Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!amcad!stech!sysop
From: sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Academic Wordprocessing
Message-ID: <685@stech.UUCP>
Date: 26 Nov 88 12:15:52 GMT
References: <71@ucl-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Scholastech, Inc., Waltham, Mass.
Lines: 43

in article <71@ucl-cs.UUCP>, jpearce@uk.ac.ucl.cs says:
> 
> 
> We are looking for MAC software suitable for the processing of
> academic papers and theses.   With the exception of FWP none of
> the standard products seem to offer the citation and
> bibliographic support necessary.
> 
> Has anyone any information on the avaiability of TeX and LaTex
> which I am lead to believe offer the required functionality.
> Or any other software if it comes to that.
> 
> 

I agree with you about FW. It really is the only package that can handle
citations and bibliographies as required by academics. TeX can also
do formatting (and is especially good for tables), but it has a major
drawback - it's not WYSIWYG. Formatting is done by placing codes in the
text; you can't see what the document will look like until it's printed
(though some environments do have a screen preview module).

Personally, I think the WYSIWYG environment is more important to an academic
than any additional formatting that TeX might bring. FW's dynamic numbering
of citations is exactly what most academics need. I find that, bugs and
all, it's far better for my needs than any other word processor on the market.
I use it for scholarly papers and for writing books. Admittedly, the
outlining is not very sturdy (try using the arrow keys in an outline and
watch the program hang) and you can corrupt a document so that it cannot
be opened successfully by placing sidebars in a certain configuration (if this 
has happened to you - send me email and we'll compare notes...). Nonetheless,
it does the job in an admirable fashion.

Jan Harrington, sysop
Scholastech Telecommunications
UUCP: husc6!amcad!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop
BITNET: JHARRY@BENTLEY

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