Manuscripts 1 2 7 – Writing Tool For Complex Documents
It wont make you write like Ernest Hemingway.
But, Hemingway Editor will make your writing stronger and more effective. Hemingway Editor helps you edit your writing so that your words are clear and powerful. It examines your words and sentences pointing out areas you can change to make your writing better.
Preparing your work for publication with IEEE should be seamless. Save time and effort with authoring tools and resources that will help you write, prepare, and share your research better. Write collaboratively with your co-authors in Overleaf, an authoring tool for LaTeX and rich text documents. Overleaf is preloaded with. List at least 6 requirements that must be considered when creating complex documents. 7: Outline what typical categories and logical sequences of data, information and knowledge might include. 8: Describe the process you would follow when developing the structure and content of complex documents. 9: List and describe at least ten essential.
Hemingway Editor is great for anyone writing blog posts, business communication, fiction, essays or academic papers.
In whatever you write, even if its an academic essay or paper, clarity is important. Clarity sharpens your writing and shows the power and purpose of your words. Hemingway Editor helps you refine your writing, so its not wordy and vague. Your writing becomes clear. What is Hemingway Editor?
Hemingway Editor https://hemingwayapp.com is a free online editing tool. It analyzes text for readability. Readability is how easy or difficult to it is to understand a piece of writing. An essential part of good writing is readability. Hemingway Editor pinpoints things that affect the readability of your work.
Hemingway Editors readability score shows the level of education a person needs to have to understand the text. On Hemingway Editor this shows up as grade levels (Grade 1, Grade 2 etc.). Any grade level below Grade 9 is considered good. Grade 10 is considered okay.
A lower grade level is better. Ernest Hemingways work is estimated to be between a 4 th and 6 th grade level of readability. I try to make my writing between Grades 58 (this blog post is Grade 5). Manuscripts 1 2 7 Writing Tool For Complex Documents Pdf What Does Hemingway Editor Analyze?
Five elements affect the readability of your writing. Hemingway Editor highlights each of these things in a different color. So, you can change words and sentences until the color disappears. Hemingway Editor analyzes:
The number of adverbs Adverbs qualify a verb. But qualifiers can weaken a verb. Heres an example sentence: The blog posts simply show different aspects of academic writing. The adverb is meant to strengthen the verb. But what if I write the sentence without the adverb? The sentence reads: The blog posts show different aspects of academic writing. In the second sentence, the verb show has more power without the word, simply. I dont need the adverb here.
Instances of passive voice Passive voice isnt as strong as active voice. Most of the time in writing you use active voice because it is sharper and more effective. Heres an example of passive voice: The muffins were baked. An example of active voice is: The pastry chef baked the muffins . The second sentence shows you that the subject, the pastry chef, performed the action. He baked the muffins. This shows you who completed the action. Its direct and stronger than the passive voice sentence. Limit the use of passive voice in your writing. You might use a little passive in academic writing but keep your focus on active voice.
Words or phrases with simpler alternatives Hemingway Editor shows you where you can simplify language and vocabulary. Should you always use a simpler word or phrase? Academic writing has a lot of phrases that are part of the academic language people use in writing. Some academic vocabulary is specific to your field. Most of these words you wont want to change. But, think about simplifying other words in your writing. Its hard to read an entire text with academic language. So, when you write, find the words that best describe what you mean.
Sentences that are hard to read Hemingway Editor points out sentences that are long and complex. Try to break some of these up. You want clear sentences with some variety in your writing. Some sentences are long, but make sure those long sentences arent hard to understand. So, when you see a sentence thats hard to read edit it, so its clear
Sentences that are very hard to read These are confusing and wordy sentences. If you see sentences highlighted as very hard to read, edit them. How Do Use Hemingway Editor?
Hemingway Editor is simple to use. First, copy your text. Then go to https://www.hemingwayapp.com and delete the example text. Paste your text into to it and edit the highlighted things in your writing. Everything is color-coded.
Adverbs are blue.
Passive voice is green.
Phrases with simpler alternatives are purple.
Sentences that are hard to read are yellow.
Sentences that are very hard to read are red.
When you finish editing, copy the text and paste it back into your document.
You can also write your text in Hemingway Editor, edit and then copy and paste into a document. The disadvantage of writing there is that you cannot save your work.
Watch the video, Hemingway Editor: A Great Free Online Editing Tool for Writers and see how to use Hemingway Editor! Conclusion
I use Hemingway Editor after I revise my writing and make significant changes to my draft. You can see how I revise writing in the post, Academic Revising 101: The Essential Essay Revision Checklist https://www.academicwritingsuccess.com/academic-revising-101-the-essential-essay-revision-checklist/. Then I edit my document, paste it into Hemingway Editor, and make more changes. My final step is editing my writing again.
Is Hemingway Editor a perfect online editing tool? No. There isnt a perfect editor of any kind. You always need to see what an editor suggests and make your own decisions on what to change.
But its my favorite online editor because it improves the work I edit, and also makes me better at spotting issues in my writing. Try it and see how it makes your writing clearer, stronger and more powerful. Manuscripts 1 2 7 Writing Tool For Complex Documents Free
And if this blog post helped you please share it with someone else you think could benefit from it.
Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash Allin Cottrell April 2003: German translation
June 2003: Spanish translation
April 2004: French translation
April 2005: Hebrewtranslation
May 2005: Korean translation(HTML orPDF) Contents 1 The claim
2 Printed documents
2.1 Composition versus typesetting
2.2 The evils of WYSIWYG
2.3 Document structure
2.4 Text editors
2.5 The virtues of ASCII
2.6 The typesetter
2.7 Putting it together
3 Digital dissemination
3.1 Simple documents
3.2 Complex documents
4 Qualification
5 Rant, rant
6 References
1 The claim
The word processor is a stupid and grossly inefficient tool for preparing text for communication with others. That is theclaim I shall defend below. It will probably strike you as bizarre atfirst sight. If I am against word processors, what do I propose: thatwe write in longhand, or use a mechanical typewriter? No. Whilethere are things to be said in favor of these modes of textpreparation I take it for granted that most readers of this essay willdo most of their writing using a computer, as I do. My claim is thatthere are much better ways of preparing text, using a computer, thanthe word processor.
