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From: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: Replacements for TeX
Message-ID: <6909@duke.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Feb-86 08:51:19 EST
Article-I.D.: duke.6909
Posted: Fri Feb 14 08:51:19 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Feb-86 04:57:59 EST
References: <242@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU> <993@unc.unc.UUCP>
Reply-To: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin)
Organization: Duke University
Lines: 29
Summary: 

You're really down on TeX, aren't you?  Have a bad experience
with it in the past?

Seriously, the examples I've seen of bad output from TeX seem
to have had two characteristics: first the book design was
bad; second, the "camera-ready" seems to have been prepared on
a *feh* laser-printer.

The book design problem is not one that TeX can be blamed for --
no language can overcome a bad specification.   The problem is
that the publishers (to reduce costs) let the authors get away
with doing their own book design.  And not many of the people
writing the books have much of an idea of book design.  But
Knuth's volume II 2nd ed loos pretty good -- perhaps because
he was working with a book design by a real book designer.

The second problem is also one of cost, but seems to me to be
a little less justified.  The problem here is that laser
printers of the conventional sort have not  enough resolution.
And while there was some joking about typesetters with their
jewelers loops in this group a little while ago, there is a reason:
the eye is quite good at noticing that kind of extrememly fine
detail in black and white.  People *can see* the quality difference
between 300 dpi and the sort of awesome crispness that the 
best phototypesetters can produce.
-- 

			Charlie Martin
			(...mcnc!duke!crm)