[bksvol-discuss] Re: a new MS Word plug in to allow saving in Daisy format coming in 2008
- From: Ann Parsons <akp@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:38:09 -0500
Hi all,
Sue asked me a question which I am going to answer here. If it
provokes further discussion, I'll take it off-list.
Sue, I'm not "bashing" Word, I'm merely discussing some of its well
known weaknesses. Let me explain if you permit, please?
First, regarding my post RE Words conversion abilities to HTML. This
is a well known and documented weakness of Word. The automatic
conversion from Word to HTML is , hmmmm, rather like a hammer hitting a
hard boiled egg. It changes the egg's shape, but it makes the egg
virtually useless for anything except egg salad, plus the fact that
peeling the shell off the egg is made more difficult. Jim Homme is
write when he says that the conversion from Word to HTML has very
little adherence to the standards for accessibility in web design.
This is, as I say, a weakness in the word processor.
My second reference to writing HTML manually was provoked by the fact
that Word is a "WYSIWYG", pronounced "wizzee-wig" editor. "WYSIWYG"
stands for What You See Is What You Get. <smiling> This means what it
says, and it is particularly aggravating at times for those of us who
cannot see what we get. If we center a line, our screen readers tell
us that it is centered, and you have to trust that the screen reader is
reporting the condition of the given line correctly.
In HTML, you put in tags to tell the web browser to center a title, for
example, like this: <h1 align="center">This is a title</h1> As you
can see, there is no doubt as to where the centered line begins and
where it ends. There is an actual physical tag that tells you this.
Can't tell you the number of times I've centered stuff I didn't want
centered or left aligned stuff I wanted centered or bolded stuff I
wanted left in normal font. All I was saying was that I love writing
HTML because one has complete control over the document and its
formatting, much as one does in Trof or the other markup languages for
printed material.
<smiling> No, not "bashing" Word, just discussing it objectively.
It works very well to validate books. I use it for this purpose. This
is one of it's strengths.
Ann P.
--
Ann K. Parsons
Portal Tutoring
EMAIL: akp@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.portaltutoring.info
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost."
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