[yandytex] Switch from Y&Y to ...?

[Murray Eisenberg]

Yes, I'm well aware that MiKTeX is bundled in proTeXt.  I believe my
use of MiKTeX, with WinEdt, preceds the appearance of proTeXt; I
already had a paid-for and working WinEdt (since updated many times).

The main reason I tend to use Y&Y TeX instead of MiKTeX is the
sluggishness of the Yap viewer that comes with the latter, as compared
with the ultra-speed of the dviwindo viewer that is part of Y&Y TeX.
This is something quite noticeable even on my 3.2GHz Pentium Extreme
Edition system with 3GB of RAM.

Moreover, any window I open that covers part of the Yap window leaves
a gray rectangle on the latter that I can remove only by refreshing
the Yap window.  And, unless I've missed a setting to fix this, when I
re-TeX a document with MiKTeX, the display in Yap does not update
automatically - until I click in the Yap window.

I haven't timed printing in Y&Y TeX (via dvipsone) vs. that with the
MiKTeX programs, but my impression is that the former is a bit faster
than the latter.

Another reason for using Y&Y is the font-identification capabilities
in the dviwindo viewer: You can bring up a list of all fonts used in
the viewed document and color different fonts differently to verify
which text uses which font.  Is there anything like this with Yap?

Another reason I HAD been preferring Y&Y to MiKTeX was the
integration of the Lucida (and Times) fonts in Y&Y.  Of course that
should reason should be irrelevant very soon, once I reassure myself
that the new macros for the Lucida fonts give me results as good as
those I had with Y&Y.

Another possible reason is the ease with which I can subset fonts in a
PostScript file produced by Y&Y's dvipsone.  Perhaps one can do that
with MiKTeX, but I don't know how yet.

> murray eisenberg wrote
> 
> > Or MiKTeX?
> > 
> > David Marcus wrote:
> > > I've been using Y&Y TeX for a long time. I could just keep using it, or 
> > > I could switch to another TeX. Any suggestions? If I switch, should I 
> > > switch to TeX Live or proTeXt?
> > 
> > Or MiKTeX?
> 
> protext is a bundled copy of miktex (designed for ease of installation
> by the tex "virgin").  there's no reason not to use it if you've got
> the cd (as a tug member): it saves on net bandwidth ... you'll have to
> update it, but not download the whole thing.
> 
> so back to david's original question.  can i ask a counter-question:
> do you feel your y&y is inadequate?  if so, what is it that you need?
> 
> if it's just current packages or other macros, you can "just update".
> 
> if it's pdftex you're after, you *have* to change: even if someone,
> somewhere, picks up y&y tex, it's going to be a long time before
> they've plugged the pdftex extensions into it.
> 
> robin
> 
> --
> http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/yandytex
> 


-- 
  Murray Eisenberg                       Internet:  murray at math.umass.edu
  Mathematics & Statistics Dept.            Voice:  413-545-2859 (W)
  University of Massachusetts                       413-549-1020 (H)
  Amherst, MA 01003                           Fax:  413-545-1801