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Date: Wed, 4 Dec 91 16:11 EDT
From: MEM@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu
Subject: Mac Word Processors for Thesis
Moderator:
Please post this in your reports directory as mac_wp_4_thesis.txt.
Attatched is a summary of responses I received on the topic of which
mac word processors would be suitable for writing a scientific thesis.
It is in straight text format so should be readable by all.
-------------------cut here----------------------------------------------------
Well, I'm sorry it took so long to get this out, but I was momentarily
caught up in that time vortex known as 'graduate research' and then the
Thanksgiving feasts proved to be too much to overcome.
To refresh, I had put out a request for opinions on which Mac word
processing packages would be best for writing a scientific/academic
thesis on. I listed several criteria and let the opinions fly.
I received on the order of 30+ responses, but not all were useful. I.E.
some just said "I like <insert wp program name here>. Is there anything
else?" and nothing more. That is okay. The spread of information is
why we are here. The following are the heavily edited remnants of the
more useful comments I received. I would like to preface this with a
couple of comments.
First off, it is apparent to me that the academic/scientific community
has been sorely ignored by the Mac software industry. As you begin to
peruse the various comments, you get the feeling that NONE of the
candidate programs comes close to completely satisfying the needs of
academic/scientific (A/S) writing on the Macintosh. By this I mean that
while TeX certainly has most of the features necessary to generate A/S
documents, it does so in a decidedly non-mac way. Although many people
who wrote me recommended TeX, and certainly TeX compatibility is
important in A/S writing, I am already familiar with it in the vms/unix
worlds and am specifically seeking a suitable alternative on the Mac.
They mention Mac programs such as OzTeX and TeXtures but these are only
means of previewing in a non-editable way. This is the '90s! Surely we
can do better than reverting to '70s technology such as this for writing
our documents! One of the attractive things about the 'Mac' way of
doing things is that I can generate a graphic in, say, NIH Image or a
graphing program, CUT it, PASTE it into my Mac word processor document
and SEE it right there. With Publish/Subscribe using System 7, I should
even bee able to make changes to the graphic in say, Canvas, and have
the changes show up in my thesis automatically. I know I could get the
automatic updating by doing it all on vms/unix and using batch scripts,
but I simply refuse to move backwards along the technological curve.
The vms/unix systems also have a notorious habit of either being
overburdened with users, which brings them to a crawl much slower than
my Mac IIsi, or just plain being down at horrible times when there is no
system manager around to reboot the system.
Of the other candidates mentioned, FrameMaker sounds the most complete,
but it is way out of my price range even with the Educ. Disc. and has
extremely limited filetype import/export capability. I have played with
it on our SUN IPC and found it OK except it occasionally hangs on that
platform and is pretty slow. This leaves me with the choice of jumping
to Nisus or waiting for Word 5.0 to appear. Nisus seems very attractive
since it has a macro language, multiple undo, layering, multiple file
formats and excellent search/replace functions. Word 5.0 is supposed to
have a great equation editor, but as we all know, is still so much
vaporware. Surprisingly few people mentioned WordPerfect 2.0, so I
still do not know much about that package.
Since I will not start writing intensely for 3 more months, I am going
to wait awhile and see what happens before I commit.
Here are the various messages I received:
========================================================================
From: Anonymous Boy@Reed College
Well, lets see. I've only used Word 4.00...but here goes...
> Speed when handling 100 to 300 page file.
This is a real drag with big Word files, ESPECIALLY if you include
images or fancy embedded equations. That really slows things down. If
you have enough RAM (2MB for sys 6, >4MB for sys 7) then it improves
a little, around 20% maybe. Speed is not great. Things like
spell-checking, hyphenating, any kind of global change is slow.
> Footnotes, appendices,bibliography.
