[OS X TeX] Who should use (La)TeX - who is able to use it?

[Jon Crump]

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, Gerben Wierda wrote:

>
> What almost everybody would like was a WYSIWYG editor which would produce the 
> quality of TeX (better even, because some parts of TeX can do with 
> improvement) but which would be completely GUI in its interface.
>
> G

I'm not the most advanced computer user and I too often get frustrated 
with TeX's opacity and wish it were easier to learn how to do something in 
TeX that I haven't done before. On the other hand, one of the big reasons 
I took the trouble to make the leap from word-processors to TeX was 
because I _didn't_ want WYSIWYG. A word processor gives the dangerous 
illusion that your words are beautiful right out of the gate -- they're 
usually not.

I like the two-stage process of writing with TeX: first you squeeze out 
some words, it's hard, they're not pretty, and this is reflected in the 
way they look on the screen in plain ASCII and coded instructions. Then 
you massage them, edit them, clean them up, and then you run them through 
TeX. Only then do they become beautiful.

Jon
__________
J.J. Crump
Dept. of History 353560
University of Washington
Seattle, WA. 98195

--------------------- Info ---------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>