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Next: Search replace and spell check, Up: Document Authoring
Before authoring a document, decide its primary audience
if the document contains relatively simple content e.g., no mathematical
equations etc.
and is primarily targeted at the WWW, you are probably better off
using HTML.
You can create well-structured HTML documents with the help of package
html-helper-mode
available from
ftp://ftp.reed.edu/pub/src/html-helper-mode.tar.gz
.
Package html-helper-mode
is speech-enabled by Emacspeak to
provide auditory icons, structured navigation and outlines, as well as
voice locking for audio formatted feedback as you work.
If the document being authored is more complex, you are usually better
off creating it in LaTeX.
Note that LaTeX documents can be converted to HTML either via package
tth
or package latex2html
–both available on the WWW.
The TeX family of typesetting languages is suitable for producing well-formatted documents in an eyes-free environment. Unlike WYSIWYG environments, the author of a TeX or LaTeX document works with the content of the document, leaving it to the formatting system (TeX) to format the document for good visual presentation.
The auctex package is an Emacs extension that facilitates authoring and
maintaining structured documents in TeX and LaTeX. Package
bibtex
facilitates maintenance and use of bibtex
bibliography databases. The Texinfo package allows creation of software
documentation that is suitable for both printing as well as online
viewing as hypertext. Emacspeak speech-enables packages auctex
,
bibtex
and texinfo
to provide convenient spoken feedback
as you create and compile documents. For details on using these
packages, see their accompanying online info documentation.
The most recent version of package auctex
is always available by
ftp at ftp://ftp.iesd.auc.dk/pub/emacs-lisp/auctex.tar.gz
.
Packages bibtex
and texinfo
are part of the standard Emacs distribution.
As the document preparation system of choice, Emacspeak supports a fluent speech-enabled interface to editing and formatting LaTeX documents. This interface is provided by speech-enabling auctex mode.
Mode auctex provides efficient keyboard shortcuts for inserting and maintaining LaTeX markup as a document is being authored. All of these editing commands provide succinct auditory feedback when used with Emacspeak. The syntax coloring provided by this mode is extended to provide voice locking — consequently, Emacspeak uses different voices to speak the embedded markup to set it apart from the content.
Mode auctex can be used to create empty document templates and to insert document content at the appropriate places in the template. The mode also enables structured navigation of the document as it is being edited. Emacspeak speech-enables these template creation and structured navigation commands to produce auditory icons and succinct spoken feedback. For example, while editing, the user can quickly browse through the sections of the document and have each section title spoken. Document elements such as paragraphs and bulleted lists can be manipulated as logical units. These features are especially relevant in an eyes-free environment where the user needs to select logical parts of the document without having to point at portions of a visual display.
Finally, Emacs supports creating and maintaining SGML and XML documents.
Emacs comes with a fairly simple sgml-mode
–in addition, package psgml
provides sophisticated parsing and
validation facilities for working with SGML and XML documents.
Package psgml
can be downloaded from
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/COMP/info/psgml/psgml_toc.html
.