[OS X TeX] Macintouch report on TeX versus Word

[David B. Thompson, Ph.D., P.E., D.WRE, CFM]

On Jan 19, 2009, at 08:54, Michael Sharpe wrote:

> Briefly, it was claimed that 95% at NASA produced tech reports using  
> Word/MathType, and that many of the less than 5% written in TeX  
> could not be processed in a timely way because of macro problems. I  
> would guess that the real problem was that NASA was not providing  
> proper guidelines for TeX use, and most likely lacked TeXpertize in  
> their Technical Publications office.


In addition, it is also possible that the authors were not providing  
their macros.

One of the things I learned working in a cooperative but distributed  
environment is that my macro set has to be included with the document,  
or it won't render correctly. As a result, I'm tempted to setup a  
subversion server that will allow me to check-in my basic style file  
(a collection of useful things gathered into one spot over the years)  
and the document source. Then my colleagues could check out the source  
and my basic macro-set.

The site could serve my bibliography database as well, which is  
growing as I continue to move paper documents to PDF and create  
entries. (Yes, I'm years behind. My bad.)

-=d

David Thompson, Ph.D., P.E., D.WRE, CFM
Civil Engineer/Hydrologist
http://drdbthompson.net
http://drdbthompson.net/DavidThompson.vcf.zip