🚀 go-pugleaf

Zdenek Wagner writes:
 > If you need a pretty printout but don't like TeX, then forget about WP and
 > use PageMaker, Ventura, MS-WORD or a similar powerfull tool. But it will
 > cost you money...

Such a statement, I believe, is rooted in a basic misunderstanding of what
WordPerfect is, and what it is good for.

WordPerfect is not a writer's tool, such as Microsoft Word. It's a
secretary's tool, and a typesetter's tool.

Consider the following:

I was given a 128-page book, translated from English into Norwegian (about
the typology of Carl Gustav Jung). It was organized in the following way:

	8 chapters
	Translator's comments as footnotes
	References and digressions at endnotes
	Endnotes grouped at the end of the chapter to which they belong.

This, I had to put into Pagemaker. Now, the renumbering of the endnotes
restarted at 1 at each chapter, and the footnotes were numbered from 1 to
number of footnotes>.

PageMaker is for short, design-intense publications, or for books of prose
(viz. novels and the like). Using PageMaker, which understands neiter
notes nor variables, for long, structured documents is completely
ludicrous. But PageMaker is all I had.

In WordPerfect, now, I could write a macro that

	For each endnote, replaced it's mark with the same _number_,
	raised, and stored the text in a separate document.

	Afterwards, it did the same for footnotes.

IMHO, Now, the translater choose wisely when he chose WP. Because, his
knowing little of layout and design, could use WP's superb indexing,
cross-referencing, and note-making tools to his heart's full desire, and I
could thereafter provide PageMaker with the text, and fake foot- and
endnotes.

WP is good for it's purpose. But WP is not an author's tool. If you want
first-class documents, write them in Word, Nisus, (or Ami?) if they're
highly structured (or structurable), WriteNow or whatever if they're not.
Nut if you're a secretary, typing other's work, use WordPerfect.

Thereafter, import the text into PageMaker, XPress, etc.

Of course, if you can't afford this, you're stuck with the best --- TeX.

       Rolf Lindgren           |       "The opinions expressed above are
       616 Bjerke Studentheim  |        not necessarily those of anyone"
       N-0589 OSLO 5           |           rolfl.lindgren@usit.uio.no