morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) (05/02/91)
Hi all, I'm currently doing battle with one of the UNIX buffs here who insists that he can produce higher quality output for his technical journal papers using his UNIX box and TROFF/NROFF etc,. than with my Macs. I have seen his output which is indeed of a high quality - credit where credit is due (#$@*&%#@$). He insists that he cannot produce output of similar quality on the Mac because - to use his words - there is no way to control accurate line, character paragraph spacing etc., and you cannot control accurately the thickness of the characters etc. Well, I have to agree with him where MS-Word is concerened. BUT I have recently 'discovered' the wonderes of PageMaker 4.0. With PagaMaker, it took me about an hour of trial and error before I could ACCURATELY reproduce his style of output - BUT I did it. My only problem now (and its too late for me to back out AND save face at this time) is reproducing all the mathematical and scientific characters which he requires. I know there are tricks to do this is MS-Word and I know there is the Symbol font set. BUT these 2 sources alone are simply not sufficient in supplying every type of technical sysmbol which my user needs. So to my question. What is the best method of reproducing these highly technical symbols and characters from within PageMaker 4.0 ? Is there a different fornt set other than symbol which which is much more extensive ??? Remember - its a Mac vs. UNIX issue that we are talking about here so please all you wonderful gurus out there in macLand - don't let me down, i'm counting on you all. Best regards - and may the best platform win, Chris Morgan. morgan@riks.nl
doner@henri.ucsb.edu (John Doner) (05/02/91)
In article <19851@slice.ooc.uva.nl> morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) writes: >Hi all, > >I'm currently doing battle with one of the UNIX buffs here who insists >that he can produce higher quality output for his technical journal >papers using his UNIX box and TROFF/NROFF etc,. than with my Macs. > >I have seen his output which is indeed of a high quality - credit >where credit is due (#$@*&%#@$). He insists that he cannot produce >output of similar quality on the Mac because - to use his words - there >is no way to control accurate line, character paragraph spacing etc., and >you cannot control accurately the thickness of the characters etc. Well, >I have to agree with him where MS-Word is concerened. BUT I have recently >'discovered' the wonderes of PageMaker 4.0. With PagaMaker, it took me about >an hour of trial and error before I could ACCURATELY reproduce his style >of output - BUT I did it. > >My only problem now (and its too late for me to back out AND save face >at this time) is reproducing all the mathematical and scientific characters >which he requires. I know there are tricks to do this is MS-Word and I know He's right; troff will do much better than MS Word or some such when it comes to formatting a technical document. He's wrong if he thinks you can't do it on a Mac. The premier system for these purposes is not troff, but TeX. That is available on both Unix systems, Macs, PC's, even Ataris. The Mac has a particularly nice version called Textures, costing about $300, and an almost-as-good public domain (i.e., FREE) version called OzTeX, which you can get via anonymous ftp from midway.uchicago.edu (in pub/OzTeX) My "almost-as-good" refers not to the quality of the output, which is exactly the same, but to user interface features where the commercial product appears to have a slight edge. TeX itself is a freely available typesetting language and system designed by Professor Donald Knuth of the Computer Science Department at Stanford. It is widely used; we use it for all our technical typing here in the UCSB Math. Dept.; a company I consult for uses it for all their technical reports, and so on. Forget about troff. John E. Doner doner@henri.ucsb.edu (805)893-3941 Dept. Mathematics, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
dawg6844@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Dan Walkowski) (05/02/91)
morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) writes: >So to my question. What is the best method of reproducing these highly >technical symbols and characters from within PageMaker 4.0 ? Is there a >different fornt set other than symbol which which is much more extensive ??? Fontographer does the trick for me. It's a PostScript font editor/designer. When Symbol font is missing that critical, and bizarre, character, I just draw it into my Symbol2 font. (It is usually best to start from an existing character that is as similar as you can find.) In addition, nothing is more helpful for typing those odd characters that PopChar. -- _______________________________________________________________________________ Dan Walkowski | To understand recursion, Univ. of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci. | you must first understand recursion. walkowsk@cs.uiuc.edu |
gregoret@celeste.mmwb.ucsf.edu (Lydia M. Gregoret) (05/03/91)
morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) writes: >I'm currently doing battle with one of the UNIX buffs here who insists >that he can produce higher quality output for his technical journal >papers using his UNIX box and TROFF/NROFF etc,. than with my Macs. >I have seen his output which is indeed of a high quality - credit >where credit is due (#$@*&%#@$). He insists that he cannot produce >output of similar quality on the Mac because - to use his words - there >is no way to control accurate line, character paragraph spacing etc., and >you cannot control accurately the thickness of the characters etc. Well, >I have to agree with him where MS-Word is concerened. BUT I have recently >'discovered' the wonderes of PageMaker 4.0. With PagaMaker, it took me about >an hour of trial and error before I could ACCURATELY reproduce his style >of output - BUT I did it. There is a solution to the funky (uneven) line spacing that one gets when mixing, say, Times and Symbol fonts in MS Word, or by having subscripts and superscripts. The solution is to select "-12" for line spacing in the Paragraph dialog box (Format menu) instead of "Auto" (if you are working in 12 pt. font size and want single spacing.) Any negative number forces even spacing of lines to that width. This is documented in the manual under "Line Spacing". Lydia Gregoret gregoret@cgl.ucsf.edu
doner@henri.ucsb.edu (John Doner) (05/03/91)
In article <19851@slice.ooc.uva.nl> morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) writes:
=Hi all,
=
=I'm currently doing battle with one of the UNIX buffs here who insists
=that he can produce higher quality output for his technical journal
=papers using his UNIX box and TROFF/NROFF etc,. than with my Macs.
