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From: schwer@unix.SRI.COM (Len Schwer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Survey: need TEX output from a Mac WP?
Keywords: TeX Wordprocessing Macintosh
Message-ID: <10341@unix.SRI.COM>
Date: 22 Mar 90 15:35:20 GMT
References: <636@nikhefk.UUCP>
Reply-To: schwer@unix.UUCP (Len Schwer)
Organization: APTEK, Inc., San Jose, CA
Lines: 26

In article <636@nikhefk.UUCP> keeshu@nikhefk.UUCP (Kees Huyser) writes:
>
>Several friends of mine and I recently were talking about TEX and 
>various word processors on the Mac.  The idea came up of "hey, why 
>can't any of the Mac WP's produce TEX?"  This discussion went 
>further, and finally we came to the conclusion "yeah, why not?!?"
>
	Well here's a little rain for your parade:
	I agree that there might be an initial market for such a WP
program, because when a novice trys to learn any markup type language
there seems to be an overwhelming numbe rof things to learn at once.
But the real power of LaTeX/TeX is that they are a programming language
which can be made to produce both beautiful documents and pieces of shit
that are required by some journals not to mention most goverment agencies.
Thus to have a WP program that out puts TeX would require it either provide
a very simple format or be able to imbed TeX commands. The former is nearly
useless and the later means you might as well cut out the middle man.
	Also, there already is a Mac product for WYSIWYG equations that
outputs TeX (can't recall it's name, but it's usually advertised in MacUser.)
	And TeXtures has a fine previewer; probably so does the PD OzTeX.

P.S. If you want to write an application with a ready and willing market,
write an editor the emulates the VAX EDT editor. There is a huge
installed base of EDT/EVE users that are getting more and more Macs on their
desktops. But just like a markup language, people are unwilling to learn
a new system if they can adapt an old one.   --Len Schwer