ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (12/31/85)
To Brent Byer of Harvard, I say don't waste a good 52-line
flame on an innocuous little informatory article in net.micro.pc;
save those for net.politics or net.origins. The lady whose
article I responded to specifically asked for information
concerning interchange of documents between WordPerfect and
TROFF, something which cannot be done in any reasonable way. The
closest thing which DOES lie within the realm of the possible is
the WordPerfect->NAVY DIF->Xerox 8010 (or 6085) connection, which
it is not possible for me to describe without indulging in a TINY
bit of advertising. On a scale of 1 - 10 for things I have ever
felt guilty over, this rates about a zero.
To someone who has been driving a model-T for 50 years and
is happy with it, it may seem like the supreme technical
accomplishment of the century; my view of TROFF is essentially
similar to that of the average 1985 motorist's view of model-Ts.
There are now several systems which can do nearly everything
TROFF does as far as producing output on paper, and which are
also WYSWYG. These include the ALLIS word processor which runs
on several small, high-class graphics systems running under UNIX,
as well as the Xerox 6085, which I recommend because it is
substantially cheaper and has DIF routines. There is no
comparison between ANY of these products and TROFF. With the
WYSWYG systems, you don't take 20 attempts before you get your
document looking right on paper, much as one doesn't take three
days driving from D.C. to New York in a 928 Porsche.
WordPerfect, as well as most ordinary word processors, AND
THE NAVY DIF, AND IBM'S DCA/DISOSS, thinks in terms of columns.
It is not possible to write a reasonable conversion routine from
ANY of these to anything (such as TROFF) which ONLY thinks in
fractions of an inch. The Xerox 6085 has columnar AND
PROPORTIONAL fonts as well as multiple sized fonts. It is
possible to translate DIF formatted documents into 8010 or 6085
format using one of the columnar fonts and THEN start playing
games and changing things. jqj@cornell.UUCP (J Q Johnson) (01/01/86)
In article <488@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: > WordPerfect, as well as most ordinary word processors, AND > THE NAVY DIF, AND IBM'S DCA/DISOSS, thinks in terms of columns. > It is not possible to write a reasonable conversion routine from > ANY of these to anything (such as TROFF) which ONLY thinks in > fractions of an inch. I'm curious about this claim. I use WordPerfect on my PC and Star/Viewpoint on my 8014s; Ted is right that both are nice wysiwyg editors. But I thought that WP @i[could] deal with proportional-spaced fonts! Also, it seems to me that one can always go from a fixed-width world to a troff-like world just by using fixed-width fonts in troff. It seems to me that the problem here is that DIF is too restrictive, not that either WP, troff, or Star are. Ted, could you elucidate? Or, if it's too technical and specific for this news group, move the discussion?
hrs@homxb.UUCP (H.SILBIGER) (01/03/86)
A historical note on the origins of Navy DIF. In the early 80's the Navy discovered that it owned at least 17 different makes of word processors, none of which could interchange documents. They invited all known providers of wp's to come to Washington, sat the ones that showed up together in a room, and asked them to come up with a way to interchange documents. The mfrs were also informed that in the future the Navy would only procure (the gov't doesn't buy., it procures) from suppliers that conformed to the interchange method. All the attendees in the room had word processors that used control codes for formatting. They constructed a big table where each listed the control codes they used, and what its function was. The first thing they agreed on that only functions everyone used would be supported. Next they looked at those functions for which evryone used the same control code. Those were accepted. Next they all agreed on a code for all other functions for which there was no common code. It is obvious that the result is the least common denominator of the capabalities of those wordprocessors. The Navy did not care, they felt they would be better off if they could communicate at all. The National Bureau of Standards also was involved in the process. These common control codes are now being added into the appropriate ANSI and ISO standards. The Federal Govt is also adopting the DIF standard. It is clear that something better is needed for document interchange than DIF, and there is an international standards activity in process in ISO and CCITT. The ISO work (in TC97/SC18) is called "Text Structures." It is an interchange standard which is based on defining the logical and layout structures of a document. It will be able to handle (theoretically) any kind of coded content. The current version supports only character coded information , but raster scan graphics (Facsimile, which the CCITT version already supports), vector graphics (CGM), are being worked on. Almost any kind of compound document (which the CCITT calls mixed-mode) will potentially be able to be interchanged. It is expected that this work will reach Draft International Standard status by the middle of the year. The ISO number is 8613. The US committee responsible for this work is ANSC X3V1. All layout in the ISO standard is positional by rectangular coordinates, with the origin in the upper left hand corner of the (virtual) page. The DIF work should thus be seen as a stop-gap measure to achieve some limited degree of interchange. It is not easily extensible, and cannot support compound documents. Herman Silbiger ihnp4!homxb!hrs