These can be a nightmare. I have worked with many students whose 100+
documents suddenly 'freak out' and spew footnote numbers all over the
place, in wrong order..etc. I have had not problems with smaller
docs, where I find Word's auto method works well. Styles and
footnotes are also kinfa iffy...as are change/find features for
specific formats..this can be quite difficult. Its important to start
right, and not have to reformat a big file halfway through...
> Tables, graphs & other illustrations.
Works fine. Tables are especially easy to use, even in comjunction
with multiple colums. garphics can be adjusted etc. print fine. It
slows things down...
> Equations! Equations! Equations!
Don't have much experiece there, but our math department makes all
math seniors use TeX. Perhaps Framemaker could help you out there.
> File Import/Export
Not that great. RTF. MS-DOS. COnversion to UNIX works via RTF (to a
point....)
> Price
If you're an educational buyer, very reasonable. $120?
> Which wp's handle kerning of text? How easily?
Can't do it, as far as I know.
Summary:
Word is great for 100 pages and less, but is not that great for
science writers, or people with special needs (eg. adding those
diacritics you really need...). Call MS and ask about Word 5.0 - make
sure you have the hardware muscle to support it. Check out Nisus,
they have a demo at mac.archive.umich.edu of their latest version,
3.0.6 and are working on a system 7 version. Also take a look at
FrameMaker, which is really geared towards BIG and comlicated
documents such as the one you're contemplating. Framemaker also runs
on the NeXT, a machine you might consider if you're working alot in
science...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: ELOISE@maine.maine.edu
The best package (for mucho $$) is FrameMaker. This is a wordprocessor/
page layout system that has fine support for large, academic documents
with tables, figures, graphs, etc. It has *excellent* support for
WYSIWYG equation typesetting. We have had one student do his thesis on
FrameMaker on our NeXT in order to show off the NeXT. Now we're afraid
we've spoiled the graduate school and they will demand that quality
from all the students! FrameMaker is avail. on a variety of platforms,
including the Mac.
Eloise Kleban
University of Maine System
eloise@maine.maine.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: palmer@cco.caltech.edu
Word v. 5.0 is coming out RSN, so you may want to not buy a Word
processor
until then. It will have a new equation thingy which should be easy
to use (the old one creates UGLY output, and is buggy as well.)
--
David Palmer
palmer@caltech.edu
"Operator, get me the number for 911" --Homer Simpson
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: Les Niles <niles@parc.xerox.com>
>what would be the best word processor on the Mac to use for
>writing a scientific thesis.
TeX, no question about it. It handles large files, and it's easy
to break up into small chunks and then combine into one document.
Tables can be formatted, and graphs/illustrations imported.
Equations come out great, no screwing around getting things right.
Etc., etc.
Next question: Which version? I love TeXtures from Blue Sky
Research in Portland, Oregon. (They're a great company, too) It's
well-integrated into the Mac. Pictures can be pasted in from the
clipboard. Commercially it's a little pricey, but they have (or at
least had) a student discount or deal through campus computer
stores for about $90. Best piece of s/w for that price I've seen.
There's also OzTeX, which is free. Not as well-integrated, and I
think pasting from the clipboard isn't possible, but pictures can
be imported as postscript.
I did one 4 page conference paper with MS Word. Then got Textures,
and have done several papers and my thesis (~100 pages) with it.
Word is good for writing letters, Textures is for anything with
more than 2 equations in it.
-les niles@parc.xerox.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: Graeme Forbes <PL0BALF@VM.TCS.Tulane.EDU>
My own view, having used WriteNow, Word, FullWrite, MacWrite II and
Nisus,
is that Nisus is the best for substantial documents. But no kerning or
equation editor, I'm afraid - you have to import from a DA. Tables are
also created a bit kldugily - you enter the test tab-formatted, then
switch to graphics and use the copy graphic feature to get the lines
where you
want them.
My largest Nisus file is 1.2 meg (450 pages). It takes about 2 minutes
to
open, 40 seconds to save. Nisus keeps the whole document in memory so
you
need to have enough RAM. But as a result, text manipulation is very
fast,
except that it seems to slow down with heavily formatted text.
