schultz@mmm.serc.3m.com (John C Schultz) (09/23/88)
What do people feel are the advantages of WYSIWYG phototypsetting
(e.g. MacWrite, FRAMEMAKE) vs what I will call "programmed"
phototypesetting (e.g TeX, LaTeX)?
To start things off, here are my opinions, hopefully cleansed of
religious opinions.
pro WYSIWYG
- easy to learn
- hardcopy is identical to display
- immediate "results"
- easy creation/addition of pictures, images, etc.
con WYSIWYG
- difficult to implement style and formatting changes
- the writer becomes concerned more with the format than content
- manual labeling of page numbers, references, figures, sections, etc.
- speed - printing speed is generally limited by printer
- hardcopy is sometimes NOT identical to the display (tabs for instance)
- good ones can be very expensive (e.g. Interleaf)
pro PROGRAMMED
- worry about content - then formatting
- computer re-numbering of pages
- computer cross-referencing and numbering figures, tables, eqs, etc.
- softcopy output IS possible (eg. texx)
- computer generated index, list of tables, figures, etc.
- speed - compilation makes printing fast (duplicates are easy)
- custom forms for common document "feel" - e.g. memo.sty in LaTeX for memos
- user does not have to align table or columns of numbers (\tabular in LaTeX)
- TeX and derivatives are public domain (or close to it)
con PROGRAMMED
- long "compile time"
- uncertain page breaks
- difficult to debug
- many hardcopies are needed to correctly format complex documents
- TeX and derivatives are public domain (or close to it)
--
john c. schultz schultz@mmm.UUCP (612) 733-4047
3M Center, Bldg 518-1-1, St. Paul, MN 55144-1000
The opinions expressed herein are, as always, my own and not 3M's.
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with a subject line of helpchuq (Chuq Von Rospach) (09/23/88)
> What do people feel are the advantages of WYSIWYG phototypsetting > (e.g. MacWrite, FRAMEMAKE) vs what I will call "programmed" > phototypesetting (e.g TeX, LaTeX)? As someone who cut his teeth on programmatic typesetting back in the good old days (also known as troff) and has been involved with WYSIWYG for a while, here's my thoughts. A lot of the 'advantages' and 'disadvantages' depend on what you're doing. WYSIWYG is at it's best at shorter documents where getting it to look right is a large part of the entire job. Programmatic typesetting comes into its own when you have a long, repetitive document with a standardized format. Once you get the format down, it's a matter of plugging in the macros. The gap on this is narrowing, however. Ready, Set, Go! is designed to handle longer documents and allows you to lay in pages with preset text flowing, which goes a long way towards automating the hassles of migrating the format into the text. Between that and RSG's style sheets, it can handle a book-length manuscript without a lot of problems. PageMaker 3.0 has the same sort of functionality now as well. On complex documents, programmatic interfaces don't work as well. OtherRealms is what I'd consider a long document. It'd be a bear to do in a programmatic form, because while the layout follows a standard form, each page is different and has to be customized. Doing that in TeX would be deadly. Doing it in RSG, I can tweak a page without having to worry about the changes rolling through the rest of the document, and I can experiment and make changes without having to wait for the printer to spit at me to see whether what I tried work (most of the time. WYSIWYG isn't right. It's really What You See is Sort of What You Get, But You Get Used to It). This means I can try a lot more things than I could with TeX. If I was doing a 300 page book, though, TeX would have advantages because the design aspects could be done in the first pages of the book, and then exported programmatically to the rest. It's all a matter of what you're doing and what you like. A classic case of what I mean. At one point, a few of us had to do management presentations, so we were all putting together slides for the next day. I went home to do my slides with my 128K Macintosh [this was a long time ago] and MacWrite. One of my co-workers, a hard core troff hacker, stayed at work to troff his up. It took me 30 minutes to format and print. My Co-worker was late to the meeting. He'd been up until 2AM finishing his slides. And he had the gall to laugh at the bitmap jaggies (this was pre-laserwriter. I told you it was a long time ago). On the other side, when we had reports to write, we BOTH did them in troff. Now, I'd do mine on the Mac as well, but back then MacWrite was about all you could hope for. Anyway, a few more kibbutz' and I'll shut up: > pro WYSIWYG > - easy to learn > - immediate "results" I'm not at all convinced that WYSIWYG is easier to learn. It is definitely easier to get fast results, but that doesn't mean that you've learned it. It is definitely easier to for experimentation and design work. If the design and layout are a major part of the undertaking, it's a big advantage to see it on the screen. You can avoid a lot of tedious write-compile-print-cuss sequences. > con WYSIWYG > - difficult to implement style and formatting changes This isn't true, especially if you take advantage of style sheets (RSG 4.0, PageMaker 3.0). In fact I'm doing a final edit of OtherRealms, and last night decided that my design needed some tweaking (the various items in the article headers were all out of proportion and weight with each other). Making the changes in the style sheets and proofing them on a typical page was all it took to completely re-make 40 pages of document. Once