[texhax] Interaction with Scientific Word Documents and basic LaTeX questions

[Thomas Jacobs]

Hi, I am a Windows MiKTeX user working in TeXnicCenter and have a
coauthor that is a Scientific Word user.  I have struggled to decipher
how to make this operate smoothly as I am the more technology friendly
person in the relationship.  Along the way I downloaded a free
Scientific Word Viewer whose most recent iteration is from 2005.
While it permits me to see the LaTeX file output and print if I save
it as read only, much of the material is less than easily accessible
such as footnotes and citation references.  I then began trying to
build the document directly in TeXnicCenter and after some web
searches discovered I needed to comment out this line to enable
successful completion:

\input{tcilatex}

The following topic post was particularly helpful in this regard:

http://www.latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6906&start=0

One of the most surprising things about this process is that the LaTeX
file generated via Scientific Word uses many LaTeX commands and
structures I am completely ignorant of.  The reason I write is to ask
several questions.

1.  On working with a Scientific Word user the aforementioned post
indicated that they (the SW user) should save their document in
Portable LaTeX format.  Can anyone comment on whether there are other
things I should ask the coauthor to do in order to manage the editing
process with the least difficulty?

2.  On simple LaTeX commands I was unable to find (no doubt my fault)
in either Kopka and Daly (2004) or Mittelbach and Goossens (2004):

a.  What is the purpose of a backslash without an appended command?
For example, I find them between all sentences as in this excerpt:

TIPS are coupon bonds that have been issued by the U.S. government since
1997. \ They are currently auctioned at 5-, 10-, and 30-year maturities. \
Unlike standard Treasury notes and bonds whose coupon and principal are
fixed dollar payments, TIPS make payments proportional to the Consumer Price
Index (CPI).

I have never seen this before and wondered what purpose it serves.

b.  Does the following structure

&=&

serve to keep the = signs aligned in a multiline equation?  If not,
what do the & on each side of the equals sign do?

Thanks very much for any insight one of you could provide.

Tom


-- 
Thomas Jacobs