Xref: utzoo comp.text:4896 comp.text.desktop:894 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!delta.eecs.nwu.edu!phil From: phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) 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: <1128@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 6 Sep 89 17:26:45 GMT References: <509@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US> <2650@trantor.harris-atd.com> Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: phil@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre) Organization: Northwestern U, Evanston IL, USA Lines: 52 In article <2650@trantor.harris-atd.com> chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) writes: >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)?... This is a very subjective question, and one that I am sure has been debated in this forum a great deal. The answer is that there is no answer: it is a matter of taste, need, and individual circumstances. This is like asking what the pros and cons of different programming languages are (which should I use: C, Pascal, Lisp, or Prolog?) Where TeX is concerned, don't consider TeX alone---also consider LaTeX. It is in most cases much easier to use than TeX. > 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. Of course, Chuck, there are those who would not agree with that. But you knew that, didn't you? > 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. It certainly doesn't need to be true, but I believe that it still is. >TeX is excellent at equation typesetting, No, TeX is UNSURPASSED at (automatic) equation typesetting. >but the new >equation editor from Frame is quite good and gives symbolic manipulation >features to boot. That's what Macsyma is for! :-) >... >"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. troff and TeX have niches as well (yes, even troff has a little bit of a niche) and should not be discounted merely because there is no WYSIWYG interface for them. William LeFebvre Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Northwestern University