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From: banko@moskva.ks.uiuc.edu (Brad Banko)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: latex/tex error messages, man pages, help? (crcr?)
Message-ID: <1991May18.221226.1155@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 18 May 91 22:12:26 GMT
Article-I.D.: ux1.1991May18.221226.1155
Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 43

Hi.  I am just diving into tex/latex from the nroff/troff world, and
am running into a lot of what are probably usual frustrations.

We have latex/tex installed on Next machines in our group, and i am
confused by the seeming lack of online documentation and man pages
for tex & latex.  there is a man page for tex online, but *not* for latex.
Is this usual for tex/latex installations?

Also, I have gotten an error message which I can't find in the back of
my latex version 2.09 (April 1986) User's Guide.
The message is:  "! Misplaced \crcr ..."  Does this ring any bells?

If you can give me a pointer to a newer version of latex (and/or *online*
docs (including error messages)), I would really appreciate it.
(Also, can one get up-to-date latex source for the User's Guide?)

The log file says that our TeX is Ctex Next version 3.1a.

(I have the unfortunate luck to be working on a User's Manual, the source
for half of which has already been created in latex, but the source for
my half I am porting into Latex from nroff.  I wrote it in nroff originally
so that I could simultaneously create *online* documentation (suitable for
even the lowliest ascii terminal) as well as nice typeset text by simply
applying "troff or ptroff" to the source instead of nroff.

TeX/Latex seems to *lack* the ability to create ascii text output as well as
nice typeset output... I realize that tex can do things with fonts, etc.
which you *can't* do in ascii, *but* I am of the opinion that worrying about
typeset style format, etc. is *not* a scientist's job... it is a job
for the typesetter... 
I don't intend to use Latex any more after this document is finished.)

Thanks in advance for your help, and please reply directly to me, since 
I rarely get a chance to read through this newsgroup.

Brad Banko
kb8cne

-- 
==============================================================
Brad Banko,  Theoretical Biophysics, Beckman Institute
Dept of Physics, University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign
banko@lisboa.ks.uiuc.edu, (217)-244-1851, 328-4932