[texhax] MS Word & Mathtype to TeX

Reinhard Kotucha reinhard.kotucha at web.de
Mon Dec 19 23:20:39 CET 2011


On 2011-12-19 at 20:45:09 +0000, cornwall_5 at comcast.net wrote:

 > But, my question is: why can't that universal and stable program be
 > MS Word? (+ Design Science's Mathtype) 
 > 
 > :) 
 
Word was originally written as a replacement for mechanical
typewriters.  It's extended occasionally, but it's still not suitable
for high quality typesetting and never will be.  It simply wasn't made
for that.  In short: the concept is wrong, if they have one at all. 

TeX and LaTeX were written for typesetting and thus have been stable
from the beginning.
 
 > Can journals not afford a new version of MS Word once every ten
 > years?

It's not the program they can't afford.  It's their workflow which
would be too expensive.
 
 > The IDEAL way would be to ask Microsoft not to change their product
 > ever.

This is what *they* can't afford.  They lag behind for decades anyway.

It might sound a bit disappointing to you, but Microsoft Word 2007 has
already parts of TeX's math engine built-in.  Even Microsoft
recognized that TeX can't be ignored.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
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Microsoft isn't the answer. Microsoft is the question, and the answer is NO.
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