The wording of my claim is intended to be provocative, but let me beclear: when I say word processors are stupid I am not sayingthat you , if you are a user of a word processor, are stupid.I am castigating a technology, but one that is assiduously promoted bythe major software vendors, and that has become a de facto standard of sorts. Unless you happen to have been in the right placeat the right time, you are likely unaware of the existence ofalternatives. The alternatives are not promoted by the major vendors,for good reason: as we shall see, they are available for free.
Let's begin by working back from the end product. Text that isdesigned to communicate ideas and information to others isdisseminated in two main ways:
As 'hard copy', that is, in the form of traditional printed documents.
By digital means: electronic mail, web pages, documents designed to be viewable on screen.
There is some overlap here. For instance, a document that is intendedfor printing may be distributed in digital form, in the hope that therecipient has the means to print the file in question. But let usconsider these two modes of dissemination in turn. 2 Printed documents
You want to type a document at your computer keyboard, and have itappear in nicely printed form at your computer's printer. Naturallyyou don't want this to happen in real time (the material appearing atthe printer as you type). You want to type the document first and'save' it in digital form on some storage medium. You want to beable to retrieve the document and edit it at will, and to send it tothe printer when the time is right. Surely a word processor-such asthe market leader, Microsoft Word-is the 'natural' way to do allthis? Well, it's one way, but not the best. Why not? 2.1 Composition versus typesetting
Preparing printable text using a word processor effectively forces youto conflate two tasks that are conceptually distinct andthat, to ensure that people's time is used most effectively and thatthe final communication is most effective, ought also to be kept practically distinct. Fontdoctor 10 7 day . The two tasks are
The composition of the text itself. By this I mean the actual choice of words to express one's ideas, and the logical structuring of the text. The latter may take various forms depending on the nature of the document. It includes matters such as the division of the text into paragraphs, sections or chapters, the choice of whether certain material will appear as footnotes or in the main text, the adding of special emphasis to certain portions of the text, the representation of some pieces of text as block quotations rather than as the author's own words, and so on.
The typesetting of the document. This refers to matters such as the choice of the font family in which the text is to be printed, and the way in which structural elements will be visually represented. Should section headings be in bold face or small capitals? Should they be flush left or centered? Should the text be justified or not? Should the notes appear at the foot of the page or at the end? Should the text be set in one column or two? And so on. The author of a text should, at least in the first instance,concentrate entirely on the first of these sets of tasks. That is theauthor's business. Adam Smith famously pointed out the great benefitsthat flow from the division of labor. Composition and logicalstructuring of text is the author's specific contribution to theproduction of a printed text. Typesetting is the typesetter'sbusiness. This division of labour was of course fulfilled in thetraditional production of books and articles in the pre-computer age.The author wrote, and indicated to the publisher the logical structureof the text by means of various annotations. The typesettertranslated the author's text into a printed document, implementing theauthor's logical design in a concrete typographical design. One onlyhas to imagine, say, Jane Austen wondering in what font to put thechapter headings of Pride and Prejudice to see how ridiculousthe notion is. Jane Austen was a great writer; she was not atypesetter.
You may be thinking this is beside the point. Jane Austen's writingwas publishable; professional typesetters were interested in laying itout and printing it. You and I are not so lucky; if we want a printedarticle we will have to do it ourselves (and besides, we want it donemuch faster than via traditional typesetting). Well, yes and no. Wewill in a sense have to do it ourselves (on our own computers), but wehave a lot of help at our disposal. In particular we have aprofessional-quality typesetting program available. This program (or set of programs) will in effect do for us, for free and in a few seconds or fractions of a second, the job that traditional typesetters did for Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott and all the rest. We just have to supply the program with a suitablymarked-up text, as the traditional author did.
I am suggesting, therefore, that should be two distinct 'moments' inthe production of a printed text using a computer. First one typesone's text and gets its logical structure right, indicating thisstructure in the text via simple annotations. This isaccomplished using a text editor , a piece of software not tobe confused with a word processor. (I will explain this distinctionmore fully below.) Then one 'hands over' one's text to a typesettingprogram, which in a very short time returns beautifully typeset copy. 2.2 The evils of WYSIWYG
These two jobs are rolled into one with the modern WYSIWYG ('What YouSee Is What You Get') word processor. You type your text, and as you go the text is given, on the computer screen, aconcrete typographical representation which supposedly correspondsclosely to what you will see when you send the document to the printer(although for various reasons it does not always do so). In effect,the text is continuously typeset as you key it in. At first sightthis may seem to be a great convenience; on closer inspection it is acurse. There are three aspects to this.
The author is distracted from the proper business of composing text,in favor of making typographical choices in relation to which she may haveno expertise ('fiddling with fonts and margins' when she should beconcentrating on content).
The typesetting algorithm employed by WYSIWYG word processorsacrifices quality to the speed required for the setting and resetting ofthe user's input in real time. The final product is greatly inferior tothat of a real typesetting program.
The user of a word processor is under a strong temptation to losesight of the logical structure of the text and to conflate this withsuperficial typographical elements. The first two points above should be self-explanatory. Let me expand onthe third. (Its importance depends on the sort of document underconsideration.) 2.3 Document structure
Take for instance a section heading. So far as thelogical structure of a document is concerned, all that matters is that aparticular piece of text should be 'marked' somehow as a sectionheading. One might for instance type sectionText of heading . How section headings will be implemented typographically in the printedversion is a separate question. When you're using a word processor,though, what you see is (all!) you get. You are forced to decide on aspecific typographical appearance for your heading as you create it.
