[lug] looking for TeX viewer/print

[Chris Riddoch]

Well, I think this was my cue... now's my time to chime in on the thread.

"D. Stimits" <stimits at idcomm.com> writes:
> One thing I am frustrated with by plain ascii is lack of color (this
> isn't just for resume's, but includes other printing, e.g., syntax
> highlighted source code). RTF may have some ability to work with color,
> but I suspect you are right about it just leading to frustration.

RTF is a hassle. I've never got it to work right. The layout *always*
breaks. If the layout's going to be inconsistent, you might as well be
using ASCII.

> I was under the impression that LaTeX macros were there to do
> something similar to this: Take content described logically, such as
> a heading, title, or paragraph, and format it to conform to a style
> specification.  Thus, a need for a detailed style specification. It
> sounds like LaTeX also has an ability to work more in a free-form
> way, is this correct?  Can I work without a style specification?

It's both, really. LaTeX is essentially a bunch of macros on top of
TeX.  TeX is essentially a programming language designed for
typesetting applications.  You *don't* want to use raw TeX unless you
know what you're doing, have a lot of free time (like a summer break,
for example) or need the kind of typesetting control only a
programming language could do - calculating the placement of something
on the basis of variables, loops, etc.  It's a real power tool, with
all kinds of nooks and crannies and features I can't even imagine uses
for - but I'm sure that given precise specifications for output, I'd
have reason to use some of them.

The short answer: for a resume, LaTeX is a good choice if you have a
suitable reference and tutorial. There's a bit of a lack of
comprehensible stuff (to new users, anyway) on the 'net, but the books
on the subject can shed some light on the matter.

> > > Plain TeX would be good, but what I lack is a a WYSIWYG TeX editor
> > > (does such a thing even exist?).

It's really not WYSIWYG, but rather a graphical front-end to (La)TeX
that involves a GUI and some clicking... but it's pre-alpha, mostly in
my head right now, and still rather in the design stages.  Think of a
mixture of things - it's a cross between a GUI programming environment
(editing and syntax highlighting and tree displays of commands),
parallels of GIMP-like tools for manipulating TeX boxes, glue, etc.,
graphical display of TeX's registers, a constantly open instance of
TeX for on-the-fly generated output (viewed in a different pane), but
still the same TeX behind it all, with LaTeX macros, GUI front-ends to
all the toys like bibtex built in, and easily extendible.  It'll be
the Emacs of text processors (quite possibly *using* Emacs), with
buttons and menus and tutorials and things that people like to have.

If LyX doesn't do what you want, and you still want the power of
LaTeX, you're left with <editor-of-choice>, the latex processor,
ghostview, a few shell scripts to make life easier, and a lot of
things. Or some similar combination.

The closest thing to WYSIWYG would be LyX, but the truth is, anything
that would make LaTeX *really* fit into the WYSIWYG view of the world
would require hiding its real strengths.

> > It kind of all depends on your definition of WYSIWYG.  If you edit
> > LaTeX/TeX in one window and run xdvi in another you've basically got a
> > WYSIWYG kind of operation.
> 
> I would like to do things like highlight text, then set it to bold or a
> color or a specific font size. There is a certain difficulty in viewing
> on one window and then searching for the right spot in another window
> for editing.

In that case, you'll probably be disappointed with the learning curve
of LaTeX.  I don't mean to dissuade you, if you want to learn it, but
there's writing basic letters, resumes, memos, and then there's Text
Processing.  Both can make any *print* output you want (each in their
own way, with many qualifiers on how to go about it and the
limitations of the processor), but if you want WYSIWYG, what you
probably want is actually a clone of Microsoft Word.  Staroffice is
nice for that.

> LyX is the closest I know of at the moment, and I'm not
> very good with it. Btw, I've never seen color in xdvi, does xdvi support
> color? Probably I simply haven't run into a color case.

I haven't done much with color. I save my color printer cartridges for
the Gimp, rather than text. My resume is in black and white.

> As far as this sort of scheme goes though, I like the way ghostview can
> monitor a file and auto-update each time the file is edited. Ghostview
> is very nice, it even allows color, and is a nice printing aid. If
> ghostview could allow interactive editing, rather than just display, I'd
> be incredibly thrilled (cheap thrills?).

Ghostview is rather nice, yes. I like it - it's my Print Preview.

