Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!ox-prg!culhua!Damian.Cugley From: Damian.Cugley@prg.ox.ac.uk (Damian Cugley) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Subject: Re: Why use TeX if ... Message-ID: Date: 9 May 91 15:46:12 GMT References: <1991May4.165602.1@csc.anu.edu.au> <1991May4.191951.26699@csrd.uiuc.edu> Sender: news@prg.ox.ac.uk Organization: Computing Laboratory, Oxford University, UK Lines: 35 In-reply-to: eijkhout@s41.csrd.uiuc.edu's message of 4 May 91 19:19:51 GMT > From: Victor Eijkhout > Message-Id: <1991May4.191951.26699@csrd.uiuc.edu> > Take a reasonably long paragraph (15 lines or so) > Now (all without changing the text): > - make it one line longer > - make it one line shorter > - set it without white space at the end of the last line > - let the first line indent 10pt in the left and the > last line 10pt into the right margin. Great, now do it in TeX and make it "flow" around a PostScript picture -- in less than 15 minutes. Indent the left edge of the text of the page to make room for a 50mmx50mm illustration. Produce a title page with the lettering set around a circle -- in less than half an hour. There is a lot that TeX cannot do. There is a lot that TeX can only do with unreasonable difficulty -- very simple magazine layouts (with *non*-floating illustrations) require a lot of TeX GrandMastery. There are very few fonts currently supported on most TeX installations -- even when PostScript fonts are used, they aren't portable [and we, for example, have two laser printers, one of which isn't PostScript]. What makes TeX good? TeX is portable, has the most sophisticated line-breaking and maths-setting systems, and has one semi-standard markup style (LaTeX 2.x). It is the only system where a pauper such as myself has a chance of making and using their own typefaces. On the other hand people who don't have the time to waste becoming an arch-hacker and who don't care about the rather poor typesetting produced by DTP systems will be better off with MacWhatever. ---- Damian Cugley -------------------------------- pdc@prg.ox.ac.uk --- Computing Laboratory, 11 Keble Rd, Oxford OX1 3QD Great Britain ------------------------------------------------------------------------ malvern-request@prg.ox.ac.uk "share and enjoy"