Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 10:12:23 -0700 From: "Freddie Cash" <fcash@bigfoot.com> To: Joseph Mallett <jmallett@newgold.net>, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Just an observation - MUA's seen in the lists Message-ID: <3AD6D107.17173.38E6F4A@localhost> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSO.4.21.0104131301110.27707-100000@aphex.newgold.net> References: <3AD6CE45.5872.383AAA1@localhost>
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On 13 Apr 2001, at 13:01, Joseph Mallett wrote: > I recommend FrameMaker for a lot of the stuff mentioned below... It's > great for technical writing, etc. FrameMaker+SGML is nice... If you > can afford it. That's one the places WordPerfect excels. Since WordPerfect is pretty much just an SGML DTD, it works very well with SGML. Creating DTDs, compiling DTDs, and data-layouts. Very simple tools for it are included, and the GUI is top-notch (of course, I haven't seen many SGML GUIs to compare it to). Haven't played much with SGML, though. However, no matter how much I may like WordPerfect, it it not the perfect tool for everyone. :( Cheers, Freddie fcash@bigfoot.com > On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Freddie Cash wrote: > > > On 13 Apr 2001, at 16:59, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > > > > Or many of us are at work in a Windows only shop as the > > > > > desktops, > > > > > and our webservers are nix. [Flame War --- As M$ office is > > > > > just about the best office product out there ]. > > > > > > [What's this white spirits sitting by my desk? /me throws it > > > > away] Agree. There is no other office suite worth the same. > > > > > To all ye office users: > > > I have some questions about MS Word. I never use it myself, but I > > > know people who do, and it seems to me that they have a hard time > > > doing some very basic things which TeX/LaTeX have done since the > > > 1980s. Or maybe Word does do all this but users don't know it? > > [snip] > > WordPerfect 7+ does this. Just finished a couple of papers for > > school that used all but the label feature. The nice thing is that > > even when it does something automatically, you can go into Reveal > > Codes to see what it did, and customise it to the way you work. > > > > > > > These are the things I'm doubtful about. There are plenty of > > things > > > I'm not doubtful about: Word doesn't do them, at least not in any > > > word document I've seen. (1) Math: Word's support for equations is > > > rudimentary at best. > > Word *really* lacks in this area. WordPerfect is great for this. > > Did all my Stats notes in WP8, and have nice equations, while the > > guy next to me tried using Word 97, and gave up after the first > > month. > > > > > (3) Paragraph-level formatting: TeX formats text a paragraph at a > > > time, to avoid ugly effects like "ladders" that could happen > > > when you do things a line at a time. Adobe introduced that in > > > some of their DTP software much later. Word doesn't do it. > > You *can* do this in word, but there's no indication of where the > > formatting starts and stops. WordPerfect does this beautifully, > > though. And you can copy word/line/paragraph/page/document level > > formatting between areas. > > > > > (4) Spacing after full stops: in English language text, > > > traditionally > > > one leaves a bit of extra space after a full stop. TeX does > > > this, using some simple rules to recognise a full stop. On > > > the rare occasions it gets this wrong, you can overrule it. > > Word can be set up to do this via auto-correct. However, it is > > *very* hard to change a document from 1-space to 2-spaces after a > > full-stop without reading through the document correcting things > > like "Dr. So-and-so". > > > > > End result: TeX/LaTeX documents are consistently beautiful to look > > > at: you have to try rather hard to screw them up. MS Word > > > documents are almost always hideous. You can argue that Word is > > > not meant to be publication-quality stuff, but unfortunately > > > that's what many people > > Word isn't meant for anything more difficult than writing the > > occasional letter. Unless you want to spend gregarious amounts of > > money on courses to learn all the intricacies of how to make Word > > annoy you less. :) > > > > > do use it for. Besides, I prefer even an ordinary letter to be > > > nicely typeset, and LaTeX lets me do that without compromising on > > > ease of use. (For those who must have their point&click, there's > > > LyX.) > > > > Cheers, > > Freddie > > fcash@bigfoot.com > > > > > > Reject complexity, embrace simplicity, and leave your > > ego at the door. > > - Colonel Kernel @ http://dualboot.net > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message > Reject complexity, embrace simplicity, and leave your ego at the door. - Colonel Kernel @ http://dualboot.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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