I had that page right, all it took was visually checking each page. Out of 40, I had to re-tweak four to bring the new format into line (and all four were places where I'd had to violate the standard layout for various reasons). Total time: about an hour and a half, all done while I was on the phone talking to someone about unrelated things. I don't consider that difficult at all. Without style sheets? I wouldn't have bothered. If I had decided to do a critical redesign (three column instead of two, or something like that) it would have required a massive amount of work. But anyone who's silly enough to lay out 40 pages of text and THEN make that radical a change deserves it. That's why they invented dummies, design specs and prototypes. > - the writer becomes concerned more with the format than content Only if they're stupid enough to write and layout at the same time. That's not a fault of the tool, that's a fault of the work habit. (It is also, I might add, a fairly common problem with troff hackers, from what I've seen. So don't blame this just on WYSIWYG) > - manual labeling of page numbers, references, figures, sections, etc. Good WYSIWYG packages automate various parts of this. Also, in many cases, this is a negligible problem. Using TeX to format a 20 page document with three figures just so you can automate this is like taking an elephant gun to a mosquito. > pro PROGRAMMED > - worry about content - then formatting As I said above, this isn't a problem of the tool, but of the work habits. Are you telling me you've never known someone who tossed in the troff macros as they wrote? This was fairly endemic with troff people I knew. In fact, the strong delineation between word processor and layout program on the Mac, and the fact that you *don't* put formatting data into the document, seems to lessen the tendency to format as you go. > - computer re-numbering of pages > - computer cross-referencing and numbering figures, tables, eqs, etc. If these things are important to you. And some programs (fullwrite professional) now do it for you in a WYSIWYG format. > - speed - compilation makes printing fast (duplicates are easy) Speed isn't an inherent problem with WYSIWYG. Duplicates on a laser printer? Expensive. That's why they invented copy machines. Besides, you get to sit and wait for the thing to compile before it even starts to print (and how long would it take to print out pages 99-103 WSYIWYG vs. the same in Tex?) ---------------------------------------- Submissions to: desktop@plaid.sun.com Administrivia to: desktop-request@plaid.sun.com UUCP: {amdahl,decwrl,hplabs}!sun!plaid!desktop{-request} Archives can be gotten from the archive-server. To get information on the archive-server, send mail to: archive-server@plaid.sun.com -or- sun!plaid!archive-server with a subject line of help
cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) (09/26/88)
The problem with most text editors is that if one has non-ASCII information,
it is impossible to have much of an idea of what things look like until it
is printed in some form. When I am writing mathematical formulas, I want
to have some idea of what it looks like; at this point I am not interested
in the fine points. I also want to be able to correct typographical errors;
I frequently think ahead of what I am typing, and for many reasons I hit
wrong keys, even typing ASCII.
This sometimes even holds with ASCII. I make no attempt to get columnar
material lined up in TeX; it would take too long, and it would distract me
from the communications process.
We need processors to get good copy out. But we need processors to get
good copy in _before_ we need the ones to get it out.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)
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with a subject line of helpdirk@words (Dirk van Nouhuys) (09/27/88)
Briefly, I think the WYSIWYG vs programmed phototypsetting dichotomy
is not so useful. Other questions, like what kind of people
are going to use it, what hardware is available, what kind of size and format
you want etc. etc. should lead to a choice of a system, which may
have WYSIWYGness (if that's a word) as an attribute.
Currently most of the most interesting development is going on in
WYSIWYG systems, because, I suppose, they are typically easier to learn
for non-programmers (though Interleaf rises to a complexity that may be
an exception). Hence many systems with interesting, new features are WYSIWYG,
but maybe that will swing the other way some time.
A case in point is Publisher from Abourtext. I think it a very good
system for many purposes. It is almost WYSIWYG: you edit live on a
close, schematic representation of the finished page and can easily
preview that printed page. This strategy offers real gains in response
and in ease of editing for a person with a little traing. It is based
on TEX, and if need be you can reach through and format in TEX.
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with a subject line of helphlison@bbn.com (Herb Lison) (09/29/88)
BBN is marketing a product called Slate, which runs on SUN hardware (Sun 3,
4 and 386i), which offers a WYSIWYG document editor with the capability of
including text, graphics, spreadsheets, spreadsheet charts, scanned images,
SUN raster files and even voice all in the same document. These documents
can be printed on a PostScript laser printer, electronically mailed and
even be used in an electronic conference. I'm biased because I'm working
on the product. If you would like more information, call me at
617-873-3984.
Herb Lison
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