NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/sys/amiga/applications/2545

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-05 | 3.4 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Mathias Sagartz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: keep that crap away from my Amiga
Date: 27 Feb 1996 12:34:47 -0700
Organization: Sandia National Laboratories
Message-ID: <4gvmcn$[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]> <4gk9pr$[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <4gsr6s$[e-mail]>
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>hankduckman ([e-mail]) wrote:
>
>: If I may show my ignorance by asking a question, what is Tex? Can you give
>: me a brief rundown on what it is, what it does, and what its advantages are?
>: I've heard it spoken of but haven't the slightest inkling of what it's about.
>
From the Users manual for AmigaTeX (Tom Rokicki/Radical Eye Software:

"TeX is a typesetting language and system developed by Professor Donald
Knuth of Stanford University over the period 1977 to 1986.  It was
designed to be used in typesetting books and manuscripts, especially those
containing much mathematics.  The current version [ October 1991 ] of
the language has been stable since 1982, and is currently in use at
thousands of computer installations all over the world.

The input to TeX is somewhat free format; it is emphatically not a
WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get, often rephrased as what you see
is all you get) system.  The source can be created with any typical text
editor, and for the most part spacing and line breaks in the input are
ignored.  Interspersed with the text are various typesetting commands
that might, for instance, change fonts or skip to the next page.  TeX
is programmable with parameterized macros and user variables of a number
of types, allowing the creation of macro packages that extend the power of
TeX or make it more accessible.

TeX is not the solution to all the world's ills.  As a document
preparation system, it has three major deficiencies.  First, it does not
directly support graphics.  You can use harizontal and vertical rules, and
do some limited graphics using a variety of methods:  LaTeX supports some
graphics operations, and some implementations of TeX (such as AmigaTeX)
allow inclusion of PostScript graphics.  Secondly, TeX does not easily do
compolicated page layout, as might be required for newspapers, for
instance.  And finally, TeX does not allow interactive editing and viewing
of the document as it is being developed.

All of these are design decisions; TeX was never intended to address any
of these concerns.  What TeX does, however, TeX does well.  It supports a
huge library of fonts, and additional fonts can be purchased from a number
of companies.  It supports full kerning and ligatures in its fonts.  It
has no equal when typesetting complicated mathematical formulas and
displays.  Its hyphenation algorithm is among the best in typesetting
systems, and its line- and pate-breaking algorithms are nothing short of
incredible.

TeX is a complicated system, because typesetting is not a simple task.  It
is easy to gnerate quality documents without knowing much about TeX, but
as your experience and requirements grow, you will find that TeX has the
power, programmability and expandability to handle your most demanding needs."

For an example of TeX output take a look at Bill Hawes' original
Arexx User's Reference Manual if you can find one.

mat  [e-mail]
P.S. sorry for any typos.  I was in a hurry.