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Article #189809

Re: LateXinfo?

#189809
From: Daniel Mark Gessel
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 1990 14:41
33 lines
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In <9011091004.AA15290@wubios.wustl.edu> david@WUBIOS.WUSTL.EDU (David J. Camp) writes:

>I know next-to-nothing about TeX, LaTeX, etc.  I heard a message
>suggesting that LaTeX was better than TeX, so why don't we use 
>that?  The answer was that texinfo was used to generate online
>documentation as well as printed media, and LaTeX could not do
>that.  Someone said something about latexinfo being a solution.

>If there is such a thing (latexinfo), then it seems reasonable
>for the emacs help facility to support it.
>Is anyone working on this?  -David-

I've looked at texinfo, and use TeX (although not (yet) LaTeX). LaTeX is a
macro package that goes on to of plain TeX. texinfo files, when run through
TeX, include their own macros. Texinfo files don't look like normal TeX files.
The macros inlcuded alter the way TeX reads things so that TeX does the right
stuff with texinfo files.

Texinfo files are limited in what is allowed to go into them so they can be
turned both into reasonable printed documentation and resonable hypertext
on-line documentation. Because of this limitation, you cannot use TeX macros
directly, only through texinfo commands. Anything useful LaTeX could add could
be written into the macros included into TeX when texinfo files are being
processed by TeX.

That is, anything LaTeX could add could be emulated in the standard texinfo
macros, if need be. Most of LaTeX would certainly be unnecessary, so why
burden TeX's processing with extra macros.

Dan
-- 
Internet: gessel@cs.swarthmore.edu         
UUCP: {bpa,cbmvax}!swatsun!gessel
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From: gessel@cs.swarthmore.edu (Daniel Mark Gessel)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
Subject: Re: LateXinfo?
Message-ID: <YJTS5X6@cs.swarthmore.edu>
Date: 9 Nov 90 14:41:14 GMT
References: <9011091004.AA15290@wubios.wustl.edu>
Organization: Swarthmore College, PA, USA
Lines: 33
Posted: Fri Nov  9 15:41:14 1990