Are there any applications in which a document can be created without using a rich text editor, much like writing HTML and CSS to be rendered in a browser?
For example, can one write an ODT file and then open it in LibreOffice Writer?
It may sound odd but, if it is reasonable, it might be more efficient in the long run to learn how than to style everything within a GUI. For example, I had a 500 page document with many block quotes, color coded by source category, and if something needed changed in the styling, every one had to be performed separately through the menus in LibreOffice. The same couldāve been done in CSS in a couple lines.
Iām not criticizing LibreOffice but only asking if there is any such application in which those menus can be skipped and replaced with writing the equivalent of styles.
I read a bit about attempting to convert HTML to ODT but failed to get the soffice --convert-to approach to generate a useful result; and I donāt care for the idea of always having to convert between formats.
Thank you. I came across this before butdidnāt realize what it was. Iāve installed it and will give it a try; for it sounds like what I was looking for.
I donāt know if itās exactly for you but Kate has several tools and formatting mostly for various programming styles. Maybe it can work if LaTex doesnāt work out.
Thank you. I looked at the styles in LO before posting and may have been too quick to dismiss them as a solution once I read there were only six categories.
Thank you for the link to DocBook. Iām still a bit confused by it because it appears that it is written in DocBook but then pandoc is used to convert the docbook text file to a desired format. I donāt know if this is different than what takes place in LaTeX to convert the text file to a DVI or PDF. There appears to be an LO extension available in the official repository for Writer that works with LaTex.
Iām not trying to start a debate about which is better and donāt know enough about either one to do so if that was my intention; but Iām going to start with LaTeX first. They published a two-volume manual in 2023 and it appears to have been around since the 1980s and the first engine built in 1977 if I recall correctly.
@ftb89 Thanks. Iāve been using Kate almost every day for the past couple years (since switching to Linux) but I donāt understand what you mean. Kate wonāt process the text file into a document, will it? I see that Kile made by KDE seems to be just for LaTex. There is also TexMaker but I wouldnāt know the differences between the two. Kile looks like Kate and, since Iāve liked Kate, Iāll likely try that first.
Please forgive me for being personal, here, but Iād like to say thank you to the developers, those that maintain Manjaro, and the support community. Switching to Manjaro has been a great improvement in numerous ways. I wonāt bore you with the details but, apart from the OS itself, there are a lot of applications to learn of that I didnāt know existed and they have made my work more efficient.
I never learned to use LaTeX - but still write all my Documents (Letters, mostly) using it.
There is a program, called Lyx - have a look at it.
If I remember correctly, they describe it as a WYSIWYM (what you see is what you mean) editor.
If you occasionally need something simpler than Latex there is markdown. Not sure if markdown is amongst what you are looking for but my favourite in browser markdown editor is StackEdit.