ptsefton.github.io

[View this page as PDF](/blog/2007/08/09/07-24-13.570887/100.pdf) Back in 2005 [I complained about Apple's pages application launching with no mention of HTML export functionality](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2005/01/12/pages). They're at it again, the Apple site says: > Getting the word out. > > When its time to share Pages > documents with friends and colleagues, you can export them as PDF > documents, in Word .doc format, as RTF, or as plain text documents. Or > send your documents to iWeb for publication on your website as Pages > 08 or PDF documents. (For the > former, readers will need a copy of Pages; for the latter, Preview or > Adobe Reader.) Look at that no mention of HTML. You can put your documents up on the web in PDF or Pages format, like that would be a smart idea. This is the kind of application design that leads to this post from Peter Suber [Why do online-only OA journals use PDF?](http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_08_05_fosblogarchive.html#2172582245207222227) [update: the [original post is here](http://efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/2007/08/open-online-jou.html)] It's because word processors don't ship with proper HTML export, that's why. See [my recent adventures trying to write a paper in HTML](http://del.icio.us/ptsefton/xhtmlchallenge) using standard word processing software. Oh, and Brian Jones says that [iWork 08 supports the Open XML formats](http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/08/07/iwork-08-supports-the-open-xml-formats.aspx)only the page about Pages says that you can import the new OOXML (Word) format, nothing about saving to it, you're stuck with .doc and RTF for that and I bet it's a lossy export. People, don't lock your documents up in proprietary paper-lovingformats. Use [ICE](http://ice.usq.edu.au/). (We're about to start beta testing the online version of ICE, so you won't need to install anything soon, apart from a Word template or an OpenOffice.org extension.) [Update: fixed a couple of typos]