From: gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu Date: 31 May 90 01:33 CDT Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps Subject: Re: Technical Word Processing Message-ID: <70100004@m.cs.uiuc.edu> Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies Nf-ID: #R:tut.cis.ohio-state.edu:81032:m.cs.uiuc.edu:70100004:000:1759 Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies May 31 01:33:00 1990 References: <81032@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> > Then mail merge - and all of the proper substitutions are done. I'll assume > that anybody still interested can look up how to use the > mail merge as well as I could explain it. Constructing the list of > references may be more or less difficult than numbering the paper ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > by hand would have been. Actually, you could probably use the automatic table-of-contents generation feature to extract your mail-merge information. Then copy the table of contents to a separate file, use a substitution or two to format it as a single comma-separated list, and enter the appropriate numbers / letters. This would automate the entire process (in a clumsy way). Tonight I just got really sick of this new shortcoming in MS-Word. So far, we have: (a) Lousy-looking equations (b) Inability to justify text containing fractional widths (c) Lack of automatic numbering of figures or references One or two more serious flaws and I'll switch to TeX, I swear. It's so stupid. MS-Word already has the basic equipment for automatic numbering (hidden text). Users should be able to type phrases like <> ^^^^^^^ in hidden text, which word would glady replace by <> ^^^^^ ^^ which would show the label "A" on the screen, and facilitate renumbering (renumber type-1 phrases using capital alphabetics) in the future. That way, you could have an arbitrary number of labelings, and could always renumber in a different way. This would be oodles simpler than the current, complicated "line numbering" and "paragraph numbering" abortions in ms-word. Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois 1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801 ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies