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From: ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: a word-processor for UNIX
Message-ID: <26558@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 21 Jul 89 04:05:50 GMT
References: <20306@adm.BRL.MIL>
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Reply-To: ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <20306@adm.BRL.MIL> m20992@mwvm.mitre.org (Paul Hargrove) writes:

>It seems to me that the most important piece of information lacking for a
>good answer to the original question is: "what do _you_ mean by word
>processor?"

This strikes me as the heart of the issue. **IX has various TEXT
processors ranging from fmt to ditroff. It does not, however, come with
any program that fits the expectations called up by the term "word
processor" in the MSDOS world. Nevertheless, even the crudest of the
original **IX tools have capabilities not found in the sexiest MSDOS
word processing or desk-top publishing tools.

Let me offer a real-world example. Ventura (Xerox) looks pretty sexy
until you try it with real world documents. Specifically, unless it has
been fixed since the last time I checked, it breaks when footnotes are
more than half of a text page. Many other MSDOS word processors don't
handle footnotes at all, or impose severe restrictions on their size.
In my field (history) it is not unsual to have footnotes that exceed
the text size. In legal writing (not a small and inconsequential
market), this situation may occur every N pages where N is 4, 3, or
even 2.

While it may take an adept a couple of days, even a week or so, to
write a macro for nroff/troff that can handle this situation, it CAN BE
DONE, and in double columns, triple columns, etc. And, once you've got
the macro written, four key strokes (.XX\n) will give you something
that you can't get with a $000 or $0000 software package, no matter how
hard you try.

Standard **IX text tools may not handle this situation as configured.
It may be HOLY HELL to write working macros. BUT, eventually, you'll be
able to FORCE the system to do WHAT YOU WANT. My experience with msdos
tools is that if what you want to do is not something the programmer
imagined, THAT'S JUST TOUGH.

For me, as an historian who must conform to the style requirements of
various journals and venues, the ultimate question is, "What is the
most expedient route to placing black marks on white paper in the form
expected/demanded by publishers?" So far, the answer has been vi/*roff.

Earl H. Kinmonth
History Department
University of California, Davis
916-752-1636 (voice, fax [2300-0800 PDT])
916-752-0776 secretary

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