Suppose you decide you'd like your headings in boldface, and slightlylarger than the rest of the text. How are you going to achieve thisappearance? There's more than one way to do it, but for most peoplethe most obvious and intuitive way (given the whole WYSIWYG context)is to type the text of the heading, highlight it, click the boldfaceicon, pull down the little box of point sizes for the type, and selecta larger size. The heading is now bold and large. Manuscripts 1 2 7 Writing Tool For Complex Documents Download
Great! Family tree maker 3 22 2 5 . But what says it's a heading? There's nothing in yourdocument that logically identifies this little bit of text as asection heading. Suppose at some later date you decide that you'dactually prefer to have the headings in small caps, or numbered withroman numerals, or centered, or whatever. What you'd like to say is'Please make such-and-such a change in the setting of all sectionheadings.' But if you've applied formatting as described above,you'll have to go through your entire document and alter each headingmanually.
Now there is a way of specifying the structural status ofbits of text in (for instance) Microsoft Word. You can , ifyou are careful, achieve effects such as changing the appearance ofall section headings with one command. But few users of Word exploitthis consistently, and that is not surprising: the WYSIWYG approachdoes not encourage concern with structure. You can easily-all tooeasily-'fake' structure with low-level formatting commands. Whentyping one's text using a text editor, on the other hand, the need toindicate structure is immediately apparent. 2.4 Text editors
OK, it's probably time to explain what a text editor is, and how itdiffers from a word processor. A modern text editor looks a bit likea word processor. It has the usual apparatus of pull-down menusand/or clickable icons for functions like opening and saving files,searching and replacing, checking spelling, and so on. But it has notypesetting functionality. The text you type appears on screen in aclear visual representation, but with no pretense at representing thefinal printed appearance of the document.
When you save your document, it is saved in the form of plain text , which in the US context usually means in 'ASCII' (theAmerican Standard Code for Information Interchange). ASCIIis composed of 128 characters (this is sometimes referred to as a'7-bit' character set, since it requires 7 binary digits for itsencoding: 2 to the seventh power = 128). It includes the numerals 0through 9, the roman alphabet in both upper and lower case, thestandard punctuation marks, and a number of special characters. ASCIIis the lowest common denominator of textual communication in digitalform. An ASCII message will be 'understandable' by any computer inthe world. If you send such a message, you can be sure that therecipient will see precisely what you typed.
By contrast, when you save a file from a word processor, the filecontains various 'control' characters, outside of the ASCII range.These characters represent the formatting that you applied (e.g. boldface or italics) plus various sorts of internal 'business'relating to the mechanics of the word processor. They are notuniversally 'understandable'. To make sense of them, you need acopy of the word processor with which the document was created (orsome suitable conversion filter). If you open a word processor filein a text editor, you will see (besides the text, or bits of it) a lotof 'funny looking stuff': this is the binary formatting code.
Since a text editor does not insert any binary formatting codes, ifyou want to represent features such as italics you have to do this via mark-up . That is, you type in an annotation (using nothingbut ASCII), which will tell the typesetter to put thespecified text into italics. For example, for the LaTeX typesetter(more on this below) you would type textitstuff you want in italics . Actually, if you are using a text editor which isdesigned to cooperate with LaTeX you would not have to type thisyourself. You'd type some kind of shortcut sequence, select from amenu, or click an icon, and the appropriate annotation would beinserted for you; the mechanics of typing an ASCII document suitablefor feeding to LaTeX are not much different from typing in a modernword processor. 2.5 The virtues of ASCII
The approach of composing your text in plain ASCII using a texteditor, then typesetting it with a separate program, has several'incidental' virtues.
Portability: as mentioned above, anybody , using any computer platform, will be able to read your marked-up text, even if they don't have the means to view or print the typeset version. By contrast your Snazz 9.0 word processor file can be completely incomprehensible to a recipient who doesn't have the same brand and version of word processor as you-unless he or she is quite knowledgeable about computers and is able to extract the actual text from the binary 'garbage'. And this applies to you over time, as much as to you and a correspondent at one time. You may well have difficulty reading Snazz 8.0 files using Snazz 9.0, or vice versa, but you'll never have any trouble reading old ASCII files.
Compactness: an ASCII file represents your ideas , and not a lot of word processor 'business'. For small documents in particular, word processor files can be as much as 10 times as large as a corresponding ASCII file containing the same relevant information.
Security: the 'text editor to typesetter' approach virtually guarantees that you will never have any problem of corruption of your documents (unless you suffer a hard disk crash or some comparable calamity). The source text will always be there, even if the typesetter fails for some reason. If you regularly use a word processor and have not had a problem with file corruption then you're very lucky!
(Further reading: Sam Steingold's page'No Proprietary Binary Data Formats'.) 2.6 The typesetter
By this time I owe you a bit more detail on the typesetter part of thestrategy I'm advocating. I won't go into technical details here, butwill try to say enough to give you some idea of what I'm talkingabout.
The basic typesetting program that I have in mind is called TeX, andwas written by Donald Knuth of Stanford University. TeX isavailable for free (via downloading from many Internet sites), informats suitable for just about every computer platform. (You can ifyou wish purchase a CDROM with a complete set of TeX files for avery modest price.) Knuth started work on TeX in 1977; in 1990 heannounced that he no longer intended to develop the program-notbecause of lack of interest, but rather because by this time theprogram was essentially perfected. It is as bug-free as any computerprogram can be, and it does a superb job of typesetting just about anymaterial, from simple text to the higher mathematics.
I referred above to LaTeX. If TeX is the basic typesettingengine, LaTeX is a large set of macros, initially developed byLeslie Lamport in the 1980s and now maintained by an internationalgroup of experts. These macros make life a lot easier for the averageuser of the system. LaTeX is still under active development, asnew capabilities and packages are built on top of the underlying typesetter.Various 'add-ons' for TeX are also under development, such as asystem which allows you to make PDF (Adobe's 'Portable DocumentFormat') files directly from your ASCII source files. (I say 'underdevelopment' but by this I just mean that they are continuously beingimproved. The programs are already very stable and full-featured.)
As mentioned above, you indicate the desired structure and formattingof your document to LaTeX in the form of a set of annotations.There are many books (and web-based guides) that give the details ofthese annotations, and I will not go into them here. The commonannotations are simple and easily remembered, besides whichLaTeX-friendly text editors (of which there are many) offer you ahelping hand.
One very attractive feature of LaTeX is the ability to change thetypeset appearance of your text drastically and consistently with just a few commands. The overall appearance is controlled by
The 'document class' that you choose (e.g. report, letter, article, book).
The 'packages' or style files that you decide to load.
You can, for instance, completely change the font family (consistentlyacross text, section headings, footnotes and all) and/or the sizes ofthe fonts used, by altering just one or two parameters in the'preamble' of your ASCII source file. Similarly, you can puteverything into two-column format, or rotate it from portrait tolandscape. It may be possible to accomplish something similar using aword processor, but generally it's much less convenient and you arefar more likely to mess up and introduce unintended inconsistencies offormatting.
You can get as complex as you care to, typesetting with LaTeX. Youcan choose a 'hands off' approach: just specify a document class andleave the rest up to the default macros. Generally this produces goodresults, the typesetting being of much higher quality than any wordprocessor. (Naturally, things like numbering of chapters, sectionsand footnotes, cross-references and so on, are all taken care ofautomatically.) Or you can take a more 'interventionist' approach,loading various packages (or even writing your own) to control variousaspects of the typography. If this is your inclination, you canproduce truly beautiful and individual output. 2.7 Putting it together
Let me give you just a brief idea of how this all works. If you havea good TeX setup it's like this: You type your text into aTeX-aware editor. You can type the required annotations directlyor have the editor insert them via menus or buttons. When you reach apoint where you'd like to take a look at the typeset version you makea menu choice or click a button in the editor to invoke thetypesetter. Another menu item or button will open a previewer inwhich you see the text as it will appear at the printer. Andgenerally this is true 'WYSIWYG'-the previewer will show a highlyaccurate representation of the printed output. You can zoom in orout, page around, and so on. You send the output to the printer withanother menu choice or button, or go back to editing. Manuscripts 1 2 7 Writing Tool For Complex Documents Online
At some later point in the process you want to preview the updatedfile. Click the typesetter button again. This time you don't have toinvoke the previewer again: if you've left it running in thebackground it will now automatically display the updated typesetversion. When you're done with an editing session you can delete thetypeset version of the file to conserve disk space. You just need tosave the ASCII source file; the typeset version can easily berecreated whenever you need it. 3 Digital dissemination
The previous section was mostly angled towards producing good-lookingtypeset output at the printer. Some other considerations arise whenyou're preparing a document with digital transmission in mind (email,web pages and so on).
Take email first. Cookie 5 0 6 protect your online privacy. Typically if people wish to send a short, ad hoc,message they type that message directly into an email client program,whether it be a 'traditional' text-based client such as Pine or aGUI (Graphical User Interface) program such as Netscape or Eudora. Inthat case the message probably goes out in the form of ASCII (orperhaps in HTML, i.e. HyperText Mark-up Language, the language of Webpages, which is itself mostly composed of ASCII). But what if youwant to send a longer piece of text that you have already preparedindependently of your email client program?
For this purpose it is increasingly common to 'attach' a document ina word processor format. How does the alternative strategy work inthis case?
Well, we have to distinguish between two situations: Is the text inquestion relatively short and uncomplicated (a memo, a letter, minutesof a meeting, a listing of agenda, a schedule for a visit) or is itmore complex (an academic paper-perhaps with a lot of mathematics, areport with illustrations, a book manuscript)? The 'ASCII plustypesetter' approach leads to different suggestions in these twocases. 3.1 Simple documents
With simple documents, we have to ask: Do we really need thetypesetting, the font information and all that? Is it not moreefficient, more in the interest of effective and economicalcommunication, just to post plain ASCII text, with the minimalformatting that ASCII allows? This both conserves communicationsbandwidth (remember that word processor files can be much bigger than ASCII files containing the same actual text) and ensuresthat nobody will be frozen out of the communication effort becausethey happen not to be running Snazz 9.0. You can attach an ASCIIfile, created in a text editor, in the same way that you'd attach aword processor file, or you can simply paste it into the body of youremail (since it's nothing but plain text). Since TeX source filesare nothing but ASCII-and if we're talking about a simple documentthere won't be too many annotations, and those prettyself-explanatory-they can be treated in the same way. 3.2 Complex documents
Longer and more complicated documents may well be easier to read intypeset form. Math may be hard to convey in ASCII and of coursecomplex diagrams and images are out altogether. So what about TeX,in this context? I have argued that word processor files can beproblematic, because your correspondent might not have Snazz 9.0 likeyou do. But doesn't this cut both ways? Even if you're fired upenough about TeX to give it a try, how many of your correspondentshave a TeX installation? This is a reasonable query, but it isanswerable. If you want your correspondent to be able to see atypeset version of your file, and she doesn't have a TeXinstallation, you have these options:
Convert the TeX source file to HTML. There are good conversion programs for this purpose. (HTML and TeX actually have a strong family resemblance, in that they both involve logical mark-up, so inter-conversion can be accomplished with a high degree of fidelity. 1 ) Then your correspondent can read your text using a web browser.
Does your correspondent have access to a Postscript printer? In an academic or business environment this is quite likely. In that case you could send a fully typeset version of your document in the form of a postscript file, which she can just send to the printer. And/or she can view it on screen if she installs the 'ghostview' program (free for downloading from the Internet).
Does your correspondent have the 'Acroread' reader for Adobe PDF files installed? (Again, it's a free download.) If so, you can send a PDF version of your typeset document.
In discussing the options for transmitting text via email, we'vealready hit on the issue of preparing text for web pages. You havethe option of writing HTML directly. If you don't want to do that,you can write HTML indirectly using a suitable GUI editor, NetscapeCommunicator for example. Sure, you can also produce HTML using MSWord (incidentally, horrible HTML, full of extraneous tags that makeit awkward to edit using any other application). If you're in TeXmode it's easy to convert your documents into (clean,standard-compliant) HTML. 4 Qualification
I have attempted to make a strong pitch for the 'ascii plustypesetter' alternative to word processors. I will admit, however,that there are some sorts of documents for which a WYSIWYGword processor is indeed the natural tool. I'm thinking of short, adhoc, documents which have a high ratio of formatting 'business' totextual content: flyers, posters, party invitations and the like. Youcould do these in TeX, but it would not be efficient. The standardLaTeX document classes (report, article, etc.) would be of littleuse to you. And while LaTeX is very smart at handlingautomatically the range of fonts that you're likely to want in aformal text, it's not geared toward the sort of 'mixing andmatching' of jolly fonts that you might want in a casual production.Logical structure is not really an issue: you're interested in 'rawformatting'. You want to know, for instance, If I put that line into a 36-point font, will that push my last line onto the nextpage, which I don't want? WYSIWYG is your man.
