Sorry to interrupt the otherwise thoughtful discussion going on here, but can anyone direct me to an open source solution/workaround for .pdf docs? I know that OO Writer will write a .pdf document, but I want to get beyond that. I'd like to post a document to my website and have both .html and .pdf versions available. I want the .html and .pdf to be as close to identical as possible.
To make this happen now I'm using OO Writer to create a .pdf. I then post the .pdf file onto my web page. But I don't want to use the nasty .html code that OO Writer will create. Yet I'm locked into that OO Writer document because any time I need an to make an alteration to the document, I must return to the source of the .pdf file.
I can get a .pdf writer through my department, but I hate sending any more cash to Adobe.
CutePDF
I agree. OO's HTML editor does add some cruft (still, better than MS). I use Dreamweaver to compose HTML documents. I can then open them in OO and export them.
However, try CutePDF Writer. It might do what you want if you are looking for a different PDF creation tool. They also have a more full-featured version for pay.
Tikiwiki
Tikiwiki actually has a pretty good PDF converter built in. I use it frequently even though I have acrobat.
If you compose in something
If you compose in something that plays nice with html (for example, in textile -- using Textpattern, say, or Backpack), you'll have a much easier time producing both html and pdfs that don't suck, but depending on what kind of documents you're producing, that might make your life more rather than less difficult.
In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly...--William James, "Is Life Worth Living?"
html2pdf
it's an application. google it. you could write it yourself in most major scripting language if you really wanted to. i like its opposite, pdf2html. more or less you can find just about any major open or semi-open standard as x2y or y2x .....
free PDF driver
You could try http://www.pdf995.com/ - it is a print driver that lets you print from any app to a PDF file. It's not perfect but its free.
thanks, I tried this
Thanks, I tried this app before I posted, but couldn't get it to execute on my Windows box at work.
I really think I will just work with Charlie's suggestion to create .html in Dreamweaver, then read the document into Open Office and yield a .pdf from OO. But it's cool to learn about these new apps too.
software
You could check out Scribus and pdftex. Not sure if Scribus does html output, but it is definitely possible to convert tex automatically to html. Also, pretty much all wordprocessors on Linux these days support pdf output, although I guess you're using Windows?
The Assayer - books for the free information revolution