Open office is fine, are the documents Word compatible?

The more I think about it the more I would like to focus on the 18F PICs and leave the 16F series behind. Information on the 12 & 14 bit core PICs is abundant but the 16bit core 18F series is lacking.
The 18F addresses pretty much everything that people didn't like about the 16F PICs.

• very little bank switching
• tables
• larger memory space
• high clock speeds available (PLL too)
• faster A/D available
• hardware multiply
• more I/O (but in non hobbyiest friendly packaging TQFP)
• more peripherals available (USB, Ethernet)
• compare x to y instructions
• access to all memory including configuration
• all have debug support
• C friendly (an IMO assembly friendly) instruction set
• Free C18 SE compiler
• often pin compatable upgrade from 16F version

Disadvantages: Slightly more costly than 16F, no 8pin versions.

I've downloaded and installed Open Office, nice program suite and since it's multi-platform and freely available I'll use it for the book.

I'll put a sample page or two here in the next day or two to get it started.

Here's a list of software (all free or unexpiring demo / student versions)

MPLAB IDE 8.0 (MPASM, simulator)
Open Office (word, calc, draw, etc)
Just BASIC (handy and free)
C18 SE
Swordfish BASIC SE (18F only, 200variable limit free version)

Special PICkit2 standalone software

Opinions? am I missing something?

Originally Posted by blueroomelectronics

I've downloaded and installed Open Office, nice program suite and since it's multi-platform and freely available I'll use it for the book.

I'll put a sample page or two here in the next day or two to get it started.

Here's a list of software (all free or unexpiring demo / student versions)

MPLAB IDE 8.0 (MPASM, simulator)
Open Office (word, calc, draw, etc)
Just BASIC (handy and free)
C18 SE
Swordfish BASIC SE (18F only, 200variable limit free version)

Special PICkit2 standalone software

Opinions? am I missing something?

Generally we use "wordpad" for typing in the assembly or C language files and thereafter save them with extension .asm or .c
Is there a file comparable in Open office? i use open office now and then but didnot come across one like wordpad.

.c and .asm are plain text files and OpenOffice can edit them with no trouble.

Originally Posted by blueroomelectronics

Open office is fine, are the documents Word compatible?

Yes it is but not 100% compatible, it can get some of the more complex formatting wrong.

OpenOffice is good but let's not forget ABIWord.

Also I'd recommend you use open format such as ODF to do all the editing and archiving it in as it can be read by free programs, it doesn't matter that it can't be read by MS Word, people can always download OpenOffice for free and we could always distribute a Word or PDF version if we wanted.

EDIT:
There's also an ODF converter for Word but I don't know how good it is as I don't have Word to test it on.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter

I'd also prefer recommending multiplatform software in general to keep everyone happy regardless of whether they use Windows, Mac OS or Linux.

Originally Posted by blueroomelectronics

It's a book that can be downloaded free for personal use, commercial use would be asked to make a donation.

I'd rather it be totally free, preferably under something like the free documentation licence?

Of course we should offer the option of them giving us money but I don't think we should force it, the more people who use it, the better.

Thanks Hero, I like the free documention licence idea.

I've started using Open Office and it appears to have everything one would need for document creation. The only people required to use it would be anyone writing or editing the book itself. For now I'll assume the roll of editior and would prefer to accept submissions in the Office writer format.

As for the published version I would think the best format would be .PDF as the reader is free and available to almost every platform.

Submissions can be posted here or to an email I'll create just for the book.

One more thing, I would like to use the "Crystal.ttf" font for listings, it can be found in the download section of my site.

I'm looking for a good screen capture program (I use Snagit but it's not free) and a free keycaps font.
<ctrl> <F10> kind of thing.

I would also include lots of side diagrams of examples and pictures, like a box beside the text, so that the reader can quickly reference to that part if they need to look at something again. I would include those on a lot of the pages, so that the reader doesnt have to search the entire document looking for a single sentence.

Originally Posted by matk95

carnt you use the built in one that comes with windows ?

Wordpad is not cross platform and somewhat limited.

Although not part of the book I used Open Office Write to create this One Page MPLAB Programming Guide.

Originally Posted by blueroomelectronics

I'm looking for PIC enthusiasts who would like to assist in writing yet another PIC book.

If you want, I can do proofreading (spelling & grammar). I don't need no steenking spellchecker. I'm faster than any spellchecker I've ever tried, and more accurate. I just disable the annoying things.

Originally Posted by blueroomelectronics

One more thing, I would like to use the "Crystal.ttf" font for listings, it can be found in the download section of my site.

Actually you don't need to dowload it to edit documents containing the said font, OpenOffice.org embeds it in the document so anyone can edit it, even if they don't have the font on their PC! MS Word also does this but it has a DRM (Digital Rights Management) feature that only allows the document to be viewed but not edited if it contains fonts that you don't have installed on your PC.

I'm looking for a good screen capture program (I use Snagit but it's not free)

What's wrong with print screen?

and a free keycaps font.
<ctrl> <F10> kind of thing.

What do you mean?

Oh and just another thing, for a consistant look and feel the book really should use OpenOffice's styles feature for headings, program listings etc. which also makes contents pages fully automatic.