If most of your word-processing work is of this kind, you probablystopped reading a long time ago. If most of your text preparationwork involves the production of relatively formal documents, thisqualification doesn't affect the essentials of my case. 5 Rant, rant
It may not have escaped your notice that I'm a bit worked up aboutthis theme. Yes, I am. The point is that it's not just a matter ofan academic debate between alternative modes of text preparation.It's a set of scales in which the might and wealth of the majorsoftware vendors is all on one side. To be blunt, we're looking at asituation in which MS Word is poised to become, for much of the world, the standard for the preparation of documents usingcomputers. But Word is a standard that has little to commend it otherthan the fact that it is (or aspires to be) a standard.
It's a bit like QWERTY. Do you know that story? Why the standardarrangement of keys on typewriter keyboards (and by extensioncomputer keyboards) has QWERTYUIOP along the top line? That was notthe original arrangement of typewriter keys. It was designed for apurpose, namely to slow typists down . The problem was thatthe expertise of the early typists quickly outran the capabilities ofthe early mechanical typewriters: a fast typist could jam the keys,hitting them faster than they could return after striking theribbon. QWERTY distributed the keys so they couldn't go so fast. Thisis clearly a crazy arrangement for the keys on an electronic keyboard,but it's too late to change: QWERTY is standard, and all attempts torationalize the keyboard have failed in the face of that reality.
Similarly, I'm arguing that MS Word has no right to be astandard for document preparation, since it's clearly less efficient(for most purposes) than readily available alternatives. I'm hopingthat it's not too late in this case, that there's still theopportunity of saying No to Word. Actually, in a sense Word is worsethan QWERTY: it's not a real standard, but rather an escalator. TheMicrosoft 'standard' for the binary representation of documentformatting is something that is variable at the whim of MicrosoftCorporation. The MS Word quasi-monopoly piggybacks off the MicrosoftWindows quasi-monopoly (an issue which I will not get into here). Andso long as they are not hard-pressed by commercial rivals, Microsofthas no particular interest in establishing any sort of long-termstandard for the binary representation of formatting. On thecontrary, they have a strong interest in forcing you to 'upgrade'Word at regular intervals. Oh dear, Word N.0 won't read the documentyour colleague just sent you, prepared using N+1? Well, you'd betterupdate then, hadn't you? Even if there are no features in N+1, thatwere not present in N, that are of any real value to you. 2 6 References
If you've come with me this far, you might be interested in moredetails about good text editors, the TeX typesetting system and soon.
The best place to start for info about TeX and friends is probablythe TUG homepage(TUG is the TeX UsersGroup). This will provide all the links you might need; one of themain ones is to the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network(CTAN) sites, from which you candownload complete TeX systems for just about all computer platforms.Such systems include the actual typesetter, a large collection ofmacros, a previewer, and software for generating printable files.
TeX packages (free ones at any rate) do not generally include thetext editor that you'll also need (unless you already have one thatyou like). There are many choices, but my personal favorite forworking with TeX files is Emacs,along with the AUC TeXpackage. The latter makes Emacs very TeX-friendly: it will highlightTeX syntax so you can see any errors in your mark-up at a glance, andit also offers a wide range of TeX-related commands on convenientmenus.
In case you're interested, here's a screen shotof an TeX editing session using Emacs (PNG, 40678 bytes). Footnotes:
1 The binary coding used by word processors is a quite different animal, so inter-conversion between TeX and word processor formats is not easy. In addition, since TeX is a superior typesetting engine, it is in principle impossible to convert a TeX document to, say, Word without loss of information.
2 For what it is worth, in my opinion as somebody who used Word for several years before switching to TeX, and who has a keen interest in typesetting, no worthwhile features have been introduced into MS Word for Windows since version 2.0 of circa 1990. File translated from T E X by T T H, version 1.93.
On 29 Jun 1999, 14:47.
But, Hemingway Editor will make your writing stronger and more effective. Hemingway Editor helps you edit your writing so that your words are clear and powerful. It examines your words and sentences pointing out areas you can change to make your writing better.
Preparing your work for publication with IEEE should be seamless. Save time and effort with authoring tools and resources that will help you write, prepare, and share your research better. Write collaboratively with your co-authors in Overleaf, an authoring tool for LaTeX and rich text documents. Overleaf is preloaded with. List at least 6 requirements that must be considered when creating complex documents. 7: Outline what typical categories and logical sequences of data, information and knowledge might include. 8: Describe the process you would follow when developing the structure and content of complex documents. 9: List and describe at least ten essential.
Hemingway Editor is great for anyone writing blog posts, business communication, fiction, essays or academic papers.
In whatever you write, even if its an academic essay or paper, clarity is important. Clarity sharpens your writing and shows the power and purpose of your words. Hemingway Editor helps you refine your writing, so its not wordy and vague. Your writing becomes clear. What is Hemingway Editor?
Hemingway Editor https://hemingwayapp.com is a free online editing tool. It analyzes text for readability. Readability is how easy or difficult to it is to understand a piece of writing. An essential part of good writing is readability. Hemingway Editor pinpoints things that affect the readability of your work.
Hemingway Editors readability score shows the level of education a person needs to have to understand the text. On Hemingway Editor this shows up as grade levels (Grade 1, Grade 2 etc.). Any grade level below Grade 9 is considered good. Grade 10 is considered okay.
A lower grade level is better. Ernest Hemingways work is estimated to be between a 4 th and 6 th grade level of readability. I try to make my writing between Grades 58 (this blog post is Grade 5). Manuscripts 1 2 7 Writing Tool For Complex Documents Pdf What Does Hemingway Editor Analyze?
