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From: briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM (Brian Diehm)
Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Which is better?  Textprocessing langs or DeskTop publishing pgms?
Message-ID: <4384@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM>
Date: 11 Sep 89 18:44:18 GMT
References: <509@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US> <1817@csv.viccol.edu.au>
Reply-To: briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM (Brian Diehm)
Followup-To: comp.text
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 32

>If you want to write documents, and have them typeset in a consistent and
>standard format, use LaTeX.  The advantages of LaTeX over page-layout are:
>
>   o  Your text is formatted by LaTeX/TeX automatically.  Page layout
>      systems are based on the procedure of you formatting the text on the
>      screen manually.
>
>   o  LaTeX requires you to specify the logical structure of your document,
>      which it then formats according to a predefined document style.  This
>      helps you to write better, avoid inconsistent formating, and avoid
>      typographical mistakes.

This is quite simply wrong, and it illustrates the fact that we are really
talking about a spectrum of three program types, not two. The three types are
text processors (Tex, nroff), page layout (PageMaker), and publication systems,
for lack of a less grandiose term. Interleaf is one of the last category.

In Interleaf, if you define a document format and you pour text into it, then
it will be formatted and typeset for you automatically. And PDQ too, I might
add. Formatting will be consistent among all documents, unless you take steps
to make exceptions. And, if your source document is in plain ASCII, you can
add style tags for format.

However, if you consider "page layout" to mean PageMaker, then your comment
above is mostly correct, though even PageMaker can auto-layout to predefined
styles.

-- 
-Brian Diehm
Tektronix, Inc.                (503) 627-3437         briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM
P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-383
Beaverton, OR   97077                        (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply)