From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Lee Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: wikipedia's (ascii) math notation? emacs easy-way to translate it? Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 07:35:34 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <360f870b-cd64-433b-9101-603a18db0dcb@l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com> References: <87oczwkmy2.fsf@localhorst.mine.nu> <26c8eecf-4e39-4ef6-8a3c-83bdf7f1f32f@e1g2000pra.googlegroups.com> <041220080819249912%edgar@math.ohio-state.edu.invalid> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1228409383 15944 80.91.229.12 (4 Dec 2008 16:49:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 16:49:43 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Dec 04 17:50:46 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1L8HPL-0000kW-MO for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:50:32 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:55117 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1L8HOA-0008F1-TA for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:49:18 -0500 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.text.tex Original-Lines: 186 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.6.185.159 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1228404934 27770 127.0.0.1 (4 Dec 2008 15:35:34 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 15:35:34 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: l33g2000pri.googlegroups.com; posting-host=24.6.185.159; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10_4_11; en) AppleWebKit/525.27.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.2.1 Safari/525.27.1, gzip(gfe), gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:165039 comp.text.tex:381892 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:48:29 -0500 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:60367 Archived-At: Xah Lee wrote: > > TeX is proprobably not among one of the best tool among typesetting > > professionals. G. A. Edgar wrote: > Correct. TeX is only the best tool among those typesetting > professionals who typeset mathematics. Most typesetting professionals > hate to do mathematics. > > Get a math research journal from the library. Any one. Read the > "instructions for authors" contained there. It will say that > manuscripts must be in Latex. A few journals may grudgingly also > accept Microsoft Word. That's it. > > -- > G. A. Edgar http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~edgar/ The issue is this thread, is not =E2=80=9Cis TeX used by math publishers?= =E2=80=9D or =E2=80=9Cis TeX good for typesetting mathematics?=E2=80=9D. The question in this thread is: Is TeX among one of the best tool among typesetting professionals. My claim is that no. For example, if you look at Wikipedia on the article typesetting, under their Digital Era subsection, you'll see that TeX is mentioned only after the discussion of some 10 or so other systems. Also, if you look into the article to see whether TeX is used other than by math and programing tech geekers, you find this curious last paragraph, i quote: TeX is a very powerful typesetting system used in many applications other than mathematics. The Editora graphical user interface written by D. Klutz[citation needed], using TeX as typesetting engine, offers a powerful pagination tool for Classified Ads Newspapers and Magazines [citation needed]. Editora is used by the major Classified Ads Newspapers and Magazines in France[citation needed]. The 12,000 pages landmark French dictionary Le Robert edition 2003 was typeset by TeX in less than 10 minutes[citation needed]. That paragraph sounds like some TeX geeking fanatic tried to make TeX look better on that page. Also notice the lots of =E2=80=9Ccitation needed= =E2=80=9D claims. The first sentence defensively sets out a claim. The last sentence about Le Robert seems to pull a rabbit out of a hat. here's a full quote of the Wikipedia's article on typesetting on the section =E2=80=9CDigital Era=E2=80=9D as of toda 2008-12-04. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typesetting#Digital_era ) -------------------------------------- Digital era The next generation of phototypesetting machines to emerge were those that generated characters on a Cathode ray tube. Typical of the type was the Autologic APS5. These machines were the mainstay of phototypesetting for much of the 1970s and 1980s. Such machines could be 'driven online' by a computer front-end system or take their data from magnetic tape. Type fonts were stored digitally on conventional magnetic disk drives. Computers excel at automatically typesetting documents. Character-by- character computer-aided phototypesetting was in turn rapidly rendered obsolete in the 1980s by fully digital systems employing a raster image processor to render an entire page to a single high-resolution digital image, now known as imagesetting. The first commercially successful laser imagesetter, able to make use of a raster image processor was the Monotype Lasercomp. ECRM, Compugraphic (later purchased by Agfa) and others rapidly followed suit with machines of their own. Early minicomputer-based typesetting software introduced in the 1970s and early 1980s such as Datalogics Pager, Penta, Miles 33, Xyvision, troff