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Before I worried about finding someone with Interleaf for equation
editing, I think I'd first take a stab at the math editor that is
included in the latest OpenOffice.org. Since Interleaf is rapidly
disappearing, having legacy docs in it would be IMHO distinctly *not*
a good idea.
This entire discussion has been interesting. Personally, I would give
a great deal to see LyX developed further. Since it uses LaTeX/TeX on
the back end for printed output, and since it allows the writers to
focus on content and not on screwing up the formatting (!!), I think
it holds great promise as the kind of authoring that should be an
objective for forward-thinking docs departments. http://www.lyx.org
Of course, I am also firmly of the opinion that most formatting issues
should be handled by someone specializing in such and less often by
the typical tech writer. Entirely too many times for comfort, I have
had to deal with legacy documents that are a complete nightmare of
format overrides done in haste by countless successions of prior
writers, leaving everyone subsequently to repent, but *not* at
leisure!
I remember documents of several thousand pages having to be reviewed
page by page to be sure that version numbers, page numbers, chapter
designations, and the like were updating properly throughout, as one
typical example.
This has been the case in those lamentable assignments where
management was convinced that Word was a proper documentation tool AND
in shops using Frame, <shudder>PageMaker </shudder>, etc. (I hasten to
add, Word *is* a documentation tool but in the sense that a mule is an
equine that *could* be tasked to run with thoroughbreds were one so
foolish as to try!)
Thus, my fondness for the thought of a tool that would be nearly
impossible to casually destroy stylesheet compliance and that would
make conformity with those styles both natural and graceful.
To me, having a tool as powerful as LaTex as a part of the output
stream represents a strong advantage. Just as having source code
available is comforting for those rather rare occasions when we need
it rather badly, so it seems to me is having the ability to adjust
output in detail should that prove helpful rather than having it all
buried in a "black box" and inaccessible.
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