sbb@esquire.UUCP (11/12/87)
In article <2133@tekig4.TEK.COM> clarkm@tekig4.UUCP (Clark Morgan) writes: > ...in my opinion, the term "Unix desktop publishing tools" >is an oxymoron at best. These tools are certainly not WYSIWYG and they >have severe limitations with respect to producing embedded graphics >within text. I've used the Unix tools on many occasions and they do a >great job producing a memo or a long document ... just so long as that >memo/document doesn't need graphics. If it does, it's time to pull out >scissors, ruler, scotch tape, and the almighty photocopier. That's not >"trivial," in my estimation. That's drudgery. Actually, while I have neither the time, inclination or patience to learn troff and do any kind of real typesetting under Unix, I do know that with the "psfig" macro package you can put PostScript graphics anywhere in your text; scale them; even make them into characters and use them in a sentence and have troff know about it all and format the rest of your document accordingly. You can also include PostScript generated from a Mac program, so that way you can do a graph or technical drawing on the Mac and then upload it and include it in your troff source. Pretty neat, huh? I, too, believe in using the right tool for the right job, and when it comes to individual page layout and graphic design, the Mac is unsurpassed. But when it comes to complicated, multi-page technical documents, where relationships between the elements of the document become more important than its physical layout (e.g., you want to break the page here if and only if a certain table won't fit on the remainder of the page, etc.), face it guys, the Mac just can't hack it. You need troff or TeX. If someone out there wants to know more about psfig, let me know and I'll find out all the details from our resident troff and PostScript gurus. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." ...!seismo!cmcl2!esquire!sbb | - David Letterman
chuq@plaid.UUCP (11/13/87)
>I, too, believe in using the right tool for the right job, and when it comes >to individual page layout and graphic design, the Mac is unsurpassed. But >when it comes to complicated, multi-page technical documents, where >relationships between the elements of the document become more important than >its physical layout (e.g., you want to break the page here if and only if >a certain table won't fit on the remainder of the page, etc.), face it guys, >the Mac just can't hack it. You need troff or TeX. you haven't seen Ready, Set, Go! 4.0 yet. Take a look at it before you make wide, generalized statements like this... chuq --- Chuq "Fixed in 4.0" Von Rospach chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ
ir353@sdcc6.ucsd.EDU (Matthew Grayson) (11/13/87)
In article <216@esquire.UUCP> sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) writes: > >I, too, believe in using the right tool for the right job, and when it comes >to individual page layout and graphic design, the Mac is unsurpassed. But >when it comes to complicated, multi-page technical documents, where >relationships between the elements of the document become more important than >its physical layout (e.g., you want to break the page here if and only if >a certain table won't fit on the remainder of the page, etc.), face it guys, >the Mac just can't hack it. You need troff or TeX. > > Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, > Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." > ...!seismo!cmcl2!esquire!sbb | - David Letterman It's amazing how often I read comments telling me what my Mac cannot do. TeX runs very well on a Mac, thank you. The processing on a Mac II may be slightly slower than a SUN 3/50, but the previwer is much faster and more flexible. Since the II and the Sun have the same CPU at the same clock speed, I attribute the speed difference to the fact that I'm running the equivalent of Initex on the Mac. I can \dump format files at any time. I imagine that Kellerman and Smith could speed things up if they put their energy into it. As it stands, I'm glad they put it into the interface, which is much better than the TeX one sees on mainframes. (O.K., by Mac standards, it's pretty weak, ..... sigh...) Anyway, it's true that postscript handling programs are giving the same output powers to many different machines. With a monitor like a SUN's, you can even see what you're doing on a UNIX system. This is fantastic. It's also amazing that you can do it on a tiny little computer like a Mac :-). Let's all pause in wonder at our current capabilities and not attack each other's choices. Happy TeXing, Matt
sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) (11/13/87)
