[OS X TeX] Faint of heart ...

[Enrico Riboni]

Le 4 mai 04, à 16:10, Eric Steed a écrit :

> I almost hesitate to chime in here, I've only been a subscriber for
> a little over a year, and have been struggling to learn OS X TeX
> for only two or three ...
> And yet, with an IQ of a little less than 147 and a background in
> typographic design, I am still quite lost ...
> It's simple more effective for me to set type by hand ...

I do not know enough about TeX itself, but for LaTeX, IMHO it may not 
be for the faint of heart but it is for those weak in typography and 
design: as in my case, my IQ is not even worth mentioning as it is 
desperately average, I never took a class in typographic design or 
anything related to typesetting, and ... LaTeX allows me to give the 
illusion I am capable of producing good looking documents. It's more 
than an illusion, thought, the documents do look great. Maybe we should 
start advertizing LaTeX to the "not faint of hearth, but low-to-average 
IQ's and with low to nonexisting typesetting and document design skills 
but who are looking to a software with the skills they do not possess". 
;-)

Anyway, it is true that the beginner is overwhelmed by packages & other 
difficult choices. That's why I made a small Web page in French I think 
I mentioned already on this list, for people who want to start with 
LaTeX outside of Academia. And I am hoping to get some ideas to improve 
it in the present discussing.

Enrico Riboni
http://www.ozone.ch/enrico/

-----------------------------------------------------
Please see <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/> for list
guidelines, information, and LaTeX/TeX resources.