> As someone mentioned, there is a need to recompile from TeX to produce
> the dvi format; the dvi is the binary form, not useful for human eyes,
> but it could be used directly by an editor. Or an interpreter would be
> nice, to allow updates to occur simultaneously with edits (this is why
> ghostview works so nicely...it has an interpreter and the postscript
> itself is not compiled to an intermediate form that would possibly take
> multiple passes). Monitoring through xdvi, and editing elsewhere, is a
> lot of work when just maintaining and altering a document (one that
> might have minor changes on a daily basis). It seems I'm going to have
> to learn to do this though. I already have some TeX references, but they
> are primarily mathematics references, and don't cover topics like color.

Ahh. You're thinking of ActiveTeX: http://www.activetex.org/

> > Fundamentally you are starting to run into what I think is a classic
> > problem in document processing.  Namely, the realization that there can be
> > more than one incarnation of a document (electronic, printed, braille,
> > etc.).  This is where the word processor and WYSIWYG oriented people start
> > to get frustrated.
> 
> Yes, I'm hoping to do some basic editing, and have high quality output
> for printing.

These are two different things, often. Editing is
<insert-your-editor-of-choice>.

High quality output can come from LaTeX, Lout, SGML+DSSSL,
XML+XSL+FOP, Applixware, Staroffice, KOffice, (endless list of similar
word processors), or if you're so inclined, Adobe Acrobat, Framemaker,
an old version of Aldus Pagemaker for Windows 3.11 (heh), or, if
you're really desperate, HTML+CSS (browser specific, naturally). If
you're really masochistic, raw Postscript.

It depends entirely on your needs.

If you have to give your document to someone electronically who can't
do anything but open something in Microsoft Word for the Mac, then
you're better off using Microsoft Word for the Mac than *anything*
linux provides, much less any recent version of Microsoft Word for the
PC.

> The document typesetting abilities go beyond what I need, but the
> solutions that don't use TeX or PostScript on Linux seem to fall
> short in a lot of ways, most often when printing.

How so?

> So the next step up, to get good printing, is a major leap beyond
> what I need, and nothing in between exists.

There are a lot of options, really.  If you don't need to share
anything but the printed output with anyone else, your decision should
probably be driven by what will get the job done.

> In a way similar to how XML was designed as a simpler substitute to
> SGML, while still being convenient in ways of HTML, I wish there was
> an intermediate TeX and intermediate PostScript...designed to
> actually provide good printing control, but not designed to be a
> publishing tool with control to a ten-thousandth of an inch.

I'm a little confused by this.  For most practical purposes, XML is a
subset of SGML.  XML is convenient because it's *not* HTML.  The
horrible evil that is HTML should disappear off the face of the earth
to be replaced with something that properly abstracts content from
presentation.  XML fits that bill, and I'd be more than happy to see
it happen.  But that's another rant.

TeX and Postscript are actually programming languages.  They're not
really meant to be used by hand.  Postscript is almost always
generated by something else - dvips, Gimp, whatever.  LaTeX was
written to make the programming aspects of TeX less apparent to its
users - so that the Typesetter can design the stylesheets, and
everyone else can just write the material that goes into document
*without concern for the presentation*, trusting the writer of the
stylesheet.  And as I mentioned earlier, you *can* opt to not use the
stylesheets in LaTeX, but expect to jump through more hoops to do what
you want.

> > The word processor design (WYSIWYG) is very limited since it makes the
> > assumption that you only want what amounts to a computerized
> > typewriter.  This is a very well accepted idea since people have been
> > using pencils, pens, and typewriters for a very long time.  It isn't a big
> > jump from traditional typewriting in the office to word processing on the
> > computer, and you gain the computer's ability to erase, change text,
> > incorporate pictures, spell check, etc..  This makes the word processor a
> > well understood tool, but it is very limited.
> 
> This is actually not too bad for many of the things I want to do (not
> all).

Problem solved. You need a word processor.

> I currently need a free form editing device that allows color and
> polished look, and then actually prints the same as it looks on the
> monitor (to some degree I consider that a "quality" issue).  The
> second thing I need is a format that I can send electronically, and
> expect the other end to also be able to print a reasonable
> facsimile.

What formats can the other end accept?  This can narrow down your
options *very* quickly.  Rather than beating around the bush, if
you're implying that they use Microsoft Word, save yourself the
conversion trouble and just use Microsoft Word.  (Assuming you didn't
turn your MS Word CD into a coaster using the microwave to make a nice
blue electric shine over the surface of the CD for a brief moment
before it bursts into yellow flames, like my old roommate did.  It's
quite an impressive sight, by the way.  Don't try this at home.)

> HTML fails because the viewers being used (probably IE or Netscape)
> are inconsistent at printing, even when they display the same. It
> can come close though in terms of being able to send things to other
> people and at least have the display on the monitor look nice, over
> a variety of o/s (there are some things that one has to be careful
> with, but display gotchas are far fewer than print gotchas). If html
> tools that are in general use would actually print the same as they
> display, I'd be satisfied with that for now.

If that's your only other choice, then knock yourself out with
HTML. Just make sure you know what browser and version the other side
is using so you can write your HTML so it works on their browser. If
you don't know what they use, good luck in writing anything that will
look and print suitably on all browsers.

> This is good when writing a book or thesis or other paper that will be
> processed by someone who is knowledgable in the area. It doesn't work
> very well for general information interchange to the average user.

Information interchange is a nice little ideal, but even in some
people's ideal XML world there would be competing DTDs.  There's a lot
of interest in having a common format that could convert to and from
everything ever made, but there's more than a couple problems in the
way, including...

1) Feature support. As an extreme example, Appleworks for the Apple
][c probably isn't exactly very good at handling embedded Windows 3.1
OLE objects. How do you specify middle-ground standards for features
only one word processor supports?

2) Vendor support. This means not locking the specification in the
back of a filing cabinet in a disused cupboard in the cellar of the
local planning office, with a warning labeled "Beware of the Leopard"
on it. (Obligatory Douglas Adams reference) Even more so, this means
effort on the part of vendors to write converters to and from their
format for the common format.  Microsoft has repeatedly shown no
effort to reveal their file formats, and ObscureWordProcessor for the
Mac was made by a company that dissolved two years ago.  How do you
uncover their file format?

If you want interchange to the "average user," you need to know what
specific formats this user can use.  Not import, *use*.  If this means
living in a Microsoft World, well, we do... but we can advocate (and
train people for) better systems while we accommodate other peoples'
unfortunate reality in the specific situations that call for it.

> On
> the other hand, the means on Linux which work for general interchange
> with other o/s's and non-technical users don't print right. Both of them
> fail in one area. Skimming ahead, I see some URL's for resume styles,
> which might do the job, if I can take a TeX (LaTeX) document generated
> from one of these, and come up with a form that I can (a) print locally,
> and (b) exports a format other o/s non-technical users can view.

PDF will help you there.

> Possibly if there is a problem with the latter exported format not
> printing correctly, I could print the document myself and send it in
> parallel with email of the electronic format.

If that's an option, don't bother trying to make a file that will work
on their computer. People prefer reading from paper rather than from a
screen anyway.

> So far the best solution that can be used by non-technical users,
> and also prints the way it displays, seems to be Word (but then it
> has the reverse frustration...I can't seem to produce it on
> Linux...even app's that have an import/export ability don't do it
> correctly and fail...when it doesn't actually crash or refuse to
> import, the imported format often loses quality when trying to print
> it, it prints what is displayed).

The easiest thing to do is dual boot. I've been running pure linux for
a few years, but I can't say it hasn't been without some amount of
accommodation. I grudgingly use the university labs when I really need
to use a Microsoft product, and those cases are rare.  I can't afford
to buy current versions of anything, and I'm stuck with my useless old
CDs of Windows 95 and Word 95.  Staroffice may never have perfect
filters, since they have to reverse engineer Word, and I use it to
*read* documents, but I worry about things being broken.

The fact is, Word is not an acceptable format for *general purpose*
document interchange because of the problem you mention.  Nothing can
*really* read Word files except Word.  By the time that changes,
nothing can read the new Word format except the new version of Word.

The vast majority of the time, sending a PDF file and a url to the
acrobat reader site is good enough for general purpose document
interchange.

> My main interaction attempts with LaTeX have so far been through LyX,
> which probably places more constraints that pure TeX or LaTeX.

Probably, yes, but I must admit, I haven't used LyX yet. More out of
habit than anything else, I just write LaTeX in XEmacs - an option I'd
recommend, if you get one of the good books on LaTeX.  On the other
hand, LyX might be easier.

