I am developing a format for the consistent recording of information. This is for a voluntary organisation for the use of a range of people in different locations. It has to as cheap as possible to set up using commonly available devices such as laptop and mobile phone for photos to produce a newsletter style output.
I started on this a while back and settled on Word with a newsletter template. Two things have happened since. Apple have witched to 64 but meaning that legacy owned copies of Word will not work, not an issue for everybody but certainly for some. One person is currently using a very satisfactory but ancient MacBook Air. Also Microsoft has introduced the subscription model and I suspect the possibility to own a copy of Office or Word will diminish over time.
So I am looking round for a low/no cost alternative whereby a newsletter style format can be produced. I have tried Libreoffice but it has few templates and it’s newsletter one is quite basic. I aim to explore Google Docs about which I know virtually nothing. I would welcome any suggestions for a programme to use and whether Google docs might fit the bill.
TIA, Lemma
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Getting multiple authors to create their own format in different programmes is not a good idea.
Ask the contributors to send YOU in formats you are happy with and specify this to them- plain text, certain older word formats etc etc
You can then import the text into your copy of Word - I use Word 2010 and can import
lots of formats.
Then you can choose the formats for the output e.g. PDF etc etc
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Surely only the editor needs the template. All you need from the contributors is the copy and the pictures. As long as it's a file format you can read/convert it doesn't matter. For things such as displays ads, unless they want you to lay them out them get them to save them as jpgs.
Then you can produce the newsletter in Word or Publisher or whatever you want.
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TO answer you accurately then Google Docs will allow you to do what you want. Everybody should be able to open the template and save a document.
But they will overwrite it, delete it, duplicate it, change it, corrupt it, lose it, overwrite each others' files, fail to import their text, crash their computer, have internet connectivity issues and endless other forms of chaos all in the cause of adding no value whatsoever other than the text that they write and will cause you nightmares with an endlessly ringing phone as you approach submission date..
Surely all you need do is have the very simplest of guidelines?
e.g.
Plain text, date and author's name at the bottom, title at the top.
That can be emailed to you and all you need do is copy and paste it into your template.
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Thanks for the replies. I perhaps should have made it clear that I am developing a process for the recording and storage of information. The intention is that the process is applied consistently by others using the newsletter template format. I will not be acting as editor or central point for the gathering of information. However each of the newsletters produced will be stored centrally together with the data that is entered into them (images, scans etc). it is important that there is consistent file naming and software usage for retrieval purposes.
In essence it is distributed data collection and management with the ability at a later date to search and retrieve information. Much of this will be dealt with by the storage protocol but there will be free text and it would be a shame to lose the ability to search and retrieve. Everything has to be done at lowest possible cost as this is a voluntary activity and it needs to be as easy as possible for users to encourage them to come on board and stay with it. The newsletter format is of interest as it does give the option at a (much) later date to present the information as web pages. I am trying to think through and cover the options as best I can.
I will have a look at Google docs about which I know very little, but it does sound as if might fit the bill for our purposes.
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I have to deal with this same issue and with respect you have no chance whatsoever of getting anything to stick. No format, no naming convention, nothing.
What you can do is use an enforced directory structure in your storage area (cloud or whatever). Imagine that you have the directory tree...
Branch Name / Documents / Newsletters / 2021
You stand a reasonable chance of getting that to work. If they happen to stick to formats and naming schedules, then great. But even if they don't at least some sanity will remain.
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I'm not sure exactly what it is you are looking for but see if DokuWiki will do what you want. I use it for storing and organising loads of stuff. Documents, photos etc etc.
It will run on just about anything so users can have a local copy and add/edit stuff offline and then sync later if necessary.
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Thanks everybody, some very useful thoughts here. Data retrieval is a core issue and I have developed a naming convention and file structure. If we can archive files as pdfs then that would do. They are a diligent lot, but I appreciate that things like this can be a drag. I have spent nearly two years trialling the data collection and subsequent write up, with the hope that my experience can achieve simple consistency.
This is a voluntary activity so I can only suggest and enthuse. Thanks for your inputs all. The project is out for limited trial now, it will be interesting to see how it goes.
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Word processing programme - Falkirk Bairn