from Bell Labs, and IBM's Script product with CRT terminals, replaced these electro-mechanical devices and used text markup languages to describe type and other page formatting information. The descendants of these text markup languages include SGML, XML and HTML. The minicomputer systems output columns of text on film for paste-up and eventually produced entire pages and signatures of 4, 8, 16 or more pages using imposition software on devices such as the Israeli- made Scitex Dolev. The data stream used by these systems to drive page layout on printers and imagesetters led to the development of printer control languages such as Adobe PostScript and Hewlett-Packard's HP PCL. Text typeset in Iowan Old Style roman, italics and small caps, optimised at approximately 10 words per line, typeface sized at 14 points on 1.4 x leading, with 0.2 points extra tracking. Extract of an essay by Oscar Wilde The Renaissance of English Art ca. 1882. Before the 1980s, practically all typesetting for publishers and advertisers was performed by specialist typesetting companies. These companies performed keyboarding, editing and production of paper or film output, and formed a large component of the graphic arts industry. In the United States these companies were located in rural Pennsylvania, New England or the Midwest where labor was cheap, but within a few hours' travel time of the major publishing centers. In 1985, desktop publishing became available, starting with the Apple Macintosh, Adobe PageMaker (and later QuarkXPress) and PostScript. Improvements in software and hardware, and rapidly-lowering costs, popularized desktop publishing and enabled very fine control of typeset results much less expensively than the minicomputer dedicated systems. At the same time, word processing systems such as Wang and WordPerfect revolutionized office documents. They did not, however, have the typographic ability or flexibility required for complicated book layout, graphics, mathematics, or advanced hyphenation and justification rules (H and J). By the year 2000 this industry segment had shrunk because publishers were now capable of integrating typesetting and graphic design on their own in-house computers. Many found that the cost of maintaining high standards of typographic design and technical skill made it more economical to out-source to freelancers and graphic design specialists. The availability of cheap, or free, fonts made the conversion to do-it- yourself easier but also opened up a gap between skilled designers and amateurs. The advent of PostScript, supplemented by the PDF file format, provided a universal method of proofing designs and layouts, readable on major computer and operating systems. [edit] SGML and XML systems The arrival of SGML/XML as the document model made other typesetting engines popular. Such engines include Datalogics Pager, Penta, Miles 33, OASYS, Xyvision's XML Professional Publisher (XPP), FrameMaker, Arbortext, YesLogic's Prince, QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign. These products allow users to program their typesetting process around the SGML/XML with the help of scripting languages. Some of them, such as UltraXML, provide attractive WYSIWYG interfaces with support for XML standards and Unicode to attract a wider spectrum of users. [edit] Troff and Successors Main article: Troff During the mid-1970s Joseph Ossanna, working at Bell Laboratories, wrote the troff typesetting program to drive a Wang C/A/T phototypesetter owned by the Labs; it was later enhanced by Brian Kernighan to support output to different equipment such as laser printers and the like. While its use has fallen off, it is still included with a number of Unix and Unix-like systems and has been used to typeset a number of high-profile technical and computer books. Some versions, as well as a GNU work-alike called groff, are now open source. [edit] TeX and LaTeX Mathematical text typeset using TeX and the AMS Euler font. Main article: TeX The TeX system, developed by Donald E. Knuth at the end of 70s, is another widespread and powerful automated typesetting system that has set high standards, especially for typesetting mathematics. TeX is considered fairly difficult to learn on its own, and deals more with appearance than structure. The LaTeX macro package written by Leslie Lamport at the beginning of 80s, offered a simpler interface, and an easier way to systematically encode the structure of a document. LaTeX markup is very widely used in academic circles for published papers and even books. Standard TeX does not provide a WYSIWYG interface, though there are programs such as LyX and Scientific Workplace that provide one. Another WYSIWYG editor very much inspired by TeX is TeXmacs. TeX is a very powerful typesetting system used in many applications other than mathematics. The Editora graphical user interface written by D. Klutz[citation needed], using TeX as typesetting engine, offers a powerful pagination tool for Classified Ads Newspapers and Magazines [citation needed]. Editora is used by the major Classified Ads Newspapers and Magazines in France[citation needed]. The 12,000 pages landmark French dictionary Le Robert edition 2003 was typeset by TeX in less than 10 minutes[citation needed]. Xah =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/ =E2=98=84