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From: rs@mirror.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Fonts, professional typesetting, et
Message-ID: <212300001@mirror>
Date: Fri, 13-Feb-87 13:45:00 EST
Article-I.D.: mirror.212300001
Posted: Fri Feb 13 13:45:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Feb-87 02:13:40 EST
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Nf-From: mirror.UUCP!rs    Feb 13 13:45:00 1987


>So, anyway, why not TeX for ``real'' typesetting? My personal opinion is
>that it's been ignored by the industry because it's *free*, or nearly.
>My newspaper paid around *$10,000* for the rotten software it has now.
>TeX costs about $100. Maybe $150.

Have you ever tried to get TeX to set newspaper type?  I have, and it's
an enourmous waste of time and computer power.  Face it, there is no
way to avoid lots of hyphenation when setting 9pt type in a 23pica (~2in)
column.

Second, I don't think TeX is a good fit for adwork or custom typehouses.
One major strength (and, in the hands of incompetents, the biggest weakness)
of typehouses and design firms is their huge font library.  TeX can use
any fonts for which it has the right information, but I challenge anyone
to calculate bounding boxes for a "shadow" typeface (i.e., outlined
letters with deep shadows) where kerning is totally dependant on the
adjacent letters -- how deep the shadows can cut into each other.

As far as bookwork goes, TeX's output model is not powerful enough.
Modern systems (e.g., Xyvision, Bedford, Texet, etc.) all have the
ability to back-up and re-set the previous page using a different
format if final page leaves you with a widow or such.  TeX never
looks back -- once the page is set, it's forgotten about.  TeX
also doesn't have the concept of "exception pages" where you want
to override your style rules for this one page because it has, say,
five pictures on it.  Before you point out Addison-Wesley's use,
take a good look at the design of the books they use, and compare
it with something like a technical manual with lots of diagrams.

Fourth, it's just too hard to do too many things in TeX.  You don't need
to use \vbox to 3.5i{...} to get vertical justfication.  Heck, the
newspaper composition system I bought five years ago had vertical
justification, and the syntax was very similar, including explicit
marking of "spread points."  This can be corrected with a good macro
package, but who's going to write and maintain it?

Finally, the cost of $100 for TeX is a fictitious one.  You still have
to buy a machine, terminals, train your users to use the machine's
native OS and editor, etc.  You have to support them, and you have to
deal with ongoing maintenance.  There are no firms out there that will
install, write macros, and keep you supplied with maintenance releases
(Knuth just found a TeX bug last month, so it isn't bug-free yet...).
Try telling any large typehouse, let alone any large newspaper, that
you've got a great new composition system for them that's cheap; the
only thing missing is software support from the vendor.

Except for the output model, I admit that none of these problems are
insurmountable.  Still and all, that may be good enough to do many of
the commercial typesetting jobs now being done more traditionally.
I just think that the TeX evangelists are over-eager and over-optimistic:
TeX has its places, but the commercial market is not one of them, yet.
--
Rich $alz					"Drug tests p**s me off"
Mirror Systems, Cambridge Massachusetts		rs@mirror.TMC.COM
{adelie, mit-eddie, ihnp4, harvard!wjh12, cca, cbosgd, seismo}!mirror!rs