Re: Curious, said Alice

Thus spake Oz <Oz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Charles Francis <charles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>>The real problem with old or non-standard software is not with what it
>>can do. Very often new releases cut out some facility you use. The
>>problem is if you want other people to read your documents,
>
>Well, if stolen, I don't.
>
>>or if you
>>want to read other peoples documents.
>
>Always converters of one type or another.

Only ok if they are 100% accurate. In my experience most are not.

>Professionals seem to be moving to .pdf, which is quite a smart move.
>
I find it essential, and has been for years. Constructing mathematical
formulae in word is pretty grim, and other facilities are rudimentary at
best. The academic world uses tex, but it is pretty cumbersome too, and
I don't know if there is a half decent wysiwyg version (academics will
say yes but it costs and I suspect it's crap). In my vaguely commercial
past I learned how to use Framemaker, which is a commercial standard for
publishing, and does everything I want. As its adobe it comes with pdf
writer (I think other dtp packages like Serif Page Plus do also now, but
I found Page Plus buggy, no formulae, no referencing of line numbers
etc).

Converting to pdf is fine when you just want other people to read your
document. Less good if you want to collaborate on production. Editing,
for example, which Jim does and I hope to do, it is essential to use
word, because that is what everyone else uses. One might be tempted by a
look alike, but in practice if it is only 99.5% the same the .5%
difference could cause such a screw up that it is not worth the risk.

Upgrading, however, can be a right pain. My computers have lived in a
filthy environment for years and did not like being moved as the dust
shifted inside. One power switch ceased to function, neither had
decently working cd drives, one monitor had to be coaxed into life by
vacuum cleaning the innards, but that only worked for a week, both made
a racket from dodgy fans driving you spare. The other monitor is only
17', which I find too small, and it is about 10 yrs old fuzzy and
flickers on settings to read fine text. The hard drives predate the last
rebuild when I changed the boxes and main boards. This time I decided to
get a whole new computer.

My copy of Framemaker predates windows 98 and had already had
installation problems installing the pdfwriter on XP with the last
upgrade. Now it would not install at all, reporting a non-existent
shortage of virtual memory. There probably would have been a way around
it, but I would still not be 100% compatible, so I decided to upgrade
that as well. Now it turns out that some of the fonts I had been using
were not licensed to be embedded in pdf files. They work in acrobat 3,
but not acrobat 7. Bollocks.


Regards

--
Charles Francis
Please reply by name
.

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