Five elements affect the readability of your writing. Hemingway Editor highlights each of these things in a different color. So, you can change words and sentences until the color disappears. Hemingway Editor analyzes:
The number of adverbs Adverbs qualify a verb. But qualifiers can weaken a verb. Heres an example sentence: The blog posts simply show different aspects of academic writing. The adverb is meant to strengthen the verb. But what if I write the sentence without the adverb? The sentence reads: The blog posts show different aspects of academic writing. In the second sentence, the verb show has more power without the word, simply. I dont need the adverb here.
Instances of passive voice Passive voice isnt as strong as active voice. Most of the time in writing you use active voice because it is sharper and more effective. Heres an example of passive voice: The muffins were baked. An example of active voice is: The pastry chef baked the muffins . The second sentence shows you that the subject, the pastry chef, performed the action. He baked the muffins. This shows you who completed the action. Its direct and stronger than the passive voice sentence. Limit the use of passive voice in your writing. You might use a little passive in academic writing but keep your focus on active voice.
Words or phrases with simpler alternatives Hemingway Editor shows you where you can simplify language and vocabulary. Should you always use a simpler word or phrase? Academic writing has a lot of phrases that are part of the academic language people use in writing. Some academic vocabulary is specific to your field. Most of these words you wont want to change. But, think about simplifying other words in your writing. Its hard to read an entire text with academic language. So, when you write, find the words that best describe what you mean.
Sentences that are hard to read Hemingway Editor points out sentences that are long and complex. Try to break some of these up. You want clear sentences with some variety in your writing. Some sentences are long, but make sure those long sentences arent hard to understand. So, when you see a sentence thats hard to read edit it, so its clear
Sentences that are very hard to read These are confusing and wordy sentences. If you see sentences highlighted as very hard to read, edit them. How Do Use Hemingway Editor?
Hemingway Editor is simple to use. First, copy your text. Then go to https://www.hemingwayapp.com and delete the example text. Paste your text into to it and edit the highlighted things in your writing. Everything is color-coded.
Adverbs are blue.
Passive voice is green.
Phrases with simpler alternatives are purple.
Sentences that are hard to read are yellow.
Sentences that are very hard to read are red.
When you finish editing, copy the text and paste it back into your document.
You can also write your text in Hemingway Editor, edit and then copy and paste into a document. The disadvantage of writing there is that you cannot save your work.
Watch the video, Hemingway Editor: A Great Free Online Editing Tool for Writers and see how to use Hemingway Editor! Conclusion
I use Hemingway Editor after I revise my writing and make significant changes to my draft. You can see how I revise writing in the post, Academic Revising 101: The Essential Essay Revision Checklist https://www.academicwritingsuccess.com/academic-revising-101-the-essential-essay-revision-checklist/. Then I edit my document, paste it into Hemingway Editor, and make more changes. My final step is editing my writing again.
Is Hemingway Editor a perfect online editing tool? No. There isnt a perfect editor of any kind. You always need to see what an editor suggests and make your own decisions on what to change.
But its my favorite online editor because it improves the work I edit, and also makes me better at spotting issues in my writing. Try it and see how it makes your writing clearer, stronger and more powerful. Manuscripts 1 2 7 Writing Tool For Complex Documents Free
And if this blog post helped you please share it with someone else you think could benefit from it.
Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash Allin Cottrell April 2003: German translation
June 2003: Spanish translation
April 2004: French translation
April 2005: Hebrewtranslation
May 2005: Korean translation(HTML orPDF) Contents 1 The claim
2 Printed documents
2.1 Composition versus typesetting
2.2 The evils of WYSIWYG
2.3 Document structure
2.4 Text editors
2.5 The virtues of ASCII
2.6 The typesetter
2.7 Putting it together
3 Digital dissemination
3.1 Simple documents
3.2 Complex documents
4 Qualification
5 Rant, rant
6 References
1 The claim
The word processor is a stupid and grossly inefficient tool for preparing text for communication with others. That is theclaim I shall defend below. It will probably strike you as bizarre atfirst sight. If I am against word processors, what do I propose: thatwe write in longhand, or use a mechanical typewriter? No. Whilethere are things to be said in favor of these modes of textpreparation I take it for granted that most readers of this essay willdo most of their writing using a computer, as I do. My claim is thatthere are much better ways of preparing text, using a computer, thanthe word processor.
The wording of my claim is intended to be provocative, but let me beclear: when I say word processors are stupid I am not sayingthat you , if you are a user of a word processor, are stupid.I am castigating a technology, but one that is assiduously promoted bythe major software vendors, and that has become a de facto standard of sorts. Unless you happen to have been in the right placeat the right time, you are likely unaware of the existence ofalternatives. The alternatives are not promoted by the major vendors,for good reason: as we shall see, they are available for free.
Let's begin by working back from the end product. Text that isdesigned to communicate ideas and information to others isdisseminated in two main ways:
As 'hard copy', that is, in the form of traditional printed documents.
By digital means: electronic mail, web pages, documents designed to be viewable on screen.
There is some overlap here. For instance, a document that is intendedfor printing may be distributed in digital form, in the hope that therecipient has the means to print the file in question. But let usconsider these two modes of dissemination in turn. 2 Printed documents
You want to type a document at your computer keyboard, and have itappear in nicely printed form at your computer's printer. Naturallyyou don't want this to happen in real time (the material appearing atthe printer as you type). You want to type the document first and'save' it in digital form on some storage medium. You want to beable to retrieve the document and edit it at will, and to send it tothe printer when the time is right. Surely a word processor-such asthe market leader, Microsoft Word-is the 'natural' way to do allthis? Well, it's one way, but not the best. Why not? 2.1 Composition versus typesetting
Preparing printable text using a word processor effectively forces youto conflate two tasks that are conceptually distinct andthat, to ensure that people's time is used most effectively and thatthe final communication is most effective, ought also to be kept practically distinct. Fontdoctor 10 7 day . The two tasks are
The composition of the text itself. By this I mean the actual choice of words to express one's ideas, and the logical structuring of the text. The latter may take various forms depending on the nature of the document. It includes matters such as the division of the text into paragraphs, sections or chapters, the choice of whether certain material will appear as footnotes or in the main text, the adding of special emphasis to certain portions of the text, the representation of some pieces of text as block quotations rather than as the author's own words, and so on.