You can get it for $100 at academic discount from Paragon. It's S7
compat
and there's a special module you can add to take advantage of specific
S7 features.
If you think you may need to do complex search and replaces there's no
other wp to get. Unlimited undos. Very nice text/graphics
interconnections.
What else can I tell you?
Best,
Graeme Forbes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: i6bk@psuorpn.cc.pdx.edu
Writing Thesis
Have you looked into FrameMaker? It is _very_ powerful when it comes to
organizing and equations, etc. And the editor is actually quite fast.
In fact, I
think it is faster than Word (which isn't saying that much). Besides,
if
you do it in FrameMaker, you won't loose anything getting good quality
(i.e. you won't have to put it into Quark or PageMaker, loosing a lot
[like equations] in the process).
Brian Korver
i6bk@psuorpn.cc.pdx.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: gt0312d@prism.gatech.edu
You might want to look at FrameMaker by Frame Corp. It is the most
powerful
package I have ever seen for scientific writting, but it is expensive.
It retails for $699, but as a student, you can get it for $299. It is
like combination of Word, Mathmatica, Excel, and PageMaker all in one
package.
Also, it is the only Package that will import all graphic formats! You
can
get a demo by calling 1-800-U4Frame ext 890
I am just a happy user! We also have Frame for Free on our Suns at
work!
Take it easy,
Rob
Rob Erik Schoenborn <Red Dwarf>, 37636 GA Tech Station
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!gt0312d
Internet: gt0312d@prism.gatech.edu America Online: RobErik
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: walkerj@milo.math.scarolina.edu
Many scientists write their papers in TeX, which has a free Macintosh
implementation called OzTeX. In my department, most of the grad
students
write their theses in TeX.
Cons:
* It's not WYSIWYG, and is difficult to learn. For instance, an
integral
might look something like $$\int_3^\infty xe^{-x}\,dx$$.
* Constructing tables, and including pictures, are not trivial.
* It takes up a lot of space on your hard disk. (I hope you own your
own
Mac, rather than depending on a public Mac lab.)
* The current version of OzTeX can only print on PostScript printers,
but
there is a second program that allows OzTeX output to be printed on
other
printers. (Rumor has it that in a couple of months we might see another
version of OzTeX that can print on other printers directly.)
Pros:
* TeX was written by a mathematician/computer scientist, and has a lot
of
built-in knowledge of how to typeset mathematical formulas.
* TeX has an extremely powerful macro language. (Someone recently wrote
a
BASIC interpreter in TeX, just for funsies.) A number of large macro
packages are available, such as LaTeX (a number of thesis style files
are
available for LaTeX) and AMS-TeX (sponsored by the American Mathematical
Society.)
* Even after your thesis is done, knowing TeX will probably be useful to
you. Some scientific journals accept article submissions in TeX. TeX
is
convenient for long-distance collaborations, because it is ubiquitous
(i.e., implemented on just about every computer known to man) and
because
TeX source files, being plain ASCII, can easily be e-mailed.
* TeX uses its own family of fonts, which have a lot of kerning
information
built in. But if you want to adjust kerning by hand, you can.
* OzTeX works fine under System 7.0.1.
--
-- Jim Walker
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: Matt Mason <mason@CS.CMU.EDU>
I am writing a book with lots of equations, and some technical drawings.
I'm using
LaTeX, specifically TeXtures from Blue Sky Research.
Illustrator, for drawings.
Micro-Emacs, (I think), shareware.
I haven't looked at OzTeX, which I think is free, but I can vouch for
TeXtures. If your figures are just box-and-pointer type things, you
probably don't want Illustrator. But you mentioned the Physics
Department, so maybe you do want Illustrator. Illustrator and
Textures are both pricy. Carnegie Mellon has a site license for
Textures; maybe Johns Hopkins can spring a few bucks. I have looked
at Framemaker, and the math typesetting is inferior. Note that
Mathematica Magazine also uses TeXtures and Illustrator, as well as
Mathematica (big surprise here), and, as I recall Quark XPress. (I
wonder how TeXtures talks to Quark XPress.)
