🚀 go-pugleaf

morgan@ooc.uva.nl (Chris Morgan/RIKS) writes:

>What is the general concensus about the pros and cons of DTP using UNIX
>with NROFF/TROFF and Macs with PageMaker etc.

>The UNIX user I was talking about in my previous posting is utterly
>convinced that he can produce FAR FAR SUPPERIOR output with his trusted
>text formatted processing than with my Macs text WYSIWYG processing.
>I don't personnally agree with him but i'd be interested to learn what
>the general impressions from the net are.

   For those times that you need to do some technical mathematical formulas 
you might like to try MathType.  This is a WYSIWYG formula editor.  Even if 
you are forced to use TeX, MathType will *also* save that formula in TeX 
format.  When those who say that TeX or troff is better, they are generally 
referring to the way that these formula are produced.  They figure that if 
it is that hard to do, then it must be better that anything that is easy to 
use. 

   Another trick that you can do in Word or PageMaker that troff would have 
a terrible time producing is some of the PostScript stuff.  I helped create 
a simple piece of PostScript code that would print in grey letters under the 
text from corner to corner.  The words Confidential or Top Secret or Draft 
are always nice.  This is a couple of lines that are dropped into the header 
or footer of your Word document. 

   Another page layout application that has the ability to place text to the 
nearest 10,000th of an em (or is it 1,000th ?) is Quark Xpress.  If you want 
to go head to head with TeX or troff, this might be a better package.  Then 
again there is FrameMaker which is on the Mac and is the biggest page layout 
product on those unix boxes.  

   And by the way, Textures from Blue Sky Research also is selling the TeX 
Metafonts in PostScript Type 1 format.  This means that with Adobe Type 
Manager you can see these fonts better on screen and you can print them is 
sizes that the unix machines can't! 

--Patrick Hoepfner                          hoepfner@heasfs.gsfc.nasa.gov--