On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 1:16 PM, Marcos Favero Florence de Barros <fav...@mpcnet.com.br> wrote: > > On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 9:06 PM, Dale E Sterner <sunbeam...@juno.com> wrote: >> Just heard about LaTeX here and being curious, just want to understand - >> learn more about it. I use DOS Wordperfect 6.2 for most everything, just >> wonder >> if LaTeX can do more. Looks like its a script language like HTML that has >> to be compiled to a PS file then converted to pdf by ghost. > > and on Sat, 4 Oct 2014 21:57:26 -0400 dmccunney > <dennis.mccun...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> LaTeX is a document preparation system and document markup language. >> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX and http://latex-project.org/ >> It's based on TeX, a typesetting system designed by Professor Donald >> E. Knuth, author of the classic The Art of Computer Programming. >> It's useful for things like scientific papers where you must embed >> equations in the document. > > I do translation and/or editing of scientific papers, and often > receive the manuscripts in LaTeX. > > Its distinguishing feature is the high quality and refinement of > its typesetting. My understanding is that MS-Word has not yet > reached that level, even after all those decades. (I mention > MS-Word because it is the only alternative to LaTeX widely > accepted by scientific journals).
Word is a word processor, not a typesetting system. There are things it is not intended to do, and if you need those things, Word is not what you use. For instance, when books are written and published by traditional publishers, a Word document is the original manuscript, but the actual book is produced by importing the Word document into Adobe InDesign for markup and typesetting, and a PDF produced by InDesign is what the printer makes plates from. > I'm currently writing a technical book, and chose to do it in > LaTeX. The result looks great. > > However, LaTeX is complex, and there is no other way of learning > it except by studying systematically, and even then, it requires > experience. It's like learning a programming language. Fundamentally, you *are* learning a programming language. >> It's worth learning about, but DOS is the wrong place to do it. >> The tools basically don't exist there. If you want to learn >> about/use LaTeX, you really need to be running Windows or Linux. > > Maybe you're better off running Windows or Linux, I'll concede > that, but you can do it in DOS too. I do it all the time. My > distribution is EmTex, by Eberhard Mattes, and it runs very well. I respect the fact that you *can* still do what you need to do in DOS. I would not try. There are too many hoops to jump through. My general advice to anyone trying to learn anything computer related is "Use a supported platform. Your life will be much easier." > Marcos ______ Dennis https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meet PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance Requirements with EventLog Analyzer Achieve PCI DSS 3.0 Compliant Status with Out-of-the-box PCI DSS Reports Are you Audit-Ready for PCI DSS 3.0 Compliance? Download White paper Comply to PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 10 and 11.5 with EventLog Analyzer http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=154622311&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
