Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hplsla!tomb From: tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.introduction Subject: Re: What is TeX?? Message-ID: <18760002@hplsla.HP.COM> Date: 21 May 91 17:04:05 GMT References: Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA Lines: 22 UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) writes: >TeX is also good for pretty formatting, making paragraphs, smarter-than- >average page breaks, and so on. However, it doesn't do "graphic artistic" >stuff like curved text spiraling around a yin/yang... "doesn't do" is probably not accurate. There's an example in the TeX Book of a paragraph set with a circular border (so the paragraph's outline is a circle about an inch and a half in diameter), set into the edge of a 'normal' paragraph. So the 'normal' paragraph has lines shortened to produce a semicircular cutout, into which the circle-box is placed. I have no doubts that the same techniques could be used in TeX to produce text flowing around a yin/yang...or like is seen in some of Shel Silverstien's poetry books... TeX is a language, and NOT 'wysiwig', but it can put any pattern on the page that your printer is capable of. Having said that, it should be clear that the source input to produce a yin/yang shape would not be obvious to a casual user, either to generate or to read, unless well-commented. (Actually, one thing I like about TeX is the ability to put comments into the source text that don't get printed on the page...)