epeterso@houligan.encore.com (Eric Peterson) (01/17/91)
hugo@chocorua.dartmouth.edu (Peter Su) writes: | In article <1991Jan15.214938.13706@Neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan J Torrie) writes: | > Yes, TeX can do basically everything that Word can do. But it | >IS complicated to learn. | | What is this myth that TeX is hard to learn? Grad students here learn | enough LaTeX to do just about everything in about 2 days. Problems | crop up when they need fancier formatting, or when they decide that | they want to change the default styles...but doing that kind of thing | should be left to real TeX hackers. Changing a default style is something that you shouldn't have to hack at to do. | Just for fun, let's do a comparison. I want to make a "section" | style that skips down on the page, and puts out a section header in | bold roman, then skips a bit more and formats the first paragraph of | the section with no paragraph indent. | | In TeX, the macro is roughly like this: | | \def\section#1{\medskip\noindent{\bf #1}\smallskip\noindent} | | Then to use it, *bang* you just type this: | | \section{foo} | | You can fine tune the macro to avoid bad page breaking...but that's | for hackers. You've convinced me. I hereby take back everything I've ever said about TeX not being intuitive (especially the part with the "*bang*" in it ... is that in the manual? Actually, knowing Knuth's stuff, it probably is :-) | [[ Comparable Word example, showing Word defficiencies ]] I bet that I could figure out how to do it in Word without using the manual faster than I could in TeX. | So, which system is easier to use? Hmm? There is no absolute answer. TeX is easier for you. FrameMaker is easier for me. Word and WordPerfect are easier for the masses. | P.S. Similar troff macros are just as trivial. Trivial for those who speak the language. But a picture book is always going to be easier and more universal reading than a novel in a foreign language. Eric -- Eric Peterson <> epeterson@encore.com <> uunet!encore!epeterson Encore Computer Corp. * Ft. Lauderdale, Florida * (305) 587-2900 x 5208 Why did Constantinople get the works? Gung'f abobql'f ohfvarff ohg gur Ghexf.