Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!nmouawad From: nmouawad@watmath.waterloo.edu (Naji Mouawad) Subject: Re: Comparing word processors with TeX Message-ID: <1991Feb24.014010.28426@watmath.waterloo.edu> Organization: University of Waterloo References: <18200@gremlin.nrtc.northrop.com> <614@taumet.com> Date: Sun, 24 Feb 1991 01:40:10 GMT Lines: 87 In article <614@taumet.com> mike@taumet.UUCP (Michael S. Ball) writes: >In article <18200@gremlin.nrtc.northrop.com> jslee@nrtc.nrtc.northrop.com (John Lee ) writes: >> >>Yes, I know it's not fair to word processors (like Word, WordPerfect, >>Macwrite, etc) to attempt to compare them to TeX, but when faced with >>the question: >> >> Why should I have to tolerate the fickleness of TeX when >> I can use Word or WordPerfect? > >The best reasons to use Tex are that it > >a) simplifies some part of the job which you are doing > >b) produces higher quality output, and you care about it. > >We have found the first to be true, particularly for longer documents >with significant structure. The arguments for a markup language for long >documents are well known, and I won't repeat them. > >Using our Laserjet II printer, the output produced by Tex is significantly >higher in quality than that produced by WordPerfect with Bitstream fonts. >I don't know why that is, but it's quite noticable. For anything with >equations WordPerfect isn't even close. My friends who do desktop publishing >on Mac's and PC's regularly Oh and Ah over our Tex output, even though we >paid very little attention to anything but writing the document (an advantage >of a markup language.) > >On the other hand, we use WordPefect for letters, short reports, and similar >documents which aren't worth the trouble of using Tex. > >A completely separate reason applies only if you consider documents to have >a high archival value in an electronic form. When was the last time you >tried to recover some old wordstar files? What? you don't still have >wordstar around? How about MacWrite 10 years from now? My TeX files >are still going to be there in ordinary ASCII, and I can edit out the >markup if I need to. Of course, this is only a concern for major pieces >of documentation. > >-- >Michael S. Ball mike@taumet.com >TauMetric Corporation (619)697-7607 While I do agree with Micheal concering the points that he raised in his posting, I thought I might share a little exprerience I had with WordPerfect and Latex: I had to write a long text (about 90 pages in 11 pt) with no subdivisions whatsoever. It was a continuous stream of text divided into paragraphs separated by blank lines. In case you do wonder why would anyone do something so stupid, this piece of text is a novel. Furthermore, this is a French piece. I have a French version of WP with a French keyboard (much easier to type in the French characters than in Latex, but again Latex was not designed with French characters in mind.) and after finishing those 90 pages, I decided to use "wp2latex" to get a latex version of the file, since I prefer Tex fonts over Wp fonts. Once this tedious operation perfomed, I tried to Latex the file: "Sorry out of main memory ..." I thought this was because of DOS's memory limitations (I am using emTex BTW, excellent!). I transfered my files over my MIPS UNIX account and ran Latex on the file: "Sorry out of main memory ..." Either I am doing something wrong or Latex (maybe it is Tex) cannot swallow big unformatted chunks of text... unless you change the memory requierement, meaning that eventually you will get a bigger file that will give you back the dreaded: "Sorry out of main memory ..." As a Happy Ending, I went back to my DOS machine and ran blatex, which was able to process the file with no glitch. (Hurray for emtex !) --Naji. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- | Naji Mouawad | nmouawad@watmath.waterloo.edu | | University |---------------------------------------------------| | Of Waterloo | "The Stranger in us is our most familiar Self" |