JEFF@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Jeffrey Perry) (10/24/89)
I am trying to help a user select an IBM-compatible product that
will permit him to create a lengthy scholarly multi-language work
involving the extensive annotation of whole texts. The texts are going
to be in Spanish, the annotations mostly in French; the ultimate placement
of the annotations must be flexible, i.e. the user is not sure yet if
he wants to display the original text as the main body of the printed
book, with the annotations as footnotes/endnotes, or adopt a multi-column
format (column 1 = text, column 2 = annotations), or even use an alter-
nating line arrangement, where lines of annotations appear above the
text they refer to (and presumably in a different typeface). It does
have to work on an IBM-compatible platform, otherwise the user is willing
to try anything. Any ideas?
Jeff Perry
CIT/Princeton University
JEFF@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDUdougcc@csv.viccol.edu.au (Douglas Miller) (11/16/89)
In article <9981@pucc.Princeton.EDU>, JEFF@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Jeffrey Perry) writes: > I am trying to help a user select an IBM-compatible product that > will permit him to create a lengthy scholarly multi-language work > involving the extensive annotation of whole texts. The texts are going > to be in Spanish, the annotations mostly in French; the ultimate placement > of the annotations must be flexible, i.e. the user is not sure yet if > he wants to display the original text as the main body of the printed > book, with the annotations as footnotes/endnotes, or adopt a multi-column > format (column 1 = text, column 2 = annotations), or even use an alter- > nating line arrangement, where lines of annotations appear above the > text they refer to (and presumably in a different typeface). It does > have to work on an IBM-compatible platform, otherwise the user is willing > to try anything. Any ideas? > Jeff Perry > CIT/Princeton University > JEFF@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU LaTeX is an obvious candidate here. Here is one way you might go: Write the paper with the text of each annotation in an \annotate command, e.g.: This is some Spanish text. \annotate{this is an annotation in French} This is some more text. And yet more text going on and on. \annotate{This is the second annotation}. The resultant paper can then formated in numerous ways: For example, to get footnotes, use a style file containing: \def\annotate\footnote To get the two column style, use a style file that defines a largish right margin, and: \def\annotate\marginpar And to get annotations inserted below lines, something like: \def\annotate#1\vadjust{\parbox[t]{\textwidth}{\strut #1\strut}} However, just at the moment, getting them inserted *above* lines escapes me. Anybody got any ideas?