On 2018-01-09, David Wright <deb...@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote: > > Perhaps before this protracted, tangential and niggling subthread > becomes acrimonious or invidious, it might be easier to just state
Well, it did, through no fault of mine own, I must say, turn both acrimonious and invidious. I have been neither (up till now). Someone: use latex (to produce a pdf). Someone else: That will produce a dvi-not what the OP wanted--two-step rather than one-step operation. Me: not so, use pdftex--one step operation (from *latex* to pdf). Me correcting me: actually, you need pdflatex for *latex*. You (a thirty-year veteran latex user we learn elsewhere): Please explain the first step (which is how to create a latex file). > than TeX/LaTeX is a useless way to turn a *text* file into a PDF. Sure. However no one suggested that, did they? Did you think *I* was suggesting that as a viable method or approach? I wasn't; I'm sorry for your confusion; I was merely surprised to get legible pdf output from a text file with pdftex (I think I did have to type '\end' in the interactive console, though, maybe). YMV (Your Mileage Varied). That particular tangent I meant only as an aside, for the pure scientific interest of the thing. I mean in the interest of experimentation. (I only went down that experimental road because when I wrong-headedly ran pdftex on a latex file I had on hand and cycled through all the errors, it did spit out a readable pdf file). > And that's without discussing whether having to install a TeX system > is any better than installing LibreOffice. Yes, I know, you're all flying to the moon in 1969 and must fit everything into a kilobyte or two. But I did foresee this objection with my Gorilla-microbe metaphor, although I needn't have done so as I was not the one to make the original suggestion of latex for the production of pdfs in the first place. > Cheers, > David. > > -- "Ruling a large nation is like cooking a small fish" - Lao Tzu