> I really wish the import menu didn't have everything except ascii
> text deactivated (the export menu doesn't even have any entries). I
> probably need to give up on LyX and look into actually learning TeX
> (I wonder if windows understands any of the TeX output formats
> without installing special software?).

I'd assume that if things are deactivated in the import menu, it's
either because of a lack of available filters installed on the system,
or maybe a compile-time option, maybe the configuration of LyX, or
less likely permissions or paths.  But I'd be wary of anything that
claims to convert from Word to LaTeX.

> What format would you suggest which: (a) is readable by non-technical
> windows users (e.g., IE or Word can import it and the imported version
> looks like what I see from Linux...PostScript fails here), (b) prints
> correctly from default viewing tools of windows (html fails here), and
> (c) has at least some application available on Linux which will allow me
> to print it correctly (PostScript works if the PostScript output
> actually looks like the screen view) without rebooting to windows? It is
> a tall order, and I don't think there is a solution that is completely
> satisfactory.

PDF, or Word.  That's assuming that by 'default viewing tools of
windows' you include Acrobat Reader.  Word is my last choice, really.
It's a pain in the tail for someone with an old version of Word to
read a new Word document - it's not even compatible with itself, it's
a convoluted format that can't degrade for viewing on older versions
of Word at all.  Ask anyone who's never felt a need to upgrade from
their 486 and just got a new Word document from a friend.

> Any "polished" business paper (versus technical documents) requires
> attention to appearance.

*cough* Any document that needs to impress something on its audience
requires attention to appearance.

> I need a polished look in both printed form and electronic form,
> with the expectation that if I send an electronic format, it might
> be printed.

In that case, you need to use the format supported natively by what
they use.

> There are many people that make a decision to drop further
> consideration of a document the moment it looks sloppy, has spelling
> errors, so on...they don't have time to deal with frustrations of
> fixing someone else's carelessness, and I have no influence
> whatsoever on changing their way of thinking (nor do I have the
> power to ignore these people).

Hmm. As a tangent, it seems nothing short of ridiculous to trash a
document on the basis of its grammar or spelling alone, rather than
its content.

> If windows and standard applications of all the platforms and users that
> I must communicate with all understood TeX, and had the ability to both
> view and print it, I'd snap it up in an instant and become a guru in the
> field.

"Standard applications" begs the question of which standard.  You can
generate PDF from LaTeX, which can be viewed and printed on a number
of systems.

> The strengths that are mentioned above about the ability to
> create a consistent format and enforce a style are good for professional
> documentation and academic publishing...but within the area of casual
> exchange among unskilled computer users it breaks down, and becomes a
> road block. I suspect that if someone at MS suggested creating TeX
> import and export abilities in Word, they'd be fired.

And a big surprise that would be, eh?  Casual exchange isn't easy.

> I'm overly pessimistic in this area because it has been a major
> frustration that I can't do anything about.

I don't think I'm quite as pessimistic.  Different needs require
different tools, and a glut of tools that do similar things is better
than a single tool that doesn't really fit any niche.

> I'm tied by what is available to the common windows user, and by
> what I can print from linux. Even if I can ignore windows users, I
> can't seem to get easier word processing documents to print right,
> so I'm forced to learn TeX or PostScript and write code to print a
> nice document...

The only time I've ever had to write Postscript by hand was to make my
business cards, and I've since learned how to do it other ways.  I've
never *had* to write TeX for anything, because I haven't had to do
anything that the LaTeX macros don't provide for.  And anymore, I do
what I need in SGML and DSSSL.  That includes writing academic papers,
my resume, letters, proposals, and memos.

> I can no longer just do simple edits and be done, I have to manually
> rewrite raw document tags. And in the end, when I find what I need,
> I still need to reboot to win just to put in a new ink cartridge and
> align the ink jet printer, so I still can't avoid win. Major
> frustration.

*That* sounds like a winprinter problem. Yaaay.

Here's what I did for my resume: I wrote it in LaTeX, generated PDF
and PS from it, and then had a friend edit it and make a Word 97
version.  A lot of temporary agencies want Word format, and most seem
to have computers with Windows 98 and Word 97.

I sent email to the relevant places, looking for work, and included a
URL to my web page which has links to all the formats.  Two of them
had difficulty printing my Word 97 document anyway.

-- 
Chris Riddoch       | epistemological
socket at peakpeak.com | humility