The typesetting of the document. This refers to matters such as the choice of the font family in which the text is to be printed, and the way in which structural elements will be visually represented. Should section headings be in bold face or small capitals? Should they be flush left or centered? Should the text be justified or not? Should the notes appear at the foot of the page or at the end? Should the text be set in one column or two? And so on. The author of a text should, at least in the first instance,concentrate entirely on the first of these sets of tasks. That is theauthor's business. Adam Smith famously pointed out the great benefitsthat flow from the division of labor. Composition and logicalstructuring of text is the author's specific contribution to theproduction of a printed text. Typesetting is the typesetter'sbusiness. This division of labour was of course fulfilled in thetraditional production of books and articles in the pre-computer age.The author wrote, and indicated to the publisher the logical structureof the text by means of various annotations. The typesettertranslated the author's text into a printed document, implementing theauthor's logical design in a concrete typographical design. One onlyhas to imagine, say, Jane Austen wondering in what font to put thechapter headings of Pride and Prejudice to see how ridiculousthe notion is. Jane Austen was a great writer; she was not atypesetter.
You may be thinking this is beside the point. Jane Austen's writingwas publishable; professional typesetters were interested in laying itout and printing it. You and I are not so lucky; if we want a printedarticle we will have to do it ourselves (and besides, we want it donemuch faster than via traditional typesetting). Well, yes and no. Wewill in a sense have to do it ourselves (on our own computers), but wehave a lot of help at our disposal. In particular we have aprofessional-quality typesetting program available. This program (or set of programs) will in effect do for us, for free and in a few seconds or fractions of a second, the job that traditional typesetters did for Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott and all the rest. We just have to supply the program with a suitablymarked-up text, as the traditional author did.
I am suggesting, therefore, that should be two distinct 'moments' inthe production of a printed text using a computer. First one typesone's text and gets its logical structure right, indicating thisstructure in the text via simple annotations. This isaccomplished using a text editor , a piece of software not tobe confused with a word processor. (I will explain this distinctionmore fully below.) Then one 'hands over' one's text to a typesettingprogram, which in a very short time returns beautifully typeset copy. 2.2 The evils of WYSIWYG
These two jobs are rolled into one with the modern WYSIWYG ('What YouSee Is What You Get') word processor. You type your text, and as you go the text is given, on the computer screen, aconcrete typographical representation which supposedly correspondsclosely to what you will see when you send the document to the printer(although for various reasons it does not always do so). In effect,the text is continuously typeset as you key it in. At first sightthis may seem to be a great convenience; on closer inspection it is acurse. There are three aspects to this.
The author is distracted from the proper business of composing text,in favor of making typographical choices in relation to which she may haveno expertise ('fiddling with fonts and margins' when she should beconcentrating on content).
The typesetting algorithm employed by WYSIWYG word processorsacrifices quality to the speed required for the setting and resetting ofthe user's input in real time. The final product is greatly inferior tothat of a real typesetting program.
The user of a word processor is under a strong temptation to losesight of the logical structure of the text and to conflate this withsuperficial typographical elements. The first two points above should be self-explanatory. Let me expand onthe third. (Its importance depends on the sort of document underconsideration.) 2.3 Document structure
Take for instance a section heading. So far as thelogical structure of a document is concerned, all that matters is that aparticular piece of text should be 'marked' somehow as a sectionheading. One might for instance type sectionText of heading . How section headings will be implemented typographically in the printedversion is a separate question. When you're using a word processor,though, what you see is (all!) you get. You are forced to decide on aspecific typographical appearance for your heading as you create it.
Suppose you decide you'd like your headings in boldface, and slightlylarger than the rest of the text. How are you going to achieve thisappearance? There's more than one way to do it, but for most peoplethe most obvious and intuitive way (given the whole WYSIWYG context)is to type the text of the heading, highlight it, click the boldfaceicon, pull down the little box of point sizes for the type, and selecta larger size. The heading is now bold and large. Manuscripts 1 2 7 Writing Tool For Complex Documents Download
Great! Family tree maker 3 22 2 5 . But what says it's a heading? There's nothing in yourdocument that logically identifies this little bit of text as asection heading. Suppose at some later date you decide that you'dactually prefer to have the headings in small caps, or numbered withroman numerals, or centered, or whatever. What you'd like to say is'Please make such-and-such a change in the setting of all sectionheadings.' But if you've applied formatting as described above,you'll have to go through your entire document and alter each headingmanually.
Now there is a way of specifying the structural status ofbits of text in (for instance) Microsoft Word. You can , ifyou are careful, achieve effects such as changing the appearance ofall section headings with one command. But few users of Word exploitthis consistently, and that is not surprising: the WYSIWYG approachdoes not encourage concern with structure. You can easily-all tooeasily-'fake' structure with low-level formatting commands. Whentyping one's text using a text editor, on the other hand, the need toindicate structure is immediately apparent. 2.4 Text editors
OK, it's probably time to explain what a text editor is, and how itdiffers from a word processor. A modern text editor looks a bit likea word processor. It has the usual apparatus of pull-down menusand/or clickable icons for functions like opening and saving files,searching and replacing, checking spelling, and so on. But it has notypesetting functionality. The text you type appears on screen in aclear visual representation, but with no pretense at representing thefinal printed appearance of the document.
When you save your document, it is saved in the form of plain text , which in the US context usually means in 'ASCII' (theAmerican Standard Code for Information Interchange). ASCIIis composed of 128 characters (this is sometimes referred to as a'7-bit' character set, since it requires 7 binary digits for itsencoding: 2 to the seventh power = 128). It includes the numerals 0through 9, the roman alphabet in both upper and lower case, thestandard punctuation marks, and a number of special characters. ASCIIis the lowest common denominator of textual communication in digitalform. An ASCII message will be 'understandable' by any computer inthe world. If you send such a message, you can be sure that therecipient will see precisely what you typed.
