On 30 Sep 2010, at 18:11, Gerrit Glabbart wrote: > > Am 30.09.2010 um 16:01 schrieb Keith J. Schultz: > > <snip> >> If you take the >> time to look at a Word-file(doc or docx) verbatim, you will see the >> structure. >> Though some of it will not be human discernible. > > I'd call that a drawback, wouldn't you? > > >> With Tex et al. the structure/formatting commands are in document verbatim. >> When using TeX et al. you are more aware of what you are doing, but there is >> not more structure. > > More awareness is better, no? > > >> The only thing Tex et al. gives you is more flexibility and makes it easier >> to change >> style and page metrics as compared to Word. > > more flexibility; easier to change; again, better. > > <snip> > > I didn't think I'd have to defend the merits of TeX *on a mailing list > devoted to (a form of) TeX*, but here we are. > > I'm not saying LaTeX is for everyone, or that working in TeX is an inherently > superior experience for everyone (though it is for me) -- but I am saying > that (a lot) more people than mathematicians and linguists may find TeX > useful, if they only ever heard about it. > > And that's were lshort comes in: it's (supposed to be) an overview over the > possibilities and capabilities of LaTeX, with just enough information to get > started, but not enough to be intimidating. It worked for me, it may work for > others. Right now, any introduction to TeX that does not mention XeTeX must > be considered incomplete, which is why I find this attempt to provide that > mention so commendable -- so, thanks in advance!
Gerrit, you spoke well. Permit me to append a long rant I have been stewing over for the last couple of days:- I'm a newbie to TeX. Well, I'm starting again after one or two short term miscarriages in the distant past when XeTeX, Context, fontspec and memoir did not exist. I gave up then because I had paying work to get out the door and I had no time to faff about with font metrics files before I could convince my customers to read what I had to tell them. For work, I had to get pretty good at Word, and fairly good at InDesign. To tell you the truth I hated Word. Sure you can set up styles and global templates, but getting any form of collaborative work done was like herding cats. I got to the point where I'd cut and paste special from my collaborators messes into my own styles, the ones they were supposed to use but didn't. If it had to look professional, and it was little and pretty, I'd pass it through InDesign. If it was big, I was snookered. I simply had to abandon any kind of typographic purity and stick with Word. Now I have the time, I'm doing it mostly for fun, and because XeTeX and fontspec and Context have made it easy to make documents that don't make non-academics come out in hives. lshort is my quick look bible. I have hard copy of TeXbook, Lamport and tlc2. I have memman.pdf more or less permanently on screen. And god knows how many Context how-tos and the UK TUG's faq usually sit beside it. I'd claim that ordinary LaTeX is fine for maths and physics folk. This list shows how important Unicode and XeTeX are for those working and studying in fields that use non-latin scripts. I'm perfectly relaxed about editors, Unicode and all the underpinnings of typography. I wrote my first commercial production typesetting code in 1970, in assembler, for a PDP-8 when most of you lot were still in primary school. I wrote teco macros to write teco macros to produce width tables for a Photon 30 when the damn things were brand new. And still I hated the mess required to get commercial fonts into LaTeX. I'm simultaneously learning Emacs for the first time ever. I swore by teco till my last VMS α died. (not that long ago) What I'm lacking is a set of beginner documents that ties all the TeX zoo together. Do I have to read source to find the definitive answer to which package has what package as a pre-requisite? Which package breaks what others? Which order of \usepackages works and which doesn't? When do I use XeTeX? Which bits of LaTeX survive the transplant? Which don't? How do I use unicode-math? Why should I? When should I start again with LuaTeX? Maybe I'm just terminally confused, but there seems to be a lot of horses in this race. All whose jockeys urge their own steed on. That is really healthy. It is amazing that so many independent efforts co-operate as well as they do. But I sure could use something that gives the beginner an overview. Maybe which topics in which documents for producing documents of type x. It is well covered for academic work already. Yet how do I do fine typesetting for books and magazine articles with lots of external illustrations, stored in paths and files with unicode and punctuation in their names? How do I impose signatures of small pages on large sheets, and which packages break when I try it? Back when I was a Word MVP (a kind of honorary title bestowed upon those that made lots of noise and sometimes helped the gullible in the MS NNTP groups) there was another such who wrote a document called "Bend Word To Your Will" which started as his private notes as he dragged himself from Word 5 to OS X flavours of it. It has become quite famous. We share two traits. We have given up on Word, and we are fond of good red wine. I'm kind of volunteering to do a "Bend TeX & Co to Your Will" -- the newbie guide to making classy documents if all you are used to is Word and InDesign. I'm already taking the notes as I thrash my way through the thicket. If it comes out OK, I'll let it out of its cage. Elliott Roper phone: +44 1663 747334 mobile +44 7796 171018 www.yrl.co.uk -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