=
=I have seen his output which is indeed of a high quality - credit
=where credit is due (#$@*&%#@$). He insists that he cannot produce
=output of similar quality on the Mac because - to use his words - there
=is no way to control accurate line, character paragraph spacing etc., and
=you cannot control accurately the thickness of the characters etc. Well,
=I have to agree with him where MS-Word is concerened. BUT I have recently
='discovered' the wonderes of PageMaker 4.0. With PagaMaker, it took me about
=an hour of trial and error before I could ACCURATELY reproduce his style
=of output - BUT I did it.
=
=My only problem now (and its too late for me to back out AND save face
=at this time) is reproducing all the mathematical and scientific characters
=which he requires. I know there are tricks to do this is MS-Word and I know
=there is the Symbol font set. BUT these 2 sources alone are simply not
=sufficient in supplying every type of technical sysmbol which my user
=needs.
He's right; troff will do much better than MS Word or some such when it
comes to formatting a technical document. He's wrong if he thinks you
can't do it on a Mac. The premier system for these purposes is not troff,
but TeX. That is available on both Unix systems, Macs, PC's, even Ataris.
The Mac has a particularly nice version called Textures, costing about
$300, and an almost-as-good public domain (i.e., FREE) version called
OzTeX, which you can get via anonymous ftp from
midway.uchicago.edu (in pub/OzTeX)
My "almost-as-good" refers not to the quality of the output, which is
exactly the same, but to user interface features where the commercial
product appears to have a slight edge.
TeX itself is a freely available typesetting language and system
designed by Professor Donald Knuth of the Computer Science Department
at Stanford. It is widely used; we use it for all our technical
typing here in the UCSB Math. Dept.; a company I consult for uses it
for all their technical reports, and so on. Forget about troff.
John E. Doner doner@henri.ucsb.edu (805)893-3941
Dept. Mathematics, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106edgar@function.mps.ohio-state.edu (Gerald Edgar) (05/03/91)
If you want a "contest" to see who can typeset technical formulas better, try the benchmarks in the January, 1988, issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society. -- Gerald A. Edgar Internet: edgar@mps.ohio-state.edu Department of Mathematics Bitnet: EDGAR@OHSTPY The Ohio State University telephone: 614-292-0395 (Office) Columbus, OH 43210 -292-4975 (Math. Dept.) -292-1479 (Dept. Fax)
pgiltner@epas.toronto.edu (Phil Giltner) (05/06/91)
For a year or so, I wound up doing scientific typing at MIT, where I was introduced to two mac tricks for scientific/mathematical output. One was Expressionist, which comes as a DA & application. Just point & click, and it does the rest. Then just paste into your MS Word document, and VOILA!. This was very easy and put out terrific quality stuff. There were others who used Tex for the Mac, which produced beautiful output, and I understand its out put is readily transferable from platform to platform. However, it isn't WYSIWYG in the input stage, and certainly isn't very mac-like in its interface. But, I found many people who said the first method was very acceptable. It is a bit tricky playing with line spacing, but by customizing your menu in Word, you can make it relatively painless. Philip Giltner Department of History University of Toronto PGILTNER@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA
pwilliams@ecs.umass.edu (05/10/91)
In article <gregoret.673211693@celeste.mmwb.ucsf.edu>, gregoret@celeste.mmwb.ucsf.edu (Lydia M. Gregoret) writes: > morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) writes: > >>I'm currently doing battle with one of the UNIX buffs here who insists >>that he can produce higher quality output for his technical journal >>papers using his UNIX box and TROFF/NROFF etc,. than with my Macs. > > There is a solution to the funky (uneven) line spacing that one gets > when mixing, say, Times and Symbol fonts in MS Word, or by having > subscripts and superscripts. > > The solution is to select "-12" for line spacing in the Paragraph > dialog box (Format menu) instead of "Auto" (if you are working in 12 > pt. font size and want single spacing.) Any negative number forces > even spacing of lines to that width. This is documented in the manual > under "Line Spacing". > > Lydia Gregoret > gregoret@cgl.ucsf.edu This works except when you have a fraction or integral, or something else that would normally be higher than regular words or symbols. Using -24 for double for an equation can cut off part of the upper and lower limits. I'm an avid tex fan, I do stuff in word, but only when I'm told I have to. Pam
sticklen@pleiades.cps.msu.edu (05/11/91)
In article <1991May6.123733.29103@epas.toronto.edu> pgiltner@epas.toronto.edu (Phil Giltner) writes: > > For a year or so, I wound up doing scientific typing at MIT, >where I was introduced to two mac tricks for scientific/mathematical >output. One was Expressionist, which comes as a DA & application. Just >point & click, and it does the rest. Then just paste into your MS Word >document, and VOILA!. This was very easy and put out terrific quality stuff. > > There were others who used Tex for the Mac, which produced >beautiful output, and I understand its out put is readily transferable >from platform to platform. However, it isn't WYSIWYG in the input >stage, and certainly isn't very mac-like in its interface. > > But, I found many people who said the first method was very >acceptable. It is a bit tricky playing with line spacing, but by >customizing your menu in Word, you can make it relatively painless. > >Philip Giltner >Department of History >University of Toronto >PGILTNER@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA > there is another program that you can use to mix the two metaphores... its called MathType (from a company called Design Science). you invoke it from a DA, but its a real application. like Expressionist, you can use it to form equations, then copy the expression into your favorite MAC word processor. it transfers as a PICT object. but the neat thing is that you can also use it to output TeX source. when you select the equation in MathType, then COPY to the clipboard, if a switch is set to TeX, then when you do the paste into the word processor, you don't get the picture of the equation, but the TeX that will produce the equation. if i were using TeX (which i don't) and had call to do much equation writing, i would almost surely want this facility. ---jon---