In article <33783@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >>I, too, believe in using the right tool for the right job, and when it comes >>to individual page layout and graphic design, the Mac is unsurpassed. But >>when it comes to complicated, multi-page technical documents, where >>relationships between the elements of the document become more important than >>its physical layout (e.g., you want to break the page here if and only if >>a certain table won't fit on the remainder of the page, etc.), face it guys, >>the Mac just can't hack it. You need troff or TeX. > >you haven't seen Ready, Set, Go! 4.0 yet. Take a look at it before you make >wide, generalized statements like this... Actually, I _own_ RSG4, and it meets all of my personal page layout needs. As far as I'm concerned, RSG is the best DTP software available for the Mac. But it just can't do the kinds of things required for any kind of serious technical document layout. As I mentioned in my original posting (quoted by Chuq above), you _can't_ tell RSG (or any other WYSIWYG software) to "break the page if this", or "draw a box around that", or "attach this graphic to this text and scale it correctly with regard to font size". You can do all of this (and _much_ more) with text formatters like troff or TeX. A simple example. I want to take a graphic and fit it into a column of text. While I can import and place a graphic in RSG, I can't tell it to scale the graphic to the size of the column it's in, because picture blocks are entities unto themselves... they don't know about the rest of the document. So while WYSIWYG software allows you to _put_ things anywhere and do neat stuff with text runaround, it doesn't always let you do what you _want_, which it to set up a series of relationships between the elements of your document and have the program worry about placing things. Of course, this is precisely why troff, TeX and PostScript are so powerful. Because they let you do more than just put text in a certain spot on the page, you can get them to do what you really _want_... like "draw this text using this to crop it" or "draw this text fit to this line" (a line which can then be defined as straight, curved, spiral, or whatever -- but defined seperately from the text that's to be fit to it). Try doing any kind of table layout with WYSIWYG software and you'll see what I mean. Without something like tbl, you just can't do it (assuming that you still want to be able to add or delete text from the table). Sorry this posting is so long, but I think it's important to understand that there are drawbacks to WYSIWYG, just as there are drawbacks to using a page description language. Maybe as DTP software becomes more advanced we'll begin to see more and more elements of PDLs made available to the novice user. Then we'd have the best of both worlds. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." ...!seismo!cmcl2!esquire!sbb | - David Letterman
sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) (11/14/87)
In a previous posting I mentioned the psfig macro package for troff (it lets you place PostScript graphics in your troff document, doing all the scaling, etc. for you; it also lets you define PostScript graphics as characters; and it even works with the PostScript generated from Mac applications). Since I've gotten a lot of inquiries, I figured it was easier just to post the info rather than do a couple dozen separate mailings. Psfig was posted very recently to comp.sources.unix. According to Rich Salz's archive posting, it's in Volume 11 and should be available from any comp.sources.unix archive site. If anyone needs any more information or help, just let me know. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." ...!seismo!cmcl2!esquire!sbb | - David Letterman
mike@artsvax.UUCP (Michael Czeiszperger) (11/18/87)
In article <216@esquire.UUCP> sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) writes: >Face it guys, the Mac just can't hack it. You need troff or TeX. > I thought I read in MacWeek that there is a version of TeX for the mac.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Michael S. Czeiszperger | Disclaimer: "Sorry, I'm all out of pith" Systems Programmer I | Smail: Room 406 Baker (614) College of the Arts | 1971 Neil Avenue 292- Computer Lab | Columbus, OH 43210 0895 The Ohio State University | UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax}!cbosgd!osupyr!artsvax!mike ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
news@mfci.UUCP (Usenet) (11/18/87)
In article <216@esquire.UUCP> sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) writes: > ... >I, too, believe in using the right tool for the right job, and when it comes >to individual page layout and graphic design, the Mac is unsurpassed. But >when it comes to complicated, multi-page technical documents, where >relationships between the elements of the document become more important than >its physical layout (e.g., you want to break the page here if and only if >a certain table won't fit on the remai