Re: General advice beyond Org

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> It is only when we have to collaborate directly that the issue
> arises.  I guess that it's a similar situation as you are having
> (programming? she does not care, I can do whatever I want; publication
> abstract? she wants a DOCX or DOC).

Collaborating on an article does require a fairly "deep" integration of
various people's tools, so some compromise often need to be made.

If she's used to using Word to edit documents, then it's likely going to
be difficult to convince her to use something else, at least during your
tenure as student.  What I do usually in those cases is the following:

- I refuse to install proprietary software, so in the worst case I'll edit
  a .docx document with LibreOffice (I don't see why she'd object to
  that under the imperfect compatibility between LibreOffice and Word
  gets in the way).
  [ BTW, If imperfect compatibility between LibreOffice and Word gets in the
  way, you might try and look for some other version of Word than hers,
  and find other incompatibilities (the various Word versions also
  suffer from imperfect compatibility), so as to show her that the issue
  is not just due to your use of Free Software.  ]

- You can try and get her to install the ODT plugin for Word so she can
  open ODT documents as well as .docx in her Word program.
  I often make the effort to only send ODT documents, even when it's
  a modification of a document that was sent to me in .docx format (on
  the premise that I shouldn't be the only one to bear the brunt of the
  format war).

- Depending on how many changes/annotations she contributes to the
  document, you might be able to keep your original in your favorite
  format (LaTeX, Org, you name it); convert it to ODT or .docx before
  sending it to her; and then integrating her changes/annotations by
  hand into your original document.

Using Git with ODT/.docx documents is about as pleasant as pulling teeth
in my experience, so there's no point trying to convince her to try it
out as long as she sticks to such WYSIWYG thingies.

Of course, the real problems start when she wants to use some *really*
poorly supported format like Apple's Pages.


        Stefan