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Re: getting out of LaTeX

Subject: Re: getting out of LaTeX
From: Lee Sau Dan
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 17:16:09 +0800
Newsgroups: sci.lang
>>>>> "Dik" == Dik T Winter <Dik.Winter@xxxxxx> writes:

    Dik> There is a basic difference between a word-processor and
    Dik> TeX/LaTeX.

Sure!


    Dik> And that is what makes converting one to the other so
    Dik> difficult.  In a word-processor you do the layout by hand,
    Dik> look at your screen whether it is good enough, and that is
    Dik> that.

By this definition, WordPerfect 5.1 isn't a "word-processor".


    Dik> When printing it at a resolution much higher than your screen
    Dik> resolution, sometimes the results can be pretty bad.

What?   I suppose  a  device with  a  higher resolution  can at  worst
emulate a lower resolution device.

BTW, although  printers generally have higher  spatial resolution than
displays, they have a very  limited colour resolution when compared to
True-Colour  display  cards  +-  monitors.   Non-photographic  printers
usually use  dithering to create  the illusion of millions  of colours
out  of  only  4-6  available  colours.   And  by  dithering,  they're
sacrificing spatial resolution.


    Dik> On the other hand, TeX/LaTeX is a typesetting language.  You
    Dik> tell it how the document should look and it will look like
    Dik> you told it once printed.

And it's the real WYSIWYG  system: What I preview with Ghostscript (or
gv) or xpdf (or Acrobat Reader) looks exactly like the printout.  Only
the resoultion is different.


    Dik> It may look horrible when you preview it on a windowing
    Dik> system that does not know about anti-aliassing, but once
    Dik> printed it looks good.

But digital photos show better on screen than on printout.  :)


    Dik> There is even no problem get  out of it A3 or A2 posters just
    Dik> as you wanted (but your preview will always be pretty bad).

I  once prepared an  A1-sized poster  with LaTeX.   What I  preview on
screen with  Ghostscript is exactly  what finally gets printed  out in
A1-size.  And I could easily scale the Postscript file to A4 to have a
printed preview  -- using an ordinary  A4 colour printer --  of how it
looks like when printed in A1-size.


-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     +Z05biGVm-                          +AH4-{@nJX6X+AH4-}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/+AH4-danlee

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