On 05/07/2010 07:45 AM, John Kane wrote:
Let me see. I open a Word document and type,

Dear Dr.Harrell,

I open a new LaTeX document and type something like:

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{letter}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\address{your name and address}
\signature{your signature}
\begin{document}
\begin{letter}{name and address of the recipient}
\opening{saying hello}

Dear Dr Harrell,


For a manager or secretary who is panicky at the thought of using a computer 
and who thinks of it as a glorified typewriter, which one wins?

I think it was the initial investment in learning how to use the software.  A 
simple WYSIWYG interface is learnable (is this a word?) in a few moments even 
if it may lead to some horrible results later.

LaTex looks incredibly complicated to someone used to a fountain pen and an IBM Selectric 
typewriter (which was "the" high tec way of producing most documents in late 
1960s and 1970s.

Heck,when I learned to type we didn't even have electric typewriters!

Two comments. First, having a library of LaTeX templates is a great starting point. Second, Xerox did a head-to-head time-efficiency test many years ago of WYSIWYG word processing and markup languages by secretaries. The markup language approach won easily. This assumes that people don't mind learning things that take more than a day to learn.

Frank





--- On Thu, 5/6/10, Frank E Harrell Jr<f.harr...@vanderbilt.edu>  wrote:

From: Frank E Harrell Jr<f.harr...@vanderbilt.edu>
Subject: Re: [R] What is the best way to have "R" output tables in an MS
To: r-help@r-project.org
Received: Thursday, May 6, 2010, 7:44 PM
Ted I can't resist offering my $.02,
which is that I'm puzzled why
LaTeX, being free, flexible, and powerful, is used only by
millions of
people and not tens of millions.
du>
Frank


On 05/06/2010 03:07 PM, (Ted Harding) wrote:
Replying to Chris's latest message for the sake of
preserving the
thread, but deleting all of it to save space. Except:

I had sympathy with Chris's original query, on the
grounds that
it was a good enquiry in principle, essentially
pokinting towards
the problem of incorporating R's formatted output (be
it tables,
graphics, ... ) into document-preparation software,
whether it
be noddy WYSIWYG like Word, or more sophisticated
"typesetting"
software such as TeX, the Adobe stable and other DTP
software,
or even the ancient UNIX troff dinosaur (re-evolved as
GNU groff,but
stil roaming the plains and consuming tough
typesetting for breakfast
just as its ancestor did).

Given what he said in his latest message, I now have
even more
sympathy. It's not about begging in the streets for
someone to
charitably do the job for him! It's a job that could
be a service
to many, and if it attracts enough enthusiasm from
enough of those
who know how to do it then they will willingly plunge
in. That's
how Free Software works.

The issue is about the "enough enthusiasm" and the
"enough of
those who know".

Many (possibly almost all) of the people who have
developed R
are mainly working with TeX/LaTex. R clearly has a
well-developed
interface to that language. But there are many people
(of whom
Chris has raised his head) who have needs or
preferences for other
software of whom some (as Chris spelled out) may
totally lack
support for R and LaTex, etc., from their
organisations.

I've pondered such issues many times myself, being one
of the
old nomadic troff-herders and still herding the
groffs.
My routine approach is as Chris described: grab the
output from
R (be it mouse-copied off-screen, from a saved file,
or for
graphics from a file of the coordinates of the
graphical objects,
or an EPS file), plant this into a groff document, and
wrap it
in formatting tags so that it comes out nicely. A bit
time
consuming, but since it's fairly straightforward in a
markup
language like g/troff, not so very time-consuming; and
I dare
say the same would be true for TeX/LaTex if
Sweave&   Co did
not exist. However, I would hate to have to do it for
Word and
the like! I bet that *is* time consuming.

All of which is leading on to a suggestion that has
been lurking
in my mind for a while.

How about an R "device" called xml? This would
implement the XML
"extensible markup language" which is basically
capable of
encapsulating any formatted material.

The existing R devices seem to be confined to
graphical output.
XML can in principle cope with anything. Naturally,
its function
would be to save to file, not display on screen.

I believe that Word (and maybe other MS Office
software) can import
XML. I know that XML can be converted to g/troff input
(I've done it).
It can no doubt be converted to TeX/LateX input. I'm
not familiar
enough with other document software to comment

Then we would have a "universal" language for
formatted R output,
suitable for importing formatted R output into
document preparation
software. One would not need the full functionality of
XML.

Up to a point (I'm far from being an XML guru) I'd be
prepared to
assist with this, and in particular to test it out
with groff.

Any comments? Might there be a better suggestion than
XML?

Ted.


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--
Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chairman        School of Medicine
                     Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University

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