Re: Making a booklet....... aarrrrgh!

Andy Hewitt <wildrover.andy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Okay, it's not wysiwyg, but it's as easy to insert graphics and play
with founts as it can be otherwise, if you're using XeTeX. Colours? -
no problems at all; LaTeX2e handles them without any bother.

I'm aware of the fact that xxTeX can indeed handle graphics, and colours
etc. However, not with the integration I have with my iApps.

Yes, with that level of integration. It's just not GUI or wysiwyg.

Nothing like that kind of integration!

Not far off at all, actually.

By using iApps I can have photos stored in Aperture in RAW format, and
drag them into a document in Pages, without having to do any editing or
saving, and they just end up the right format.

Hmm. I see; although, last thing I heard, Aperture was lousey at
importing RAW images.

I can't click a 'Media' button in one of the TeX apps and be able to
select an image to use, that is stored in my carefully structured system
used by my image management software.

Well, no, but so what? I really don't understand your point. You use
one bit of software for looking at your images, and put the images in
with something else. How is that less well integrated?

The fact that you use lots of bits of software to do this is just `the
Unix way' - lots of small separate applications, not huge overblown
bloatware with `everything built in'.

Okay, sometimes you get `something of both' in the Unix world - I cite
Emacs. But anyway, point is, the Unix way, you put it together from
small bits and get things knitted together just as tightly, just with
better adaption to your particular needs than the monolithic `I try to
be all things to all people but fail' apps.

The same goes for other aspects of the iApps setup too.

Such as?

I mentioned XeTeX because of its level of integration with the OS and
its founts - you can `just use' system founts now. And picking a
specific colour is possibly easier with LaTeX than it is with a GUI
setup.

Hmmmm.

I said *specific* colour - you get to type in the precise spec, and
that's more straightforward than trying to approximate what you're
looking for using a GUI colour selector.

Not that I'm suggesting that this is what you should use - just telling
you what's what these days.

Indeed, I do keep fairly up on what is available, as I'm always looking
for what's 'better'.

Yeah, but the big `issue' with TeX is that unless you're actually using
it and have your hand in, if you have one new job to do, it's almost
certainly easier to get it done the wysiwyg/GUI way rather than the TeX
way.

I use
Aperture for my image storage, and using Pages I can simply drag any
image from the Aperture library, without having to run Aperture, by
simply using the 'Media' button.

So? You don't have to run the creator program to insert graphics into a
TeX document. Just use the \includegraphics{<filename>} command - which
is the non-GUI equivalent of `drag-and-drop if you ask me.

You do if you have a few thousand RAW images.

You need to run a converter program, and that can be run on a
one-at-at-time basis as and when the images are required for use.
That's not the same thing as necessarily needing the creator program.

If I use a TP solution, I then have to run Aperture, decide what images
I want to use, put them into a collection, and then export them in a
format that can be handled by my text software - from which I have to
navigate to where I saved the images.

TP? Wassat?

Third Party - fairly widely used on most of the newsgroups I read.

Fair enough. `TP' stands for `typing person' on my bookshelves. I had
no idea what it meant in your context.

FWIW, if you're using pdfTeX, you'll also have a suite of file
conversion utilities. I've never played around with that sort of thing,
but as far as I can tell, you can set things up so that you'll get a
`conversion on the fly' if you try to insert `the wrong file format'
into a LaTeX doc.

Whatever the case, I do know that pdfTeX now only handles a tiny number
of graphics file format (I think it's two, but I can't be arsed checking
at the moment) these days *because* of that sort of ability. It used to
handle more graphics file formats.

Most of them use PNG or JPG now.

pdfTeX handles just PNG and PDF, I think (PDF can of course wrap up
JFIFs). But that's the Unix way - highly focussed apps, and lots of
'em.

In any case, you don't normally do that kind of thing at the TeX end -
I've always used back end processing to get the desired effect. Not
tried it for years, so I don't actually have a clue how to do it with
either PS or PDF, but there are straightforward solutions out there
should I care to look 'em up.

I'm not afraid of TeX, and have indeed used it quite a bit, but I still
find it has too many processes for a lot of simple jobs.

How do you mean?

Meaning, the number of mouse clicks/key presses needed to get a final
product to my printer is greater using TeX than most of the GUI apps,
and for the jobs I use it for, there is no great difference in time
saved or lost.

There is in the long term. No file format worries for *me*. Think
abaht it.

Besides, I know
I can get the desired results using such things as NeoOffice and
AppleWorks, most of the time.

Do whatever you like.

Yup, but at least I have tried most of the alternatives, so I have room
to comment. The first time I spoke to you about TeX, I hadn't tried it,
but now I have, quite a lot - and even used the LaTeX manual too.

`Even' used the LaTeX manual? Umm. If you've not used a LaTeX manual,
you're getting nowhere with LaTeX. If you'd said `Even used the
TeXbook' or similar - well, that'd be something.

Since
then I've tried variations of TeX, TeTeX, both with Aqua apps and Fink
binaries.

In the end though, I still find it much quicker to simply fire up
AppleWorks, click my letter template, and bash out a letter.

<shrug> Fair enough - if you had a proper local letter class, you'd
find it quicker with LaTeX in the long run.

You put a template together for Appleworks, but not for LaTeX, so you're
not really doing a fair comparison, are you?

[..]

Not what I meant really, my fault, I didn't make that clear. I meant I
had to faff around a lot to find the right solution.

<puzzled> Didn't sound like you had to faff around a lot.

Quite a bit of browsing download sites, and help files before I found
what I needed.

Werl, yes - but so what? I'm not sure what that has to do with it.
Finding software isn't necessarily trivial even these days.

[snip]

Rowland.

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