I just had a student finish a thesis using the same software. 350
pages, and 180 drawings! (He is even more intense than the average
grad student.) His thesis is beautiful, and he is a big fan of the
systems.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: jbthoo@ucdavis.edu
You posted on a recent info-mac digest:
>Previously, I had requested opinions on what would be the best word
processor
>on the Mac to use for writing a scientific thesis. I have recieved
about 9
>replies so far.
I am a mathematics student who uses FullWrite Professional 1.6 together
with
Expressionist 2.07p, and am *extremely happy* with the combination. FWP
1.5s
is available from my campus bookshop for ~$65; Expressionist runs ~$50.
There
is an FWP1.5-->S7 updater located at sumex-aim. FWP 1.6 runs fine under
S7,
even with 32-bit addressing on. Of course, since Borland has devoured
AT, you
might even be able to pick up FWP for a song at a fire sale. :)
And, if you're interested in learning to write in (La)TeX, then
I think that Andrew Treverrow's OzTeX (available via anonymous ftp from
midway.uchicago.edu) is a pretty good (free!) public domain TeX program.
Just my opinions. I hope they help.
--John.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: payne@itd.nrl.navy.mil
> Previously, I had requested opinions on what would be the best word
processor
> on the Mac to use for writing a scientific thesis. ... I would like to
hear
> also from people who have used Nisus, MacWrite, WordPerfect etc.
You list some popular WYSIWYG packages, but have you considered a
package
that produces, I believe, a classier result than any of them? I am
speaking
of LaTeX. The version of this that runs on the Mac is OzTeX. OzTeX is
not a WYSIWYG package, but it is usually the package of choice for
anyone
doing the kind of work you are contemplating. In particular, it offers:
automatic bibliography, cross-referencing, and footnote control
automatic numbering (chapters, sections, paragraphs,...even
equations)
tabular and figure environments
Superior math typesetting to *every* WYSIWYG package I've seen
Automatic kerning and all that other nice stuff
System 7 compatible (I have it running on an SE at home)
There is a small learning curve, but you can get the LaTeX manual by
Leslie Lamport at most scientific bookstores. The language is based on
Donald Knuth's TeX typesetting language (actually LaTeX is a macro
language for TeX), so if you choose to learn TeX directly, you get even
more control over your output.
The source file format is ASCII with the LaTeX commands embedded in your
text. I use it for everything now, even personal letters. There are
numerous templates and macros available to create almost any kind of
document. You can even pick up macro files for creating a bibliography
in one of several preferred formats (e.g., IEEE).
OzTeX comes with its own fonts, but you can also use fonts already
resident in your system. It produces PostScript output from your source
file.
Some people shy away from typesetting languages (troff is another
example),
but I have found that LaTeX is straightforward, has a consistent syntax,
and allows me to produce better looking documents much faster than I
could
at the Mac because much of the formatting information is built-in to
the macros. OzTeX also includes a previewer so you can view your output
before printing.
I've saved the best for last. The price is $0. You can ftp it from
numerous sites (midway.chicago.edu comes to mind) as a complete package.
It takes up a couple of meg on your hard disk (thanks to the font
files),
but if you're interested, I can suggest ways to reduce this usage.
Before you invest a couple of hundred in one of the packages you
mentioned,
I recommend looking over LaTeX. It has features, such as automatic
bibliography generation, that most WYSIWYG packages just can't match.
Hope this helps!
