Comments please?

Please let me know what you think.

Rob

Hi
I have reviewed and approved all changes suggested by @rthorn999 , plus some typo/precision in the additions.

File is in the Published folder.

Cheers
Olivier