ARRITT@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (What a waste it is to lose one's mind.) (01/06/90)
Is there a public-domain package for translating from LaTeX to Tex? We have
hired a new person who comes from a department where the secretaries don't
know TeX, and naturally our secretaries don't know LaTeX. He'd like to
bring some of his manuscripts, etc. to work on without having them retyped.
He doesn't (refuses to; from the old-world) type himself, so it's something
that would ideally be run by a secretary with little or no computer knowledge.
The preferred product would be VMS-compatible although an MS-DOS package would
be useable.
This seems like it would be a common sort of thing, so please forgive if
I'm rehashing an old subject. I just discovered this newsgroup this morning!
Thanks for whatever leads you can provide.
___________________________________________________________________
Ray Arritt |
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy |
Univ. of Kansas |
Lawrence, KS 66045 |
arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu |
arritt@ukanvax.bitnet |
dhosek@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (D.A. Hosek) (01/07/90)
There is no LaTeX to TeX translator for two good reasons: (1) LaTeX is a
macro package for TeX which has far more capability than TeX on its own.
(2) LaTeX, when used properly, describes what elements in a document are,
rather than what they look like. TeX, on the other hand is most often used
in cases where people want to control the appearance themselves (many
people do use TeX in the object-oriented approach of LaTeX, but with the
work involved in writing the macros and getting everything to work, I
personally believe it's easier to just use LaTeX).
My suggestion is that you have your secretaries learn LaTeX. It's really not
that different from TeX in the way things are set up and they will be far
more productive. Incidentally, the TeX Users Group offers in-house classes
on all levels of TeX and LaTeX. For more information, contact Charlotte
Laurendeau at the TUG office:
P.O. Box 9506
Providence, RI 02940
Phone: 401-751-7760
Internet: cvl@math.ams.com
-dh
--
"Odi et amo, quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior" -Catullus
D.A. Hosek. UUCP: uunet!jarthur!dhosek
Internet: dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.eduspqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) (01/10/90)
>>>>> On 6 Jan 90 02:56:48 GMT, ARRITT@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (What a waste it is to lose one's mind.) said: > Is there a public-domain package for translating from LaTeX to Tex? well i have seen from odd requests, but this one.... LaTeX is written in TeX, so translating from one to the other seems a slightly odd thing to do. What is `TeX'? there are no standards for what macros look like that do, say, table of contents (tho thats a trivial example), so what sort of TeX would this translator produce? > hired a new person who comes from a department where the secretaries don't > know TeX, and naturally our secretaries don't know LaTeX. He'd ^^^^^^^^^ i take it this is meant to be ironic? -- Sebastian Rahtz S.Rahtz@uk.ac.soton.ecs (JANET) Computer Science S.Rahtz@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bitnet) Southampton S09 5NH, UK S.Rahtz@sot-ecs.uucp (uucp)
ARRITT@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (What a waste it is to lose one's mind.) (01/13/90)
In article <SPQR.90Jan10090727@hilliard.ecs.soton.ac.uk>, spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) writes: >>>>>> On 6 Jan 90 02:56:48 GMT, ARRITT@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (What a waste it is to lose one's mind.) said: > > > Is there a public-domain package for translating from LaTeX to Tex? > well i have seen from odd requests, but this one.... If you think the request is odd, then you've obviously never had to deal with my problem in my specific circumstances. > LaTeX is written in TeX, so translating from one to the other seems a > slightly odd thing to do. What is `TeX'? there are no standards for > what macros look like that do, say, table of contents (tho thats a > trivial example), so what sort of TeX would this translator produce? If LaTeX is written in TeX, then why couldn't such a translator exist? I don't know all the nuts and bolts, but my understanding is that LaTeX is essentially a package of TeX macros. If so, then why couldn't a translator just substitute the macros with their corresponding TeX commands and write those to a file? > > hired a new person who comes from a department where the secretaries don't > > know TeX, and naturally our secretaries don't know LaTeX. He'd > ^^^^^^^^^ > i take it this is meant to be ironic? Yes. It seems that if there are two different ways of doing something, then the person I'm collaborating with is bound to use the other method... .......................................................................... I've received several replies to my original posting. I appreciate your responses, but "your secretaries should learn LaTeX" (which is the gist of every one of the responses) isn't the solution. For my purposes, it would be a lot faster if they just retyped the papers by hand, instead of learning LaTeX for a half dozen or so manuscripts. Yes, I know LaTeX, but I do not like using it, or the way it makes my manuscripts appear. PLEASE, before you get out your flamethrower, note that I said "I do not like" LaTeX -- not "LaTeX is no good" or "no one should use LaTeX" or anything like that. If you like LaTeX yourself, that's fine. One thing I've learned is that LaTeX aficianados seem to be a _very_ devoted bunch ... ________________________________________________________________________ Ray Arritt | Dept. of Physics and Astronomy | Univ. of Kansas | Lawrence, KS 66045 | arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu | arritt@ukanvax.bitnet |