🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <SPQR.90Jan10090727@hilliard.ecs.soton.ac.uk>, spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) writes:
>>>>>> On 6 Jan 90 02:56:48 GMT, ARRITT@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (What a waste it is to lose one's mind.) said:
> 
>  > Is there a public-domain package for translating from LaTeX to Tex?
> well i have seen from odd requests, but this one.... 

If you think the request is odd, then you've obviously never had to deal
with my problem in my specific circumstances.   
 
> LaTeX is written in TeX, so translating from one to the other seems a
> slightly odd thing to do. What is `TeX'? there are no standards for
> what macros look like that do, say, table of contents (tho thats a
> trivial example), so what sort of TeX would this translator produce?

If LaTeX is written in TeX, then why couldn't such a translator exist?
I don't know all the nuts and bolts, but my understanding is that LaTeX is
essentially a package of TeX macros.  If so, then why couldn't a translator
just substitute the macros with their corresponding TeX commands and write 
those to a file?   
 
>  > hired a new person who comes from a department where the secretaries don't
>  > know TeX, and naturally our secretaries don't know LaTeX.  He'd
>                  ^^^^^^^^^
> i take it this is meant to be ironic?

Yes.  It seems that if there are two different ways of doing something, then
the person I'm collaborating with is bound to use the other method...

..........................................................................

I've received several replies to my original posting.  I appreciate
your responses, but "your secretaries should learn LaTeX" (which is the
gist of every one of the responses) isn't the solution.  For my purposes, 
it would be a lot faster if they just retyped the papers by hand, instead 
of learning LaTeX for a half dozen or so manuscripts.  

Yes, I know LaTeX, but I do not like using it, or the way it makes my 
manuscripts appear.  PLEASE, before you get out your flamethrower, note 
that I said "I do not like" LaTeX -- not "LaTeX is no good" or "no one 
should use LaTeX" or anything like that.  If you like LaTeX yourself, 
that's fine.  One thing I've learned is that LaTeX aficianados seem 
to be a _very_ devoted bunch ...

________________________________________________________________________
Ray Arritt                        | 
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy    |
Univ. of Kansas                   |
Lawrence, KS  66045               |
arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu         |
arritt@ukanvax.bitnet             |