🚀 go-pugleaf

wright@mail.utexas.edu (Cameron H. G. Wright) writes:

>In article <Cy4rzF.1GD@dutiws.twi.tudelft.nl>, rowdyb@dutiws.twi.tudelft.nl (Rowdy Blokland) says:
>>
>>
>>  For my final paper I have been adviced to use TeX/LaTeX instead of WP.
>>  Since I already know WP, this sounds like an impractical move for me.
>>  Nevertheless, I've been told: 
>>
>>  " WP simply can't do everything that (La-)TeX can ".  
>>
>>  QUESTIONS: * Is this true?
>>             * If so, where does WP fail to keep up with TeX/LaTeX?
>>
>I used WP for over eight years, and was considered the local WP guru
>in my previous job. Recently, I've been doing more academic work, where
>instead of letters and memos I now write journal papers and such. It
>took me about four months of agony with WP 5.1, 6.0a (DOS) and 6.0a 
>(Windows) to conclude that for decent handling of equations, references,
>multiple formats, etc., WP just wasn't up to the job. I switched to LaTeX
>and have never been happier. My writing efficiency must have at least
>tripled, I never "lose" a document or an equation (like WP tends to do),
>and the typeset output of LaTeX is the best there is. I can't imagine 
>writing any academic document with more than a few equations or 
>references in anything but LaTeX. I would have been skeptical of that
>statement two years ago, but I never had really tried to push WP past what
>it was intended for: business documents. WPCorp will not even bother to
>address the needs of the technical or academic community any more; not
>enough profit in it. I can't say what will be right for you, but I wasted
>an awful lot of time before I switched...

I, too, used to be a "guru" in WP until I changed jobs and required a
"platform-independent" typesetting program.  I can use TeX/LaTeX on DOS at
home, under UNIX at work and get the "same" results.

The "source" for a TeX/LaTeX document is readable by the average human.
Unless you were the author, you won't be able to browse a WP document
(unless you have WP at hand or a special viewer) and easily find out what
the document is about.

Macros are a part of the typesetting language---you can stick commonly used
verbiage in macros or create your own package to (re-)use in TeX/LaTeX.
There is no easy equivalent in WP.  Their "macro" language is quite separate
from the document and can't easily be used to generate text or formatting
controls at the time of printing.

I don't want to be totally negative about WordPerfect.  WP is self-contained
and, for my kids, this is good.  Editing, viewing and printing their short
"one-of" essays may be achieved in the same environment.  WP includes an
integrated help facility in case you forget a formatting command.
Therefore, I believe WP is worth the disk space on my DOS machine at home.

My 2 <smallest unit of local currency> worth :-)

--
James (Jim) R.R. Service                           jservice@vis.toronto.edu