--Charlie Payne
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: sebstein@pearl.tufts.edu
In 86-87 I Tex'ed my thesis. Figures were (paper) cut and paste. Did a
nice
job on equations and numbering them, though I have since become
disenchanted with the computer modern fonts. I was subsequently
converted
to a Macophile. I use Word to write. Word's equation processing is
cumbersome, takes lots of fiddling to look OK, so now I use
Expressionist
which is easy and looks pretty good. Graphs and figures are done
elsewhere
(Cricket, NIH Image) and pasted in. You can use Sections and use header
styles to keep a large document organized - my preference is to make
sections separate documents when large figures make documents greater
than
a few hundred K in size. I currently number equations by hand - I don't
know if anything automatic is possible - but with lots of sectioning,
that
is tolerable. References are also done by hand though Word does
footnotes
and that could probably be used. Reference styles can easily be
patterned
with glossary entries (as can other repetitive forms). Not a perfect
solution but the WYSIWYG makes it acceptable in speed and quality.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: aritoxm@cc.ruu.nl
I quit using MacWrite a long time ago (by version 4 of the 'original';
before
5, II and pro), and have very strong feelings about WordPerfect
(although I DO
have a copy of WP 2.0, due to our CW Licensing Agreement); I am familiar
with
Word though, and use Nisus for practically everything. Comparisons will
between those two.
Lets start by answering some of your points of interest
Points of interest are: Speed when handling 100 to 300 page file.
Speed, what speed? Both Word and Nisus grind to a crawl when used on
files of
this size. Be aware that due to Nisus doing everything in memory, it CAN
be
faster on large docs than Word (especially on fast boxes); you could,
however
instruct Word to do all of its musings in memory. Word's Virtual Mem
scheme
however lets you potentially edit larger files than Nisus, which is
limited,
within certain margins (it starts by swapping as much of itslfl out as
possible; I once edited a 300K file on a 1Meg machine, with about 400K
for the
System; this is NOT good for your heart, though) by available RAM. DO
divide
your work in smaller pieces (like, e.g., chapters would be a good
starting
point).
Footnotes, appendices,bibliography.
Footnotes: Nisus much better than Word 4; you'll have to choose between
foot-
and endnotes, though; what exactly do you mean by appendices. (Normally,
i'd
think an appendix should be no different from a normal chapter,
wordprocessing-wise spoken). My bibliographies are handled by EndNote.
This is
a bit of a pain as EndNote still does not support Nisus. A number of
workarounds exists. Normally people export their paper to Word format,
process
it with EndNote and reread it into Nisus. As this causes to much trouble
for
me (reformatting small double conversion incompatibilities) I do it in
another
way; I have two EndNote styles specifically for putting the intext
citation in
the text when I put in the citation tag also (the tag EndNote uses when
processing the file), after processing, I manually cut and paste the
complete
bibliography from the formatted file to the original Nisus file and
delete the
tags. Voila.
Tables, graphs & other illustrations.
Tables: Nisus does lack the spreedsheet like table function of Word; on
te
other hand, it has noncontiguous text selection and vertical
(rectangular) selection
so this tends to make up for this. It has a built it drawing function
(not
even that basic) and can handle (even edit) pasted in graphics. They
HAVE to
be pasted in, no fancy importing!
File Import/Export
Reads Word (3 and 4, but NO fast save) and MacWrite formats. Noone reads
Nisus
native filetype, but since Nisus native filetype consists of plain ASCII
in
the datafork and formating in the resource fork, everyone reads the TEXT
part
of Nisus files :). Nisus native filetype even is: TEXT NISI.
Price (I am just a poor grad student, after
all.).
Woops. Nisus and Word cost about the same. There seems to be an academic
discount as far as I know. They don't have these things over here in
Holland.
though. You'll definitely want a word processor with the capabilities of
Word,
WordPerfect or Nisus (or FullWrite) for doing a thesis, though; unless
you
want to fling yourself at FrameMaker :) (Now I know people who seriously
consider this, or a TEX flavour, the only option!).
Which wp's handle kerning of text? How easily?
