[net.text] Dichotomy in text formatting.

jenny@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Kathryn Hargreaves) (12/25/85)

First, a minor quibble:  WYSIWYG systems are not good for
professional quality advertising, signs, and so forth, as
Brian Reid mentions in his list. At least, no type shop I
know is going to start using Macintoshes or Suns or the like
to start producing their ads.

Second, yes, systems that combine the compiler approach and
the interactive one exist---in practically every typesetting
shop. The Compugraphic, Varityper, Alphatype, et. al. systems
have input files that look similar to the compiler
formatters---but they also have dedicated displays (at much
higher resolutions than Suns or such, for the most part.) so
the operator can see what (s)he is getting before using the
2400 dpi typesetter to print it.

Not that any computer systems folks (including me) are likely
to have such things on their desks soon (the cheapest one I
saw was about $8,000, I think.) but I thought I'd point out
that TeX, troff, Scribe, and laser printers are not the
be-all and end-all of typesetting.

ucbvax!jenny	jenny@ucbvax.berkeley.edu

reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (12/26/85)

In article <11294@ucbvax> jenny@ucbvax (Kathryn Hargreaves) writes:

>First, a minor quibble:  WYSIWYG systems are not good for
>professional quality advertising, signs, and so forth, as
>Brian Reid mentions in his list. At least, no type shop I
>know is going to start using Macintoshes or Suns or the like
>to start producing their ads.

I guess you and I hang out in different advertising shops.  All of the
with-it, cutting-edge graphics shops that I know of use Macs and Suns and
stuff like that right now. I know of 3 professional graphics shops that have
*no other equipment* than a few Macs, a LaserWriter, and a stat camera.
Admittedly these shops aren't doing corporate annual reports, but they are
making truckloads of money doing newspaper ads, political flyers, direct
mail, and other bread-and-butter applications.

I predict that any type shop that DOESN'T use WYSIWYG systems to some extent
is going to be out of business in 3 to 5 years. Even today it is difficult
to remain competitive against the Macs and the Suns when all you are using
is knives and wax. Admittedly top-quality color still cannot be done online
except with ultra-expensive Sci-Tek equipment.
    
    >Second, yes, systems that combine the compiler approach and
    >the interactive one exist---in practically every typesetting
    >shop. The Compugraphic, Varityper, Alphatype, et. al. systems
    >have input files that look similar to the compiler
    >formatters---but they also have dedicated displays (at much
    >higher resolutions than Suns or such, for the most part.) so
    >the operator can see what (s)he is getting before using the
    >2400 dpi typesetter to print it.
    
Minor quibble: I don't believe you about the "much higher resolution than
Suns". Most of the pros use the same CRT that Sun uses, or at least a
green-phosphor variation of it. To get a CRT that is physically capable of
"much higher resolution" requires an order of magnitude more dollars. There
exist CRTs that can show 4000 x 4000 pixels on the screen (4 times the
resolution of a Sun) but the CRT's alone (never mind the electronics and
computer to connect to them) cost upwards of $10,000.

Major quibble: I don't give a hoot what commands you type to change the
screen. The pro systems are all shackled by people who have spent years
typing "quad left" "leading 14 points" "hanging indent" "go", and they want
to keep typing that. If what you see on the screen is a mockup of what the
page is going to look like, then you have a pure WYSIWYG system regardless
of what you type to it. Almost by definition. But the commercial systems
absolutely cannot meet my criteria for a good compiler-model system that I
posted earlier (automatic renumbering and cross-referencing, automatic
reformatting into different styles, etc.). If you think you have seen one
that can, please tell me exactly what it is and I will get on the next jet
plane to go look at it.

Closing observation: Kodak has recently started going for the throat of the
professional type shops. They are aggressively marketing an in-plant
publishing system that uses a repackaged Imagen laser printer and Sun
workstation, both sporting new Kodak nameplates, that will let companies
work without the benefit of pro type shops. I think this is wonderful,
because it might finally kick the moribund, low-tech graphic arts industry
in the behind hard enough to get them to move into the 1980's. I don't think
the Kodak system by itself is good enough to do this kick, but it's great to
see those salesmen out there pounding the pavement trying.
-- 
	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
	Stanford	reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA

wcs@ho95e.UUCP (Bill.Stewart.4K435.x0705) (12/29/85)

In article <2644@glacier.ARPA> reid@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes:
>In article <11294@ucbvax> jenny@ucbvax (Kathryn Hargreaves) writes:
>>First, a minor quibble:  WYSIWYG systems are not good for
>>professional quality advertising, signs, and so forth, as
>>Brian Reid mentions in his list.  At least, no type shop I
>>know is going to start using Macintoshes or Suns or the like
>>to start producing their ads.
(I've seen ads in the Wall Street Journal that looked like Macintosh work.)
>
>I guess you and I hang out in different advertising shops.   All of the
>with-it, cutting-edge graphics shops that I know of use Macs and Suns and
>stuff like that right now.  I know of 3 professional graphics shops that have
>*no other equipment* than a few Macs, a LaserWriter, and a stat camera.
>Admittedly these shops aren't doing corporate annual reports, but they are
(Other than Apple's.)
>making truckloads of money doing newspaper ads, political flyers, direct
>mail, and other bread-and-butter applications.
>
>    
>    >Second, yes, systems that combine the compiler approach and
>    >the interactive one exist---in practically every typesetting
>    >shop.  The Compugraphic, Varityper, Alphatype, et.  al.  systems
>    >have input files that look similar to the compiler
>    >formatters---but they also have dedicated displays (at much
>    >higher resolutions than Suns or such, for the most part.) so
>    >the operator can see what (s)he is getting before using the
>    >2400 dpi typesetter to print it.
>    
>Minor quibble: I don't believe you about the "much higher resolution than....
>Major quibble: I don't give a hoot what commands you type to change the
>screen.  The pro systems are all shackled by people who have spent years
>typing "quad left" "leading 14 points" "hanging indent" "go", and they want
>to keep typing that.  
Agreed - a decent system ought to be easily customizable.  

>If what you see on the screen is a mockup of what the page is going
>to look like, then you have a pure WYSIWYG system regardless of what
>you type to it.  Almost by definition. 
Why??  Remember that there are three variables here:
	What you see, what you get, and what you store internally.
	In a compiler-based system, such as troff or Scribe, the important
parts are what you store and what you get, and what you see is what you
store; what you store contains a lot more information about the
structure of the document than what you finally print out.
In a simple WYSIWYG system, the real problem is that what you
store (i.e. what you know about the document) isn't much more than what
you'll print out; hence what you see is all you get.  Even in a good
WYSIWYG system, it takes a lot more computation to keep numbered lists
up to date and references correct.  But even Scribe sometimes needs two
runs to get the forward references correct - compiler-based systems
aren't perfect either.
	If you have a screen with the same resolution as your output
device (depending on how closely you want the screen image to resemble
the printed image), and if you have enough CPU to do the work, you
should be able to make a WYSIWYG system that stores all the information
in your compiler language.  When you want to italicize text, you type 
(for example) "@i(", followed by something reasonable for the closing ")".
The appropriate section of text becomes italic; the @i() remains in the
file but doesn't show on your screen, and won't show on the final
printout.  If you're inputting new text at the time, it displays in
italics as long as you want it to (depending on your feelings about
modelessness).
>But the commercial systems
>absolutely cannot meet my criteria for a good compiler-model system that I
>posted earlier (automatic renumbering and cross-referencing, automatic
>reformatting into different styles, etc.).  If you think you have seen one
>that can, please tell me exactly what it is and I will get on the next jet
>plane to go look at it.
Xyvision does pretty well, with a WYS running on top of a compiler
model.  (Use the Boston Airport; they're in Woburn, Mass.:-)
=======

From another thread of this discussion: (Chuq replying to Brian
	replying to Peter Korn):

>>> [Peter Korn]
>>>					  Because I can interactively
>>>get a feel for what my essay (paper, thesis, whatever) is going to look
>>>like as I type it, I find I tend to write better.

>> [Brian Reed]
>>This, to me, is one of the strongest reasons why I don't use or like WYSIWYG.
>>I prefer to concentrate on what my words say, and not on what they look like,
>>and I want a display that will not distract me with glittery appearance
>>while I am working on content.

>[Chuq]
>.......I could say the same for something like
>troff where I have to worry about typing in arcane runes to build up my
>glittery appearance (I've been spending the last week typing "\fB" and "\fR"
>and "\s+6" and "\s0" to do just that....)

	Chuq seems to be saying two things here; one about "thinking about
formatting issues interferes with thinking about words" (which Brian
would probably agree with, since it's one of Scribe's main features)
and "It's hard to think about my writing when 50% of the characters 
on my screen are troff or Scribe requests instead of content words"
(which is one of the main good features of WYSIWYG.)  
	I would much prefer to have a system which gave me the option
of "hide the macros" to do most of the work (with some approximation
to the final output displayed) and the option to "display the macros"
when I need to see all that ugliness to fix mistakes or tweak the output.

-- 
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G-202, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs