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From: chuck@melmac.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Which is better?  Textprocessing langs or DeskTop publishing pgms?
Keywords: desktop DTP interleaf tex troff
Message-ID: <2650@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Date: 6 Sep 89 13:30:37 GMT
References: <509@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US>
Sender: news@trantor.harris-atd.com
Reply-To: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Organization: Advanced Technology Dept., Harris Corp., Melbourne, Fl.
Lines: 39

In article <509@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US> root@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US (Mark J. Bailey) writes:
>Can anyone reading this give me an idea of the pros and cons of each 
>approach to laser typesetting/publishing?  In particular where would
>troff and/or TeX be better than Interleaf and where would it be worse
>(other than its complexity)?  Is there some things that troff/TeX can
>do (being a language of sorts) that Interleaf cannot?  Where should I
>channel my efforts?

     Here is my $0.02 worth...

     You would be crazy to learn a non WYSIWYG package when you are just on the
verge of getting a WYSIWYG package.  Troff and TeX are nothing more than arcane
programming languages.   If you like assembly language programming, you'll
love troff or TeX.  The learning curve on these things is very steep, and
difficult for non-tech types, like secretaries.

     People will contend that there are certain things you can't do in a
WYSIWYG tool that you can in troff or TeX, but I don't know that that is
true anymore.  TeX is excellent at equation typesetting, but the new
equation editor from Frame is quite good and gives symbolic manipulation
features to boot.  Plus, you could always try Publisher, from ArborText,
which uses TeX to set its equations.

     I am an unabashed Frame fan, but InterLeaf is loaded with features.
Its interface leaves a lot to be desired, and it can be really expensive
for the full system.  I would suggest that you get demo tapes from the
"big three" (Frame, InterLeaf, and Publisher) and give them a try.  Each
has a certain niche, and you should try to find your niche before arbitrarily
picking a tool.

     If you go with troff or TeX, don't say I didn't warn you :-)

Chuck Musciano				ARPA  : chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com
Harris Corporation 			Usenet: ...!uunet!x102a!trantor!chuck
PO Box 37, MS 3A/1912			AT&T  : (407) 727-6131
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Gee, Beaver, everything that's fun can get you in trouble.  Haven't you
learned that yet? --Gilbert