Xref: utzoo comp.text:6526 comp.text.tex:212 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!salt.acc.com!ucsd!ucbvax!rusty From: rusty@garnet.berkeley.edu (rusty wright) Newsgroups: comp.text,comp.text.tex Subject: Re: Why learn Tex? Message-ID: Date: 1 Mar 90 19:26:19 GMT References: Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Distribution: comp Organization: /garnet_a/rusty/.organization Lines: 34 In-reply-to: melling@cs.psu.edu's message of 1 Mar 90 01:51:39 GMT Some people argue that with mark up systems (tex, troff, etc.) you can do things like automatic numbering of sections, figures, etc. or do global reformatting via macros (for example, change all section heads to use a different font). This may still be mostly true but I suspect as time goes by the wysiwyg systems will start allowing you to do this as well. In fact, I would guess that in time they will allow you to do everything that you can do in tex. Therefore, to me the more important issues are (1) With a wysiwyg system you are constantly made aware of the formatting; some would say that you are being distracted by the formatting. During the writing you should only be worrying about the content and leave worrying about the appearance until just before the final draft. (2) Wysiwyg systems tend to be system-specific. You probably can transport a Microsoft Word document between a PC and a Mac if both run Word but you probably won't be able to transport it to a Unix machine. But maybe Microsoft will come out with Word for Unix and then you can pay Big Bux for it for that machine as well. For a lot of people item 2 probably doesn't matter. That's fine with me, but they should be aware of it. For a lot of other people item 1 is a very emotional issue. Many people who have used a wysiwyg system just can't understand how anybody would want to use a mark up system. They think that you are giving up so much with a mark up system. I find it hard to discuss with them. So I try not to get into arguments with them over it; if they're happy with what they're using then that's great. I'm just glad that they're not using a typewriter. -- -------------------------------------- rusty c. wright rusty@violet.berkeley.edu ucbvax!violet!rusty