Re: Word processors for Mac - the verdict

Chris Ridd <chrisridd@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Justin C <justin.0805@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

For me, the two tasks that all modern WP programs bundle are best
handled as seperate jobs. Get the words composed, sort the layout
afterwards. If I try doing both at the same time thoughts about layout,
paragraphs hanging, widows/orphans, and all that, distract me from
making the content the best I can.

But then you often still need to refine your text to make the layout
actually work better though, don't you? (Trimming a few words to lose
an unfortunate page break, that sort of thing.)

With a proper layout tool, you shouldn't need to do that very often at
all. I know I don't.

TeX has the power to enable you to deal with troublesome page breaks
without re-writing the text. Current LaTeX makes it relatively easy to
do so - especially with a rather in need of re-writing package I put
together (called rmpage - needs re-writing, don't get it from CTAN).

Thats why I, like Peter, miss WordPerfect... I've still got the keyboard
overlay for when/if I can ever get it working again! Mind you, TextMate
then copy paste into Pages sorts me out these days.

I never liked WordPerfect. The whole idea of the content being a stream
of serially parsed codes seemed quite wrong, compared to a model where
objects like paragraphs and characters have formatting properties.

The idea that `formatting properties' can be applied to paragraphs and
characters sounded attractive to me until I tried using it with MS Word
and found that:

1) The formatting never worked properly - /never/.
2) It was nearly impossible to find out what `properties' were being
applied to what.

Total disaster as far as I'm concerned - although it looked neat in the
manual.

Because it's hard to find out what's being considered as `an object for
the purposes of this bit of formatting' in MS Word in particular, and
what formatting is being applied in any case, I have to say that MS
Word's approach to this sort of thing is the pits.

The implementation of the `formatting by object' concept in all wysiwyg
WPs I've tried to use has been very poor and impossible to use
intelligently.

I prefer the LaTeX approach - where you can very unambiguously and
clearly define the meaning of each object you want typeset in a fashion
that cannot be missed when you view the document; LaTeX then applies
formatting appropriate for an object of that meaning given the type of
document you are laying out, but all that happens at the typesetting
stage when you've finish composing the document.

You don't think about formatting when writing using LaTeX: you think
about what /meaning/ each element of your document has, and leave the
machine to do the formatting when you've finished writing.

So writing works out quicker and better because you're not being
distracted by layout. I can, for example, define a new LaTeX `object'
(not how it's viewed internally) by name, give it a meaning inside my
own head, but not actually define any formatting for it: it's just new
command I'm going to write *later*.

So I can write my document with new types of object, see exactly what I
/mean/ by it, and ignore the details of the formatting until I've
finished writing, which is a huge advantage for me. No distractions due
to layout when writing, that's the ticket.

And it's all utterly unambiguous and up-front and not hidden like with
wysiwyg WPs: when you look at what's on screen, you can see *exactly*
what's going on.

And you also have the freedom to `do it the other way' with (La)TeX -
serially parsed codes is how TeX works at the sharp end, and you don't
/have/ to use 'em in the `define an object and have LaTeX apply
appropriate formatting to it' mode, for all that's the recommended
approach.

Far superior to all WPs - even Word Perfect back in the days when you
could (or can you still?) view invisible codes - which ability is the
main reason I liked WordPerfect so much back in the day.

Rowland.



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