Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ncar!hsdndev!husc6!wjh12!kik
From: kik@wjh12.harvard.edu (Ken Kreshtool)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Follow up uestion
Message-ID: <599@wjh12.harvard.edu>
Date: 5 May 91 23:03:35 GMT
References: <19852@slice.ooc.uva.nl>
Reply-To: kik@wjh12.UUCP (Ken Kreshtool)
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge MA
Lines: 50

In article <19852@slice.ooc.uva.nl> morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) writes:
>Hi all - again,
>
>A follow up question.
>
>What is the general concensus about the pros and cons of DTP using UNIX
>with NROFF/TROFF and Macs with PageMaker etc.
>
>The UNIX user I was talking about in my previous posting is utterly
>convinced that he can produce FAR FAR SUPPERIOR output with his trusted
>text formatted processing than with my Macs text WYSIWYG processing.
>I don't personnally agree with him but i'd be interested to learn what
>the general impressions from the net are.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Chris Morgan
>morgan@riks.nl

My two cents follow.  I used to do everything on a unix box, using vi for
editing and troff for formatting.  Took me SIX WEEKS of full time effort, and
hundreds of pages of output to check on my learning efforts, to get the hang o
of troff.  I spun so much paper through the laserprinter that the sysop made me
a consultant (to reduce my printing bills).  I even erst'ed a few imagen fonts
to polish them for superior exquisiteness.  My impression is that troff is as
powerful as all get out, and a nightmare and a half to master.  Makes unix
itself look downright user-friendly.

As soon as powerful-enough Macs came along (the Mac II's), I switched over to
PageMaker.  For my purposes it was plenty good.  I promptly forget my troff and
left my hundreds of painfully acquired macros behind.  VERY VERY happily.

Currently, PageMaker supports only 0.1 point increments.  It's enough for me,
but not for everyone.  The super-power users use Quark Express, which is less
convenient to master than PageMaker (but several orders of magnitude easier
than troff!!), and supports 0.001 point increments I believe.  I also believe
this is about the limit of troff as well.  (Note that PageMaker's 0.1 point
limit is 1/720th of an inch, or about two pixels on a 1200 dpi typesetter.
Quark Express does that one hundred times better, which means that your
precision is usually WAY beyond the capacities of your final output gizmo.)

I think anyone who has gone through the major torture of mastering troff and
has hundreds of handy macros to do the things that are trivially easy on any
Mac (ask your unix-meister to show you how he underlines in troff, especially
when the underlined stuff breaks onto a second line) has been sufficiently
"hazed" as to never want to admit that his fraternity is a stupid choice for
anyone just coming into the DTP arena (pardon the jumbled metaphors).

Ken Kreshtool
kik@wjh12.harvard.edu