sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) (02/02/89)
About three weeks ago I bit the bullet and purchased Interleaf. I had had it with FullWrite's bugs, and needed a product that had the same types of capabilities. While not perfect, Interleaf is proving to be well worth its price. First, it is relatively bug free. I did encounter a printing bug, but the tech support people sent me a patch that fixed it (the technical support has been SUPERLATIVE). The screen refresh is almost instantaneous. There are none of FW's performance slowdowns, even with very large, very heavily formatted documents. The only thing Interleaf won't do when it comes to formatting is handle mirrored layouts (I'd like that, but I can live without it, believe me). Interleaf also does something special when it comes to printing. It shoots out scaled bit maps faster than anything I've ever seen. No 20 minutes waits for a page to print - my old LaserWriter prints as fast as it can (3 minutes max for scaled bit maps; text prints at the LW's maximum). Though the product isn't very "Mac-like" (it's a clear port from the Sun and Apollo workstations), you quickly get used to making menus pop up all over the screen by pressing the command key and the mouse button. I had to use FW to type a letter this morning, and discovered that I had already fallen into Interleaf habits (reaching for F8 for italics rather than command-I, for example). This product does exactly what it should - it handles the entry of text graphics, and formatting for long documents. No major bugs, excellent performance. Worth the price? If, like me, you write books and do your own layout and you have the hardware (a 5 meg Mac II), probably so. And that's one woman's opinion... Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications UUCP: husc6!amcad!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop BITNET: JHARRY@BENTLEY ******************************************************************************** Miscellaneous profundity: "No matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai ********************************************************************************
aberg@math.rutgers.edu (Hans Aberg) (02/03/89)
Your article makes me curious. I use FullWrite for typing mathematics. I am not so interested in a final typesetting quality, but I am interested enhanced variations of FullWrites formatting capabilities: Better bibliography, more efficient ways to paste in formulas. Also, FullWrite does not come with technical support, except for the first initial 90 days. Do you have an idea what Interleaf could do for me, and others interested in technical typesetting. Hans Aberg
lauac@wheeler.qal.berkeley.edu (Alexander Lau) (02/03/89)
Interleaf was supposed to demo at a recent BMUG meeting, but they
didn't show up. It was a good thing, too, since the people who used
it and talked about it in lieu of the marketing reps seemed to be
quite hostile to the program.
In fact, on BMUG's calendar for January there was a blurb announcing
the demo of Interleaf: "Interleaf doesn't kern." This, of course, is
an obvious reference to the well-documented missing feature of
Interleaf Publisher, the ability to adjust the spacing between letters.
This lack-of-a-feature makes Interleaf a ridiculously expensive,
middle-of-the-pack product in my book.
Disclaimer: I have no vendetta against Interleaf. I'm just calling
it as I see it.
--- Alex
{ihnp4,backbones}!ucbvax!qal.berkeley.edu!lauacfrank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) (02/03/89)
In article <701@stech.UUCP> sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) writes: >About three weeks ago I bit the bullet and purchased Interleaf. I had had it >with FullWrite's bugs, and needed a product that had the same types of >capabilities. Can you say a few words about compatibility? For example, will it accept Word, EPSF, PICT, etc.? Alternatively, does it have built-in drawing tools? Thanx. -- Frank Kolnick, consulting for, and therefore expressing opinions independent of, Computer X UUCP: {allegra, linus}!utzoo!mnetor!frank
sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) (02/09/89)
in article <Feb.2.16.21.42.1989.1555@math.rutgers.edu>, aberg@math.rutgers.edu (Hans Aberg) says: > Posted: Thu Feb 2 13:21:43 1989 > > Your article makes me curious. > > I use FullWrite for typing mathematics. I am not so interested in a > final typesetting quality, but I am interested enhanced variations > of FullWrites formatting capabilities: Better bibliography, more > efficient ways to paste in formulas. > > Also, FullWrite does not come with technical support, except for > the first initial 90 days. > > Do you have an idea what Interleaf could do for me, and others > interested in technical typesetting. > Interleaf Publisher may not, then, be the correct product. It is really intended for very long documents (e.g., books) and has a lot of features to support books, like building tables of contents and indexes across multiple document files. It will also build charts (i.e., graphs). Though it has built in object-oriented and bit-mapped graphics, it has no special provisions for equations and formulas. Interleaf, because it is a port from Apollo and Sun implementations, doesn't use the Mac clipboad; it uses its own. If you want to import something, you first put it in a file Interleaf can use (e.g., MacWrite, MacDraw, MacPaint) and then, from within the Interleaf environment, copy it to Interleaf's clipboard. Desk accessories are, however, accessible (just anything that gets copied from a desk accessory to the Mac clipboard can't be used by Interleaf). People tell me that the best WP for equations is Word, though Word lacks many of the features that you like about FW, the formatting (bibliographies, etc.) Interleaf is a lot of money ($2495 retail; $2120 street price) and I suspect that you might be happier if you bought one of the desk accessories that is designed to layout equations and formulas and brought your equations into FW via the clipboard. If you haven't encountered any of FW's major bugs (e.g., disappearing formatting below sidebars, corrupted documents that bomb when you try to open them), then the DA route may be your best bet. Any comments from netland out there? (By the way, I'm still very, very, very pleased with Interleaf.) Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications UUCP: husc6!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop ******************************************************************************** Miscellaneous profundity: "No matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai ********************************************************************************
sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) (02/10/89)
in article <19865@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, lauac@wheeler.qal.berkeley.edu (Alexander Lau) says: > > Interleaf was supposed to demo at a recent BMUG meeting, but they > didn't show up. It was a good thing, too, since the people who used > it and talked about it in lieu of the marketing reps seemed to be > quite hostile to the program. > > In fact, on BMUG's calendar for January there was a blurb announcing > the demo of Interleaf: "Interleaf doesn't kern." This, of course, is > an obvious reference to the well-documented missing feature of > Interleaf Publisher, the ability to adjust the spacing between letters. > > This lack-of-a-feature makes Interleaf a ridiculously expensive, > middle-of-the-pack product in my book. > > Disclaimer: I have no vendetta against Interleaf. I'm just calling > it as I see it. > It's true that Interleaf doesn't kern. However, it does the best job of justification that I've ever seen. It is far more sophisticated in adjusting letter spacing than any of the word processors. For the work that I do, I don't need kerning. I can control hyphenation very closely and Interleaf's automatic spacing is just fine... Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications UUCP: husc6!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop ******************************************************************************** Miscellaneous profundity: "No matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai ********************************************************************************
ephraim@think.COM (Ephraim Vishniac) (02/11/89)
In article <907@stech.UUCP> sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) writes: >Any comments from netland out there? (By the way, I'm still very, >very, very pleased with Interleaf.) Since you ask, I just ran into a nasty problem with Interleaf the other day. An in-house user complained that her newly-installed copy of Interleaf 3.5.2 didn't show any space between words as she typed. I thought perhaps her screen fonts hadn't been installed properly, so I reinstalled them. The screen font for her paragraph text promptly changed to San Francisco. I eventually figured out that Interleaf chooses screen fonts by font number, and not by name. This is a bug, since fonts are renumbered in case of conflict. I solved the local problem by deleting all fonts in the system file, then reinstalling first the Apple fonts and then the Interleaf fonts. Interleaf technical support suggested use of Font Harmonizer. At $2495 for a copy of Interleaf, seems to me they could afford to throw in a free copy of Suitcase II to cover their bugs! Sigh. Tech support did assure me that the bug is scheduled to be fixed in some unspecified future release, and added a few disparaging remarks about their employer's approach to compatibility. Ephraim Vishniac ephraim@think.com Thinking Machines Corporation / 245 First Street / Cambridge, MA 02142-1214 "Arlo Guthrie, it seems, has found what he was looking for: God, and the Macintosh." (Boston Globe)
hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Robert J. Hammen) (02/11/89)
Speaking of Interleaf Publisher, here's a question: can it do automatic index generation? Is there anything for the Mac that can? One of our clients wants to get a Mac to publish books. They were steered in the direction of Interleaf by the local computer store, but I'm not sure it's right for them (since it is non-Macish - the people are somewhat Mac-experienced). I also wonder how well Interleaf will work with the Lino 300, as I will no doubt end up printing their files to our Lino. For those of you out there using Interleaf, how would you compare/contrast it versus the Word/XPress combo? /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Robert Hammen | hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu | uwmcsd1!uwmcsd4!hammen / / Delphi: HAMMEN | GEnie: R.Hammen | CI$: 70701,2104 | MacNet: HAMMEN / / Bulfin Printers | 1887 N. Water | Milwaukee WI 53202 | (414) 271-1887 / / 3839 N. Humboldt #204 | Milwaukee WI 53212 | (414) 961-0715 (h) / ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) (02/12/89)
in article <4850@mnetor.UUCP>, frank@mnetor.UUCP (Frank Kolnick) says: > > In article <701@stech.UUCP> sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) writes: >>About three weeks ago I bit the bullet and purchased Interleaf. I had had it >>with FullWrite's bugs, and needed a product that had the same types of >>capabilities. > > Can you say a few words about compatibility? For example, will it accept > Word, EPSF, PICT, etc.? Alternatively, does it have built-in drawing tools? > Thanx. > Interleaf Publishser can read MacWrite, Word RTF, and ASCII text files. It will also read PICT, any paint file, EPS, and TIFF files. Interleaf has both bit-mapped and object-oriented graphics built-in. They are more complete and powerful than anything I've seen in a comparable product, though the method of using them is different from other Mac applications. I'm still quite satisfied with the product. If FW was bug-free, it would be the product of choice, but since it's infested, Interleaf, at least for me, is the better choice. Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications UUCP: husc6!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop ******************************************************************************** Miscellaneous profundity: "No matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai ********************************************************************************