[lug] LaTeX to Word Doc/RTF

[J. Wayde Allen]

On 19 Feb 2002, Ed Hill wrote:

> >    - Is LaTeX simply getting to be too old?  
> 
> Its still just as good (better!) than it ever was.  ;-)

Well yes, but the question has more to do with continued evolution and
global acceptance.  My feeling is that the number of LaTeX users is
shrinking rather than growing.  Part of the reason for this feeling comes
from a recent interaction I had with a technical magazine that wanted to
publish one of my papers, but that had never heard of LaTeX.

> >    - Is Docbook a better choice today?
> 
> Having used both, I'd say that they are just different tools suited to
> different purposes.  Docbook is great for manuals, HOWTOs, etc. since it
> supports so many display formats.  But if you need to do extensive
> mathematical notation or if you need fine-grained control of formatting
> and are fine with just PDF or PS output then I think LaTeX is hard to
> beat.

Not really certain you answered the question.  LaTeX is also great for
manuals, HowTo's, etc., and also supports many display formats.  Your
comment begs the question - what makes these tools really different?

I was curious about the mathematical formating capabilities of Docbook in
relation to LaTeX.  LaTeX being very strong in this area.  I have also
been wondering about the formatting issues.  At one level it seems that
the Docbook DTD is similar to the LaTeX style or class files.  That
`could' imply fine grained formatting control.  

My `feeling' for what it is worth is that LaTeX exists in a kind of middle
ground between a content based mark up style language and the detailed
layout capabilities of a typesetting language.  For instance, our research
papers are required by the editorial review board to adhere to a strict
typographical format, and I'm certain that LaTeX can provide this while at
the same time offering a degree of content mark up.  I'm not so sure that
Docbook can?  That is part of what I'm wanting to understand.

> I would love to see an XML/SGML toolkit appear that has *all* the
> type-setting functionality of LaTeX *and* outputs to many of the major
> formats (eg. PDF, PS, HTML, RTF, ASCII, MS WORD, etc.).  I'm afraid its
> not going to happen since targeting so many formats would probably
> result in a least-common-denominator situation regarding formatting and
> you'd essentially have Docbook again (which is very nice IMHO for what
> it does).

I'm a bit uneasy about this statement - can't quite put my finger on why
though? I'm not certain I disagree, but am also not sure I agree either.  
I guess part of what bothers me is the grouping of so called formats
you've offered above.  With the sole exception of MSWord I think that both
LaTeX and Docbook already create these types of output.  The
"least-common-denominator" level does seem to be an issue, but I don't
think that this is unique to Docbook.  In some cases I think LaTeX suffers
from this syndrome too, and could be improved upon.

Actually, I'm not sure that the "least-common-denominator" is particularly
bad.  This doesn't have to imply mediocrity.  Only that this is the level
at which compatibility between systems exists.

> AFAIK, MS appears to be moving towards XML.  *BUT* do understand that
> its only being used as a wrapper for proprietary MS data formats through
> XML's "reference" capabilities (eg. it merely includes the MSExcel,
> MSWord, etc. data files).  So really its still proprietary crap, not
> platform-independent XML.  :-/

I'm not particularly familiar with XML either, let alone the
"reference" capabilities you mention.  I'm guessing from what you are
saying that this only means that the XML part of the document simply
indicates something similar to saying that the following data is written
in MSExcel format?

- Wayde
  (wallen at lug.boulder.co.us)

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                        ISART 2002                          
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