[Lazarus] Documentation in Lazarus

[R0b0t1]

On Tue, Oct 3, 2017 at 6:03 PM, Graeme Geldenhuys via Lazarus
<lazarus at lists.lazarus-ide.org> wrote:
>
> On 2017-10-03 23:06, Wolf via Lazarus wrote:
>>
>> As an editor, I'd prefer LibreOffice, since I am familiar with it. My
>> experience with LaTeX is limited
>
>
> Having extensive experience with both for many years I can say that with some decent preparation work you can generate documents with LibreOffice that rivals LaTeX output and layout. I have created such document templates with OpenOffice a couple years back. I can search my hard drives and see if I still have those around, if that might help.
>
> I remember the OpenOffice organization had brilliant documentation and guides in generating such document templates, but as the LibreOffice project gain popularity the websites hosting the original OpenOffice documents and guides disappeared one by one.
>
> On a side note:
>   OpenOffice (and I guess now LibreOffice) also have impressive
>   mathematical formulae support. I wouldn’t instantly dismiss it.
>   We used those in a prior company I worked for.
>

I can agree, I have seen very impressively formatted documents done in
LibreOffice/OpenOffice/Microsoft Word. At the same time, the majority
of technical documents seem to be meant for screen-based consumption.
In that case the viewing options for the listed formats can be less
attractive than they otherwise might be.

> > Have you any suggestions on which component to use?
>
> From what I’ve seen [2-3 years ago] there is none that really does a good job.
>

I would suggest using Sphinx, http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/stable/,
the software package that Python uses to generate its documentation.
It can be adapted to other languages and I worked with a project that
uses it with an Object Pascal codebase.

With most software packages in this vein, the possibility of
generating images that are rendered from LaTeX exists. However, you
need an installation of the same to do this.

Cheers,
     R0b0t1