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From: dupree%risk@Sun.COM (Chuck Dupree)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Info needed on Scribe
Message-ID: <31111@sun.uucp>
Date: Fri, 16-Oct-87 16:55:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.31111
Posted: Fri Oct 16 16:55:30 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Oct-87 08:09:54 EDT
References: <1221@nrcvax.UUCP> <15624@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: dupree@sun.UUCP (Chuck Dupree)
Distribution: na
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 27
Summary: (TeX addendum)

In article <15624@topaz.rutgers.edu> hedrick@topaz.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes, concerning Scribe:
>  - it tries to get the best results on each output device, using the
>	best fonts available from that device.  This is in contrast
>	to TeX, which supplies its own fonts so that output from
>	all devices can be identical.  Scribe's output looks better
>	on devices with good native fonts (e.g. Laserwriter).  On
>	devices with bad native fonts, you can always set up the Scribe
>	database files to use the TeX fonts...

TeX is capable of using native fonts.  Like any typesetting program,
it needs to know certain metric information such as character heights
and widths.  If such information is made available to it, TeX can
make output that looks as good as the device is capable of.  It's
true that there are fonts supplied with TeX, as part of the distribution
of this public domain program.  But TeX has been used to drive typesetters
as well as laser printers with whatever fonts are available on the device.
Scribe may still be better for certain applications, but font flexibility
is an area in which TeX is quite successful.  TeX users have generated
typeset copy in quite a number of languages and alphabets, partially
because Metafont, which is part of the TeX package, can be used to 
generate arbitrary characters.

- Chuck Dupree (dupree@sun.com | dupree%risk@Sun.COM)

"This is for me the essence of true romance:
Sharing the things we know and love with those of like kind;
Libations, sensations, that stagger the mind..."