jea@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Joanne Albano) (06/06/91)
Can anyone comment on the the comparative utility of Tex vx NROFF? I have used NROFF quite a bit and gotten accustomed to its ways. I have taken a look at TeX and realize that this would take another investment in time. However NROFF does not exist for the AMIGA and TeX seems to suit everyones typesetting needs. From one local guru I hear TeX is particularly well suited for Mathematical typesetting but NROFF is superior for most other applications. What sayeth the NET? Joanne jea@cvs.rochester.edu
bojsen@moria.uucp (Per Bojsen) (06/08/91)
In article <14381@ur-cc.UUCP>, Joanne Albano writes: > Can anyone comment on the the comparative utility of Tex > vx NROFF? I have used NROFF quite a bit and gotten > accustomed to its ways. I have taken a look at TeX and > realize that this would take another investment in time. > However NROFF does not exist for the AMIGA and TeX seems > to suit everyones typesetting needs. From one local guru > I hear TeX is particularly well suited for Mathematical > typesetting but NROFF is superior for most other applications. > While I haven't used nroff/troff much, I'm a fairly experienced TeX user, so I'll try to answer your question. Nroff/troff seems to be based on a lineprinter/typewriter model, which is evident from the various ``go down a line'', ``go up a aline'', ``go down a half line'', etc., commands. TeX on the other hand is designed from the beginning as a typesetting language/program. This implies among other things that you have a much finer control of positioning things on the page. TeX (like nroff/troff) is *not* a desktop publishing program or a WYSIWIG textprocessor. TeX is really a (Turing complete) programming language targeted to typesetting. Among the more prominent features is its superior support for mathematical typesetting. I haven't seen any other wordprocessor/markup language with equivalent or better quality in formula typesetting. As for learning TeX, I suggest that you take a look at LaTeX. LaTeX is a macropackage for TeX which provides a nice, easy to use interface to TeX. LaTeX is much easier to learn than plain TeX, and for most purposes (article, report, and/or letter writing, for example) will suit your needs. There are several implementations of TeX available for the Amiga. At least two PD, and one commercial. The commercial package is Tomas Rokicki's AmigaTeX, which comes with the LaTeX macro package, and a very nice previewer. The previewer and the TeX program uses the Amiga's multitasking and inter- process communication facilities to allow previewing the document while it's still being TeX'ed. As TeX is a typesetter program it works best with high quality output devices like laser printers, and photosetters. If you don't have access to a laser printer nroff (if it were available for the Amiga) may be a better solution for many purposes not involving heavy mathematics. On the other hand, if you do have access to a laser printer I would venture to say that TeX is superior in most respects to nroff/troff. -- .------------------------------------------------------------------------------. | Greetings from Per Bojsen. | +------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+ | EMail: cbmehq!lenler!bojsen | "Names do have power, after all, that of | | Or: bojsen@dc.dth.dk | conjuring images of places we have not seen" | `------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------'