robert@weitek.UUCP (Robert Plamondon) (09/17/86)
Keywords: Most word-processing software was written for simple tasks done by non-technical people. What programs to give your secretary has just been beaten into the ground in this group. What about software for us? I've used a number of editors and formatters, and I've come to some conclusions. SCRIBE-LIKE FORMATTERS Scribe, originally by Brian Reid, is an embedded-command formatter. For example, to start a subsection, you type "@subsection{Another Subsection}", and to put something in bold you type "@B(emboldened text)". It gives you an immense amount of flexibility over the formatting of your document, including multiple columns, footnotes, indexes, bibliographies -- you name it. Scribe can support virtually any kind of printer. Many of the formatting macros are defined like this: "put the heading in 14-point bold Helvetica if it's available, else use the Big font in bold, else use bold, else use overstriking, else use all caps." Thus, fancy features are used if the target printer supports it, and alternatives are examined until the program finds something that will work. Scribe also uses nested environments: if you put an itemized list inside an itemized list, it indents more and switches to a different bullet character. Troff fails miserably at virtually any combination of nested environments. Scribe costs a fortune, maybe two fortunes. There are various formatters based on Scribe that cost less. Two are FinalWord and LaTeX. FINALWORD II, from Mark of the Unicorn[1], has a formatter that is very close to Scribe (by the way, I've never used Scribe, but I've looked through the manuals, and the two are very close). It's available for MS-DOS, CP/M, and maybe even UNIX (they keep promising). List is $299, but it can be found at prices approaching $200. The formatter supports macros, user-defined printers, multiple columns (any number), multiple indexes, floating figures, and so on. It has drivers for everything from line printers to phototypesetters. It has drivers for most laser printers, including Apple and HP. The editor is very similar to emacs, with a macro language, assignable keys, user-definable terminals/displays, a spelling checker, user-definable (and disable-able) pop-up menus, etc. The performance is very good, the product seems to be bug-free, and the editor can be used quite well as a program editor. LATEX is a version of Donald Knuth's TeX formatter. As far as I know, the only drivers that exist for it are pixel-oriented devices, such as laser printers, some phototypesetters, CRTs, raster plotters, and dot-matrix printers (the last is very slow and not really good enough for anything but page proofs). While less wierd and bug-ridden than troff, LATEX takes some getting used to. It supports indexes (kind of), bibliographies, tables of contents, et at. It has two-column support, but it stinks. FinalWord does a much better job with multiple columns. LaTeX also has a "picture mode" that lets you do diagrams with a fairly simple x,y format that makes it easy to do a diagram on graph paper and transfer it to the system. LaTeX is cheap: it comes on the $75 TeX distribution tape from the University of Washington. It compiles slowly but simply on 4.2 Vaxen and Sun IIs, and presumably other machines as well. The MS-DOS versions are all proprietary and cost several hundred dollars. INTERLEAF puts out WYSIWYG software for machines with hig-resolution displays, such as Suns. It displays a whole page of formatted text at once, showing graphics, fonts, and type sizes as they will appear on the output (usually a laser printer). It's powerful and easy to learn, though I don't think it's suitable for large documents because of the lack of indexing, cross-referencing, table of contents, and such. Very good for documents in the 1-30 page range. We use it for data sheets and similar documents. CONCLUSIONS: I use LaTeX at work, and FinalWord II at home. LaTeX is a pain for short documents -- memos and such are much easier on the Interleaf -- but is invaluable for things like the heavily cross-refrenced 200-page manual I'm working on now, with diagrams and figures and indexes and such. For editors, I prefer something that's fast and customizable. Vi is fast but not customizable; emacs is customizable but not fast. The FinalWord editor is both, but there doesn't seem to be a Unix version yet. Sigh. [1] Mark of the Unicorn, (617) 576-2760 [2] TeX distribution -- write Pierre Mackay, uw-beaver!uw-ward!MACKAY -- Robert Plamondon UUCP: {pyramid,turtlevax, cae780}!weitek!robert Disclaimer: It's not my fault!