Tuesday, March 11, 2014

The Limits of Technology

Still haven't started packing yet, but I think we'll be okay. Mainly, we plan on packing empty suitcases in empty suitcases for the journey home...suitcases that will be full upon our return in June. That's the kind of logistics issue that is easy for a bone-head like me: stuff it so it fits.

What's the harder thing is getting my computer to do what I want it to do. Spent most of the morning (so far) surfing the internet and "help" sites and coming up empty on a variety of topics.

I woke up this morning (blearily) with the great idea of rewriting Cry Dark Future as a "smart document;" something that links weird, technical terms with the rules and definitions within the document; something having pop-up boxes for equipment items (like guns and whatnot), rather than forcing players to scroll by finger through their ebook (or comb through a thick print-book by hand). It seems to me that here would be a great use of fancy-shmancy technology and the young 'ins preference for hand-held devices. And CDF is small enough that this wouldn't be too burdensome, and complex enough that such an undertaking would be worthwhile for navigating the game.

Unfortunately, Mac Pages cannot create links to other sections of the document. Nor can it create pop-up text. Nor can it create a damn index. What a stupid, worthless waste of my time.

I will be purchasing Word (again) when I get back to the U.S. I should have got a frigging PC. Arrgh!

4 comments:

  1. You might try Open Office before shelling out for Word. I think it can do cross-links, has a Mac client, is free, and can do most of what Word does.

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  2. I second that idea, but personally prefer LibreOffice. There are also some great free programs specifically designed for web-page creation. Do a search & read some reviews. No one should have to buy productivity software in this modern age... :)

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  3. MS Office is still available for Mac.

    And I hate to be a nag, but I will be anyway, LibreOffice is the way to go (its where all the cool OpenOffice kids went).

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  4. I think what you want is iBooks Author (http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/), which seems to be the way to make a hyperlinked text using a Mac. Also it's... free?

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