Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ames!pacbell!att!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG flamage (was Re: what is a word processor and is it any good)
Message-ID: <9053@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 24 Jul 89 17:08:14 GMT
References: <20306@adm.BRL.MIL> <26558@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 74

In article <43132@bbn.COM> cosell@BBN.COM (Bernie Cosell) writes:
>}And even more expensive and sophisticated programs like MS-WORD do
>}not act as WYSIWYG systems while you are entering and editing text --

Most will let you see the line and page breaks as you go, though with
the formatting set for the chosen fonts.  The graphic previews take some
time, so they are only done on demand.

>}And in any case, give me systems which store my files as flat text files,
>}with formatting instructions embedded where they belong, rather than systems
>}like WORD, which have their own proprietary file format which is difficult
>}to decipher and convert to something else, or to rapidly modify using such
>}tools as sed and awk.

Conversion tools would be a simple solution to this.  Most WP programs offer
conversion to/from a few other programs - mostly DCA in the IBM PC world.

>There are two other major problems with WYSIWYG systems:
>
>    they lose most of the logical structure of the document, and so
>    impede its text being used in other contexts (where the printing
>    rules may be different).

OK, how do I print a TeX or nroff document on a system that has neither?

>    The newer WYSIWYG systems (like Word 4.0)
>    address this to some extent, but it is still fairly marginal by the
>    standards of the really powerful highlevel markup systems [for
>    example: you start on a doc that will talk about Unix and decide,
>    for no really good reason [you're not really trained in all this,
>    after all] to use boldface for Unix commands AND Unix file names.
>    You run off a proof of your document and realize that this is was a
>    loser of a decision: how do you change it now?  In TeX, you would
>    have had \filename and \command and just tweaked one or the other.
>    When this happened with a WYSIWYG doc here, a programmer had to go
>    through the WHOLE document by hand, and carefully sort out which
>    was which, and then a copyeditor had to go and change the font on
>    EACH affected word....ugh!

Are you saying that an incompetent can't screw up a troff or TeX document
to the point where an experienced person must fix it up by hand?  WP 5.0,
MS Word, and probably others have named styles that can (and should) be
used to set the attributes within documents.  Changing the style definitions
changes the formatting everywhere it is used in the document.  The real
problem here is the WP and Word are simple enough to use that most people
will read the manual and get the job done without having someone teach
them the "right" way to do it.

>    The real world (of multi-author
>    documents, of text that must survive its original venue and move
>    forward from document to document) is filled with examples like
>    this where the loss of the logical structure of the document bags
>    you.

Current WP's support red-lining, outlining, embedded comments, file-locking
on lans, including sub-documents, and many other things that are awkward
with the toolbox approach.  A handy technique with WP 5, for example
is to place all style definitions in a master document with all the
text in subdocuments.  You can then produce dramatically different effects
by modifying only the master document.  If portions of the text only
require setting the font and margins (no font changes or underlining within
the block) you can include an ordinary text file as a subdocument and wrap
the style around it in the master document.

>    The second is that virtually no one with a Mac on their desk has
>    the barest smidgeon of training in matters relating to document layout
>    and design.

There is no substitute for training, but it can be greatly reduced by
providing some standard styles and teaching people to use them.  Then
if someone else wants to tweak things, it can be done easily, perhaps
even by loading a different (but also standard) set of style definitions.

Les Mikesell