[pdftex] MS Word hell, TeX heaven?

[Sebastian Rahtz]

> Ever tried this with more than 2 people, and really in parallel? The
> "change tracking" feature of word processors (not only Word) is not
> scalable, and doesn't do versioning.

I have never used Word; but I do watch my partner using it
(she writes courses for the Open University here), and the 
collaboration/change tracking parts of Word are fundamental
to her daily work, and get the job done. When I say to her
"why don't you use XML", she always says "where is the stuff in the
editor to let me swap drafts with my colleagues"


> Okay. LaTeX is a programming language, in which you can do everything.
> So, of course, you have to define what macros sets are useable by people
> giving inputs to the database.

and then you take away the great _advantage_ of LaTeX, 
which is the ability to define user shorthands :-}


> > which of these advantages is not also true of RTF?
> Which RTF? There are dozens of rtf "standards" :-) (I know: a bit
> exagerated, but not really a lot).

a bit like LaTeX, in fact, due to the thousands of LaTeX
packages all scrabbling around in the same macro namespace...

> In addition, RTF doesn't help a lot in separating form from content,
> which is a basic asset of LaTeX. 
when used well, yes. how many people use LaTeX well? 

> But the major weakness of TeX, IMHO, is the fact that it has bad support
> for separation of form and content.

TeX is a typesetting language. It describes printed pages, and
it is very good at it. It never claimed to be about content, did it?
-- 
Sebastian Rahtz      OUCS Information Manager
13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431