on Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 02:12:10AM +0800, csj (csj@mindgate.net) wrote: > On Sunday 25 March 2001 10:22, Ethan Benson wrote: > > On Sat, Mar 24, 2001 at 05:13:47PM -0800, Karsten M. Self wrote: > > > I've used DocBook for a couple of projects, and prefer LaTeX for > > > generalized typeset output myself as well. For Real Work they're > > > the Right Tools, IMO. > > > > except for someone who isn't interested in learning them, latex is > > fine for me, but not for the user of the computer in question. > > I use abiword for ALL of my non-mail writing. I do freelance writing > (that's semi-real work) and it has rarely failed me on deadlines. > Yesterday was an exception: my Slot A played possum on me. Latex and > Docbook? Compared to them, vi seems like heaven. (Offhand I don't > even know what command to use to fire up docbook.) Um. 'vi' works, though emacs/xemacs is probably more powerful. DocBook is an SGML standard, not an editor. The best support is arguably sgml-tools under emacsen. Despite the wealth of tagging syntax, it's actually damned near trivial to get started, at least for someone who's familiar with tag-markup syntax -- HTML is a good starter, LaTeX or *roff users will comprehend. The tidying and prettifying tools under DocBook are pretty good. I find LaTeX more readable -- the tagging is less verbose and certain constructs, such as paragraphs, are imputed from whitespace -- but DocBook itself is a reasonably workable convention. Generating various output formats -- PS, PDF, HTML, and RTF are natively supported -- is straightforward. What LaTeX buys is the ability to create rightly formatted ASCII output including pagination, ToC, index, etc. DocBook doesn't currently support this, the workaround is to intermediate through a text-mode browser such as lynx or w3m. Pagination can be added through a tool such as 'pr', but correlation between pages and ToC isn't maintained. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? There is no K5 cabal http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ http://www.kuro5hin.org
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