Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!icdoc!sot-ecs!spqr From: spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: troff or TeX which one to adopt? Message-ID: Date: 5 Mar 90 10:47:38 GMT References: <4326@helios.TAMU.EDU <4447@helios.TAMU.EDU> Sender: spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk Followup-To: comp.text.tex Organization: Southampton University Computer Science Lines: 27 In-reply-to: skdutta@cs.tamu.edu's message of 2 Mar 90 21:39:40 GMT there were some remarks on whether to use TeX or troff; lets clear up some misconceptions: > If you are going to switch to tex, switch to tex -- not latex. Latex's > formats are restrictive and difficult to change. restrictive? you have an example of a logical document structure that can't be coded in LaTeX by a competent designer? the man in the street isn't supposed to find style files easy to change! > There exists no documentation for tex. The Texbook, by Donald Knuth, > is a tutorial, not a reference, and it doesn't tell half of what there are several excellent guides to TeX or LaTeX, such as those by Doob or Warbrick. If you are lucky enough to speak German, there are several books. > Tex is designed for bitmap fonts (although with certain dvi->laser-printer > translaters one can use internal and scaleable fonts) and provides no > easy way to switch point sizes without switching fonts or vice-versa > (i.e., it lacks \f and \s). a different point size means a different font! and TeX is NOT designed for bitmap fonts IN ANY WAY AT ALL. It is designed for fonts of any kind for which metrics can be defined. -- Sebastian Rahtz S.Rahtz@uk.ac.soton.ecs (JANET) Computer Science S.Rahtz@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bitnet) Southampton S09 5NH, UK S.Rahtz@sot-ecs.uucp (uucp)