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Modular Document Creation? Notes Publishing?
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Posted by MadaboutDana
Nov 6, 2020 at 12:10 PM
I think Frank’s suggestion is a good one: Scrivener (or another writing tool, such as Ulysses for macOS/iOS) can effectively add as a “copy block” editor.
But you could also use Microsoft Word for this, by setting up templates with appropriate fields in them. I hasten to add that I’m not a Word expert (I cordially loathe it, actually, after years of wrestling with its vagaries), but there’s no question that:
a) it’s in very, very widespread use (which is why I still use it) and
b) it’s a very powerful program (and platform, effectively).
By combining it with Excel, you could create compound documents fed by a back-end database (in Excel).
I have a suspicion you could probably do the same thing in the Apple-sphere, using what used to be called iWorks (in this case Pages, Numbers, or possibly just Numbers alone, using its “form” function). But again, I’m not a specialist in this kind of application.
Our own admin database puts together a wide variety of compound documents from multiple FileMaker tables, but FileMaker is now so expensive I don’t generally recommend it to anybody. There’s no denying it’s powerful, however.
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by MadaboutDana
Nov 6, 2020 at 12:19 PM
Ah, I see 22111 is also suggesting Excel as a back-end, albeit feeding through Jot+ – personally, I think Word would probably be more practical (not that I’ve got anything against Jot).
But it would be worth checking out InfoQube, too. Despite the rather mind-boggling array of features, it’s perfectly possible to set up InfoQube in a very simple, user-friendly layout, and it does support copious formatting options.
Heh, I see there are loads of enterprise-level “content composers”, most of which are way outside the price brackets appropriate for SME users. Interesting, but also frustrating, because surely this is a potentially huge market niche.
Having said that, you might want to take a closer look at Ninox, a business-oriented database platform that has become, IMHO, the best alternative to FileMaker Pro for SMEs. More info on https://ninox.com/en (they offer hosted, in-house server, or individual desktop applications, as well as mobile versions).
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Amontillado
Nov 6, 2020 at 01:47 PM
Good food for thought here. I had a fling with Mellel, but couldn’t set Nisus aside because I need mail merge. Every once in a while I’d cast around for a stand-alone mail merge utility but nothing ever jumped out.
There is a docx project for Python. Hmmm… Possibilities…
Posted by MadaboutDana
Nov 6, 2020 at 04:46 PM
Yes, I like Mellel, but never find myself using it. Nisus I’ve looked at, but it’s big and complex and again, would I use it enough?
I did use SoftMaker quite a lot (German MS-Office alternative), and it’s much cheaper than MS-Office. But I had issues with the last-but-one version and stopped using it. I really ought to take another look.
And then, of course, there’s the massively powerful Papyrus (Author) (https://www.papyrusauthor.com). I’ve been watching this heavyweight Scrivener/Word-whacker for a while, and after taking my eye off the ball for a while, am now delighted to find that it’s now available in English (it was only available in German before). I’ve no idea how appropriate it would be for the use case described here, but I intend to find out!
Cheers!
Bill
Posted by nirans@gmail.com
Nov 7, 2020 at 02:02 PM
iA writer (markdown) has transclusion. Write the blocks you need, then assemble file(s) with reference to whatever blocks you like. When viewed the resulting markdown file will have the referenced files within it. Marked is a markdown processor and has tranclusion as well, but it is Mac only. Scrivener as other have mentioned is another excellent choice for selectively including/excluding text.