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  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@dog.topology.org>
  To  : Jake Hawkes <jake@eclectic.com.au>
  Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 10:41:06 +101800

Re: SO and WP both useless! (almost)

Jake,

Thanks for your comment about PDF files.

Coincidentally, last night while musing over this,
I also thought to myself, why don't I just
do everything in plain TeX, which has been my real word
processor for the last 15 years -- because I'm a scientist,
not a clerk or receptionist -- and then just hope that
users of MS Word can copy/paste the PDF stuff into their
word docs.

I would normally not want a protracted discussion on one
single little sub-issue of a particular applications issue,
but realistically, MS users _can't_ abandon MS until they get
a lifeline back to MS file formats.

When you want to have a revolution, you have to do more than
jsut be better - you have to do everything the incumbent can do, and
significantly more. Linux can do the significantly more, but not
yet the full "feature" set of the incumbent.

So I'm going to give the PDF file idea a go.
I know that there is some ability to import PDF stuff into
MS word. But it really has to be able to do
both text and embedded PS files.
Then I'm home and hosed.

[By the way, in my recent travels, I found that "hosed" is now
an Amercian word of a very negative sort. Not the "hosed" word that
we use here on this south sea isle.]

Question:
While I'm doing my own PDF->MS-Word import experiments, can
anyone tell me if this does work okay.

Contrary to what some people think, I am not standing up for MS
in any way, nor do I want to put down linux. I still always say
that "linux is manna from heaven" - if you're scientifically
inclined anyway, and know how to program computers....
My view is perhaps more anti-MS than most people's - I'm even against
my wysiwyg tools -- because that means "what you see is _all_ you get".
My preferred tools are TeX for text documents, hand-written PostScript
for printed graphics, and hand-written HTML and PHP3 for web
passive and active content. No "authoring tools" for me.
And MS-Word, StarOffice, WP etc. are all _authoring_ tools.
Real programmers use a text editor and an xterm!

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

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