Real kerning? None. the best wp's can do is 'fractional widths' spacing,
and
possibly using a font's built in kerning pairs. But real kerning, no
way.
Sys 7.0.1 compatibility
Excellent, Nisus 3.06 is the thing. Nisus XS module is very much Sys 7
savvy,
but it is a separate buy, at least for installed users. Paragons user
support
is excellent, though. I've been with them since Nisus 1.0x and received
a
number of upgrades free, some even without asking. (1.x to 2.0 was free.
2 to
2.x (which WAS a major upgrade) was nominal. 2.x to 3.01 was slightly
more
than nominal, but included a whole new manual and was definitely a major
major
upgrade. 3.01 to 3.05 arrived free in the mail one day without even
asking for
it and the updater to 3.06 (system 7 aware, though, 3.05 was as
compatible as
I have seen them) was free for the downloading. They have a user support
FTP
site! much like apple has).
I have access to MacUser/World so pointing me towards any relevant
reviews
is good.
As far as Nisus is concerned there are no relevant reviews in MacWorld.
Their
reviewers must hold stock with Microshorts, as they consistently rate
Word
higher than Nisus (or any other wp for that matter), even on points
where even
the hardiest Word jock would (have to) admit that Nisus is the clear
winner
(full regular expression find and replace, or macros, e.g.).
Well I hope this helps a little. If you have specific questions, please
ask!
(this was written on a CP/M-WordStar-like text editor on a mainframe
unix box
:))
Greetings, Henk
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: tar@ISI.EDU
Well, I think that the best document processor for writing a technical
thesis is LaTeX. This is not a WYSIWYG editor, and it requires a bit
of effort to learn. The benefits are worth it though. It can
automatically handle bibliographic citations, chapter numbers,
equation numbers, references to figures and equations. (You get to
define symbolic labels, which are translated into numbers). It is
based on TeX, which is the standard for computer-based typesetting of
mathematical equations. Kerning is handled automatically, etc. It is
possible to include postscript figures in the document, although it
may not be as easy as cutting and pasting.
There are two choices that I am aware of:
TeXtures, a commercial product of Blue Sky Research(?), which
has a very nice interface, but is somewhat expensive.
OzTeX, which is public domain (i.e., free, not even shareware)
but which does not have as nice an interface. It is, however,
slightly more compatible with other platform LaTeX
implementations.
In either case, you will basically need to purchase, beg or borrow a
copy of Leslie Lamport's LaTeX manual. I wouldn't be surprised,
though, if you could find a thesis style setup for LaTeX at John's
Hopkins.
The files used to produce LaTeX output are straight ASCII files, with
embedded commands to produce various logical parts of the document. A
short example follows:
\chapter{Introduction}
This is the first paragraph of my thesis, solving the unified
field problem. This was an area of research that interested
phycisists for many decades \cite{Einstein49,Hawking88}.
\section{Early Theories}
Early unified theories date to antiquity\footnote{Artistotle
and Archimedes espoused complete theories of the universe}.
More recently, these so-called {\it naive} theories have been
rejected.
...and so on.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
From: jones%estsc1.dnet@solar.Stanford.EDU
Hi Mel,
I just read your question in info-mac requesting info on word
processors for your thesis. Against the current run of things
for nicely formatted stuff i tend to use TeX or LaTex. This is
not as easy as a WYSIWYG wordprocessor like Word etc. and there
is a definite learning curve, but the output can be vey nice.
Also it can all be got shareware! I use Alpha4 as a text editor
and OzTeX as the TeX processor. Once you get profficient it is
not difficult to read the TeX and see how it will look in your
mind, though there are always a few funnies. You can also use
somthing like Expressionist to write the equations in a graphic
way, and then get it to generate the TeX equivalent.
I hope this helps, and if you should decide to go this route
drop me a line, and i can let you know about things like FTP
sites etc for TeX / LaTeX
all the best
andrew
AJONES@solar.stanford.edu