jln@eecs.nwu.edu (John Norstad) (07/22/88)
> I am a grad student who, within the next six months or so, will have > to choose a wp program with which to write my thesis. I have a mac+ > with 2.5 Meg and a 20 Meg hard drive. I got a copy of the grad > school's guidlines for preparing these documents. I also had a chance > yesterday to play with a friend's copy of FW. It looks like it > _ought_ to be powerful enough to work, but there are several small > things which might disqualify it. Your questions about FullWrite are interesting. I spent some time investigating them, and unfortunately I couldn't get FullWrite to do most of what you wanted either. I work at Northwestern University, and like most Universities we also have goofy and very picky requirements for dissertation formatting. These kinds of problems are very common with almost all of the various word processing, typesetting, and text formatting programs I've worked with. It's a good thing that you have 2.5 Meg. 1 Meg really isn't enough for a large complex document like a thesis. > For example, the grad school requires that the chapters be numbered > with _capital_ Roman Numerals. I could only get lower case Roman > Numerals as page numbers or chapter numbers. Chapter and page numbers are inserted into documents with FullWrite's "predefined variables". Chapter numbers can be inserted anywhere, while page numbers can be inserted only in headers and footers. I've only been able to get Arabic numerals for chapter numbers. How did you get Roman numerals? It is possible, however, to get upper case Roman numerals for page numbers. For page numbers you specify the numbering style by using the "Layout..." item in the "Format" menu. For example, to number pages with upper case Roman numerals starting with page number 1, click on the "Starting With" button in the Layout dialog box, and then type "I" in the textedit box. It shouldn't be too hard to maintain your chapter numbers as capital Roman numerals by hand. Presumably you don't have all that many chapters, and their ordering won't change too often. You could define your own variables, one per chapter, that would contain the capital Roman numeral chapter numbers, but this would probably be more work than simply doing it by hand, unless you have lots of references in your text to chapter numbers. > Does FW allow automatic generation of lists of tables and figures (as it > does contents)? FW cannot do this. Multiple tables of contents would be a very welcome feature in future versions of FW. I was almost able to cludge this using citations, to produce a table with entries like the following: Figure 1 ........................................ page 3 I defined a category "Figure", and created a classification for each separate figure. "Figure 1" is an inserted citation with no preamble, no delimiters, and category only. "page 3" is an inserted citation to the same figure, with no preamble, no delimiters, and page only. The problem with this technique is that we really don't want the word "page" before the page number, and your graduate school probably wouldn't accept it. This cludge would work if we could just get rid of the word "page" in citations. > Also, any equations that I have have to be numbered by chapter and > then equation number (ie: eq 6.1 is the first equation in Chaper 6). > Does FW let me use this numbering scheme? Will it automatically put > "(6.1)" right-justified on the same line as the equation, or do I have > to fake it out using sidebars or something. We tried to get this same > sort of numbering scheme with tables and figures, but were unable to > do so. The best we could come up with is creating a category called > "Figure 6.", for all the figures in chapter six. Unfortunately, FW > insists on putting a space between the category name and the number of > the item, resulting in the unsightly "figure 6. 1". Fortunately, the > grad school allows figures and tables to be numbered consecutively > throughout the document. (Note that with equations, though, the > chapter numbers have to be in Arabic numerals, while in the chapter > heading, they have to be in Roman numerals. The first equation in > "Chapter VI" is "(6.1)".) I don't care so much if FW doesn't do > equation processing, per se, just so long as it does equation > numbering. Equation numbers can be inserted right-justified on the same line as the equation quite easily, by using a ruler with a right-aligned tab stop. Sidebars aren't necessary. Unfortunately, as you point out, it's not possible to use citations to do the automatic numbering in the format you need (6.1). Again, this is a problem with FW not allowing enough flexibility in formatting citations. We just cannot get rid of the space between the category name and item number. If this were possible, I'd create a category named "6.". > Does FW allow me to put the page number in one place most of the time, > and in another the rest of the time? For the first pages of chapters > they require the page number to be centered on the bottom, while for > every other page, they require it to be in the upper right corner. > Also, sometimes they require that the first page have _no_ number on > it. Create a header with the page number inserted in the upper right corner. Choose the "Skip First Page" item in the "Header" menu. The FW Reference Guide and FW Learning Guide both claim that this option "places no header on the page on which the note is embedded". I discovered, however, that it also eliminates the header on the first page of each following chapter. This is almost what you want. The remaining problem is to get page numbers centered at the bottom of the first page of each chapter. To do this, on the first page of each chapter create a footer with the page number centered in the footer, and on the second page of each chapter create an empty footer. This is a bit awkward, but possible. It would be much easier if FW had an "Only First Page" item in the "Header" and "Footer" menus in addition to the "Skip First Page" item. > Also, does anybody know anything about future releases. Can we send > suggestions and requests to Ashton-Tate? Will they listen? The FW Learning Guide mentions that Ashton-Tate has a forum on CompuServe (GO ASHTON), a special interest group on The Source (ATSIG), and their own free BBS at (213)538-6196 (use 300 or 1200 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit). You could also try writing them at the following address: 20101 Hamilton Avenue Torrance, California 90502-1319 I know that people from Ashton-Tate read comp.sys.mac, but I don't know if any of them are involved with FullWrite. > FW is a fantastic program. I would hate to be unable to use it because I > can't number chapters using capital Roman numerals. I think it's fantastic too. Numbering chapters using capital Roman numerals isn't so bad, but unfortunately you've got some other problems that don't have any good solutions. You might be able to work around them using the techniques I've outline here, or you might be able to convince your graduate school to relax their regulations (good luck on that one :-) You might try Don Knuth's TEX typesetting program, which is available on the Mac. It's much more complicated and hard to use than FW, but it has power to match its complexity. TEX can do everything you need, including exquisite equation typesetting. Dear net gurus: This was a long and detailed reply. I'm not sure about net etiquette. Was it appropriate for me to post this on comp.sys.mac, or should I have just sent it to Mr. Sarrel? John Norstad Academic Computing and Network Services Northwestern University Bitnet: JLN@NUACC Internet: JLN@NUACC.ACNS.NWU.EDU
sarrel@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Marc Sarrel) (09/15/88)
The only other response I got was from someone else at CMU (wb1+@andrew.cmu.edu). He thought that FW was not good enough for the task. He suggested either Word Perfect or Microsoft Word 4.0. That'll be the day... :-)