From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: James Freer Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: RTF for emacs Date: Sun, 25 May 2014 21:38:13 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: References: <87ha4d64r2.fsf@robertthorpeconsulting.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1401050336 23242 80.91.229.3 (25 May 2014 20:38:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 25 May 2014 20:38:56 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org, Emanuel Berg To: Robert Thorpe Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun May 25 22:38:49 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WofBx-00012h-4t for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 25 May 2014 22:38:49 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53283 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WofBw-0000Bi-Pg for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 25 May 2014 16:38:48 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:50033) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WofBb-0008Ru-LN for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 25 May 2014 16:38:36 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WofBR-0007iP-6F for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 25 May 2014 16:38:27 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-wg0-x230.google.com ([2a00:1450:400c:c00::230]:58077) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WofBQ-0007iJ-VJ for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 25 May 2014 16:38:17 -0400 Original-Received: by mail-wg0-f48.google.com with SMTP id k14so2814398wgh.31 for ; Sun, 25 May 2014 13:38:16 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=date:from:to:cc:subject:in-reply-to:message-id:references :user-agent:mime-version:content-type; bh=MWYwKyZME3UcwAPFv93Tubc0c6P0LSEK+9hKEwhrSk8=; b=ksCe4ZWFMvHepoeCQymQabKDte1aFBAJzIBPVDBp2+dsyZUEyrV0B0FJRgFX0iKlsu fD2gZTvNDzcS11ABmEFm/1xpSVPXvf5Bu+JYgTzVLP/XdT6GGnUp+ZQZR1/MPUYnGxQO ATS72sgpoILPHNmd17wWt+ZumnAuu4+Q5zEi9hjBKbvAPj6KhI5gfWgsZx94syARdegT kONfAR9khFVFHJ8mpFOLTxnsMQ1SkQJcIIjRWOQ3G1W99kfnTsrT9AD4LwS8cEXz2nyY 9oAelf9ZrjaxyJpb8p2VbBDQm1O8bDX9Grg47u0/WLlipfaVfTpTEBRQeAvuqJ4CsXrh wIFA== X-Received: by 10.180.74.114 with SMTP id s18mr21756811wiv.37.1401050296061; Sun, 25 May 2014 13:38:16 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from james.home (host81-154-23-16.range81-154.btcentralplus.com. [81.154.23.16]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id b19sm20995888wic.5.2014.05.25.13.38.14 for (version=TLSv1.1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Sun, 25 May 2014 13:38:15 -0700 (PDT) X-X-Sender: james@james In-Reply-To: <87ha4d64r2.fsf@robertthorpeconsulting.com> User-Agent: Alpine 2.10 (DEB 1266 2009-07-14) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2a00:1450:400c:c00::230 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:97860 Archived-At: On Sun, 25 May 2014, Robert Thorpe wrote: > I appreciate everyone's replies. > > Emanuel Berg distinguishes between different types of documents. > Firstly, there are very simple documents that just contain text, those > can be written as text files. There are webpages which can be > written in HTML. Large documents can be written using LaTeX. ToDo > lists and organization can be written using Org mode. > > There's another type of document though, those that are simple, but too > complex to make using plain text. I was talking about writing letters > earlier. Even that case is tricky. Have you tried printing a letter > containing Unicode characters? On my Xubuntu 12.04 system that doesn't > work, they appear as escape codes. Unfortunately, lots of programs > still don't treat UTF-8 correctly. > > For someone who knows LaTeX writing small documents isn't a problem. I > have only done a few simple things with LaTeX. I haven't used AucTex, > only Emac's LaTeX mode. In my job I write reports in Microsoft Word, > I've never had a opportunity to write a long document in LaTeX. In the > future, if I have the time I'd like to learn LaTeX. I understand though > that it's a large and complex system, until I read this discussion I > didn't know there were so many different dialects withe different > capabilities. It would take me months to learn it properly. Similarly, > Org mode is complex. I intend to learn that sometime in the future too, > but I haven't the time at present. I spend quite a lot of time > organizing things, so I expect that'll be time well spent. > > James Freer asked about this first, I think his situation is similar to > mine. I can't justify the time I'd need to learn LaTeX since I'd use it > so infrequently. That's why I'll continue using LibreOffice until > something better comes along that won't take too long to learn. > > BR, > Robert Thorpe It's not that I haven't the time to learn Latex - i just wanted to know if emacs was going to produce a word processor plugin or whatever. I'm not an IT grad and I don't find emacs easy to learn. I use it for editing prose text as features I love namely; mid cursor positioning (very useful when typing pages and pages... irritating in other editors to constantly type at the bottom of the screen), wordstar keybindings (still the most efficient and still popular with writers), visual line mode (softwrap or whatever you want to call the equivalent) which few editors do effectively... even vim - my other favourite editor is gedit. Only editor I know of that does mid cursor positioning is Pico but doesn't do wordwrap. I am going to give Latex a go. Had a look earlier today at some of the small apps like Gimme and Texstudio - using those as an intro was worthwhile. I take on board the comments folk have made. You can use Latex for simple docs as well as the more sophisticated maths/scientific manual... and it's fantastic. As for word processing, LO-writer and Abiword have had their day - both buggy I've found. Online Zoho and google docs for me have replaced them. Of course there are online latex apps which I'm going to have a look at. Then I'll try emacs. My gripe with emacs is that it takes a lot of learning. Natural app for the IT graduate. I'd love to have a LUG group where I could sit down for an hour with someone and go through a few things to reduce the learning curve. I'd love to customise the menus to remove the coders stuff so I am left with a basic UI with just what I want. yours james