From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: tsd@tsdye.com (Thomas S. Dye) Subject: Re: Rationale for *text* -> \alert{text} for Beamer export? Date: Wed, 01 May 2013 11:41:49 -1000 Message-ID: References: <20130501170006.57df8cf2@aga-netbook> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:38810) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UXen6-0001mU-06 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 01 May 2013 17:42:21 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UXen4-00050p-Iv for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 01 May 2013 17:42:19 -0400 Received: from oproxy12-pub.bluehost.com ([50.87.16.10]:53773) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UXen4-00050L-Bf for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 01 May 2013 17:42:18 -0400 In-Reply-To: (John Hendy's message of "Wed, 1 May 2013 15:50:13 -0500") List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: John Hendy Cc: emacs-orgmode , Marcin Borkowski Hi John, Jumping in late here, with apologies if that's left me wide of the mark. John Hendy writes: > On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Marcin Borkowski wrote: > Can you explain semantic vs. visual? As in you can more easily > customize the meaning of \alert{} or \emph{} whereas \textbf{} and > \textit{} only has one meaning? Sort of like using a css tag which can > be later customized vs. specifically calling out exactly what you're > thinking you want to do at the moment? IMHO, the best discussion of this difference is the first chapter of Lamport's LaTeX User's Guide and Manual. Here is the gist as I understand it: 1) A principle of typesetting is that the layout of a document should reflect its logical structure. 2) A computer typesetting program can achieve this if it knows what key parts of the document mean. 3) So, markup should be semantic, rather than visual. It is possible to achieve identical results using visual markup, of course, but why not let the computer keep track of things instead? > > Sure, and understood. In general, I'm using *text* simply to call > attention to something important. I work in product development, so > something like: > > Customer response to product sampling: > - *US:* blah blah blah > - *China:* blah blah blah > - *India: blah blah blah Here, to achieve semantic markup, you would use description lists - US :: blah - China :: blah - India :: blah The :: separator lets Org (and ultimately LaTeX) know that the part before the separator is the term that is being described. hth, Tom -- Thomas S. Dye http://www.tsdye.com