* Fwd: MacOSX-TeX Digest #923 - 02/08/04
@ 2004-02-09 14:28 Adam Lindsay
2004-02-09 15:04 ` Hans Hagen
0 siblings, 1 reply; 2+ messages in thread
From: Adam Lindsay @ 2004-02-09 14:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
Hi folks.
The below email showed up recently on the MacOSX/TeX list, and I thought
it might be worthy of some ConTeXt-centric discussion.
---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
Subject: MacOSX-TeX Digest #923 - 02/08/04
Date Sent: Sunday, 8 February 2004 20:00
From: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <MacOSX-TeX@email.esm.psu.edu>
To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <MacOSX-TeX@email.esm.psu.edu>
Subject: Can Tex do That?
From: "Roland Schoettle" <rolands@otii.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 15:41:51 -0800
Greetings,
I hope someone on this list can help me. In particular I have been told
I should ask William Adams for assistance. In the event he is not
active on this list, I would be grateful if this message were relayed
to him.
I am a disappointed FrameMaker user. Initially we used Frame on PCs
with good result. Our business is now moving away from the Windows
platform. Before committing to our last Frame upgrade, Adobe assured us
Frame would be available for OSX. (At one point they went so far as to
promise Linux support and even released a Linux beta). It is now
apparent Adobe will not support OS X (or Linux) and has in fact
recommended "upgrading" to InDesign. We have looked at InDesign and
believe it to be significantly inferior for our requirements. However
good, InDesign cannot do many FrameMaker functions such as footnotes,
autoflow of text and paragraphs, math symbols, cross-referencing, etc.
Further, Adobe is blatantly unsympathetic.
I have used Tex in the very distant past and recall it had tremendous
capability but never tried using it for the many complex graphics
applications which now are prerequisites for business. I would like to
try Tex again, but thought it best to ask if Tex can now be used to
create reasonably complicated color product brochures. The goal would
be to produce brochures, newsletters, business proposals, and also
"publish" data from databases that look as if from a high-end layout
package such as Quark Express or something similar.
Can Tex be easily used for these type of functions?
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
Roland Schoettle
----------------- End Forwarded Message -----------------
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Adam T. Lindsay atl@comp.lancs.ac.uk
Computing Dept, Lancaster University +44(0)1524/594.537
Lancaster, LA1 4YR, UK Fax:+44(0)1524/593.608
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 2+ messages in thread
* Re: Fwd: MacOSX-TeX Digest #923 - 02/08/04
2004-02-09 14:28 Fwd: MacOSX-TeX Digest #923 - 02/08/04 Adam Lindsay
@ 2004-02-09 15:04 ` Hans Hagen
0 siblings, 0 replies; 2+ messages in thread
From: Hans Hagen @ 2004-02-09 15:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
At 15:28 09/02/2004, Adam Lindsay wrote:
>Hi folks.
>
>The below email showed up recently on the MacOSX/TeX list, and I thought
>it might be worthy of some ConTeXt-centric discussion.
>I have used Tex in the very distant past and recall it had tremendous
>capability but never tried using it for the many complex graphics
>applications which now are prerequisites for business. I would like to
>try Tex again, but thought it best to ask if Tex can now be used to
>create reasonably complicated color product brochures. The goal would
>be to produce brochures, newsletters, business proposals, and also
>"publish" data from databases that look as if from a high-end layout
>package such as Quark Express or something similar.
>
>Can Tex be easily used for these type of functions?
>
>Your help would be greatly appreciated.
We sometimes have projects where tex is used as an replacement for desktop
publishing. On the average i think that tex can do most jobs that dtp
programs can do and vice versa. Both have their pro's and con's
- tex solutions demand a different way of thinking, which troubles
communications with designers
- using tex pays off quite well when it us used during the whole process
(author -> book), since it diminishes the errors that may show up dur to
dtp-ing
- if the design is done in a dtp system and needs to be turned into a style
... well, one then often finds out that the design is not that designed and
filling in bits and pieces takes time
- tex systems permit all kind of integrations, (semi)automated sub flows, etc
- tex systems have a high degree of reusage, and becomes more profitable
when many similar jobs need to be done
- while tex (when applied well) can do a pretty good job on typesetting
paragraphs, many of todays designers take their dtp program (quark or
indesign) as the standard way of doing things, i.e. all kind of funny rules
and 'best ways to do' and one can get headaches of trying to match illogic
demands
- some things can be done with tex that cannot be done with dtp systems but
it takes some experience to find the solutions
- the qualification 'highend' is not related to dtp or tex, but to the
quality (consistency) of the design and the freedom you have in finetuning
the style; i've made styles for automated typesetting of layouts of
moderate complexity (adaptive graphics and so) based on designs by
designers, but the result seldom passes my own quality control if it comes
to the typesetting (not a tex problem, more a specification problem)
- there are many documents around that have properly typeset math but for
the rest look *** which makes it hard to sell tex if you don't have counter
examples at hand
- etc, etc
so,
- TeX can be used for these type of functions
- if this is 'easy' depends on your skills
- if this is doable depends on your customers (being open minded and so)
- ons should use the tools that suits the job (can be both dtp or tex or a
mixture)
in any case,
- i still have to find something that cannot be done in tex (apart from
page by page made up documents but that's a different game anyway)
Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE/POD/CTS
Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 2+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2004-02-09 15:04 UTC | newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2004-02-09 14:28 Fwd: MacOSX-TeX Digest #923 - 02/08/04 Adam Lindsay
2004-02-09 15:04 ` Hans Hagen
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).