Writing Tools Redux
Early in the existance of this blog, I wrote a post about writing tools. I have been happily using Notepad++ since then, writing in the Markdown format. It was useful – it served the purpose I required of not distracting me with what the text looked like while I was trying to get out the spine of the game. But that time, I think has passed, and so now I’m trying to get out of Markdown and into a word processor, without much luck at all so far.One reason I’m getting out of lightweight formatting is that the core of the game is out, and now the tables have turned, and the tools offered by real word processors are more valuable than the plain-texty goodness of a simple editor and a simple markup.
The other reason is that it’s starting to be important what the thing looks like. The layout process won’t be done for quite a while yet, but it starts now. I have to be able to apply styles to pieces of text and trust them to be styled the same everwhere. I may not be doing the styling yet, but I have to be able to say this and that will look the same in the final document, as distinct from how that other thing looks.
Finally, I’m mere hours of editing away from releasing it to others to proofread, and nobody else deserves to edit a document in my programmer-oriented plain text format. Nobody.
So, with any luck, I’ll be able to report that I’ve gotten it out of Markdown and into a word processor format by tomorrow night. I’m already way behind on my projected alpha-proofread milestone. The clock is so ticking.
Update: Ok. Nightmare scenario averted. Got a nice copy in OpenOffice format. Accomplished using Pandoc to go from Markdown to .odt, then through Google Apps (!) into an MS Word .doc, and only then did it open nicely in OpenOffice. Phew.