By contrast, when you save a file from a word processor, the filecontains various 'control' characters, outside of the ASCII range.These characters represent the formatting that you applied (e.g. boldface or italics) plus various sorts of internal 'business'relating to the mechanics of the word processor. They are notuniversally 'understandable'. To make sense of them, you need acopy of the word processor with which the document was created (orsome suitable conversion filter). If you open a word processor filein a text editor, you will see (besides the text, or bits of it) a lotof 'funny looking stuff': this is the binary formatting code.
Since a text editor does not insert any binary formatting codes, ifyou want to represent features such as italics you have to do this via mark-up . That is, you type in an annotation (using nothingbut ASCII), which will tell the typesetter to put thespecified text into italics. For example, for the LaTeX typesetter(more on this below) you would type textitstuff you want in italics . Actually, if you are using a text editor which isdesigned to cooperate with LaTeX you would not have to type thisyourself. You'd type some kind of shortcut sequence, select from amenu, or click an icon, and the appropriate annotation would beinserted for you; the mechanics of typing an ASCII document suitablefor feeding to LaTeX are not much different from typing in a modernword processor. 2.5 The virtues of ASCII
The approach of composing your text in plain ASCII using a texteditor, then typesetting it with a separate program, has several'incidental' virtues.
Portability: as mentioned above, anybody , using any computer platform, will be able to read your marked-up text, even if they don't have the means to view or print the typeset version. By contrast your Snazz 9.0 word processor file can be completely incomprehensible to a recipient who doesn't have the same brand and version of word processor as you-unless he or she is quite knowledgeable about computers and is able to extract the actual text from the binary 'garbage'. And this applies to you over time, as much as to you and a correspondent at one time. You may well have difficulty reading Snazz 8.0 files using Snazz 9.0, or vice versa, but you'll never have any trouble reading old ASCII files.
Compactness: an ASCII file represents your ideas , and not a lot of word processor 'business'. For small documents in particular, word processor files can be as much as 10 times as large as a corresponding ASCII file containing the same relevant information.
Security: the 'text editor to typesetter' approach virtually guarantees that you will never have any problem of corruption of your documents (unless you suffer a hard disk crash or some comparable calamity). The source text will always be there, even if the typesetter fails for some reason. If you regularly use a word processor and have not had a problem with file corruption then you're very lucky!
(Further reading: Sam Steingold's page'No Proprietary Binary Data Formats'.) 2.6 The typesetter
By this time I owe you a bit more detail on the typesetter part of thestrategy I'm advocating. I won't go into technical details here, butwill try to say enough to give you some idea of what I'm talkingabout.
The basic typesetting program that I have in mind is called TeX, andwas written by Donald Knuth of Stanford University. TeX isavailable for free (via downloading from many Internet sites), informats suitable for just about every computer platform. (You can ifyou wish purchase a CDROM with a complete set of TeX files for avery modest price.) Knuth started work on TeX in 1977; in 1990 heannounced that he no longer intended to develop the program-notbecause of lack of interest, but rather because by this time theprogram was essentially perfected. It is as bug-free as any computerprogram can be, and it does a superb job of typesetting just about anymaterial, from simple text to the higher mathematics.
I referred above to LaTeX. If TeX is the basic typesettingengine, LaTeX is a large set of macros, initially developed byLeslie Lamport in the 1980s and now maintained by an internationalgroup of experts. These macros make life a lot easier for the averageuser of the system. LaTeX is still under active development, asnew capabilities and packages are built on top of the underlying typesetter.Various 'add-ons' for TeX are also under development, such as asystem which allows you to make PDF (Adobe's 'Portable DocumentFormat') files directly from your ASCII source files. (I say 'underdevelopment' but by this I just mean that they are continuously beingimproved. The programs are already very stable and full-featured.)
As mentioned above, you indicate the desired structure and formattingof your document to LaTeX in the form of a set of annotations.There are many books (and web-based guides) that give the details ofthese annotations, and I will not go into them here. The commonannotations are simple and easily remembered, besides whichLaTeX-friendly text editors (of which there are many) offer you ahelping hand.
One very attractive feature of LaTeX is the ability to change thetypeset appearance of your text drastically and consistently with just a few commands. The overall appearance is controlled by
The 'document class' that you choose (e.g. report, letter, article, book).
The 'packages' or style files that you decide to load.
You can, for instance, completely change the font family (consistentlyacross text, section headings, footnotes and all) and/or the sizes ofthe fonts used, by altering just one or two parameters in the'preamble' of your ASCII source file. Similarly, you can puteverything into two-column format, or rotate it from portrait tolandscape. It may be possible to accomplish something similar using aword processor, but generally it's much less convenient and you arefar more likely to mess up and introduce unintended inconsistencies offormatting.
You can get as complex as you care to, typesetting with LaTeX. Youcan choose a 'hands off' approach: just specify a document class andleave the rest up to the default macros. Generally this produces goodresults, the typesetting being of much higher quality than any wordprocessor. (Naturally, things like numbering of chapters, sectionsand footnotes, cross-references and so on, are all taken care ofautomatically.) Or you can take a more 'interventionist' approach,loading various packages (or even writing your own) to control variousaspects of the typography. If this is your inclination, you canproduce truly beautiful and individual output. 2.7 Putting it together
Let me give you just a brief idea of how this all works. If you havea good TeX setup it's like this: You type your text into aTeX-aware editor. You can type the required annotations directlyor have the editor insert them via menus or buttons. When you reach apoint where you'd like to take a look at the typeset version you makea menu choice or click a button in the editor to invoke thetypesetter. Another menu item or button will open a previewer inwhich you see the text as it will appear at the printer. Andgenerally this is true 'WYSIWYG'-the previewer will show a highlyaccurate representation of the printed output. You can zoom in orout, page around, and so on. You send the output to the printer withanother menu choice or button, or go back to editing. Manuscripts 1 2 7 Writing Tool For Complex Documents Online
At some later point in the process you want to preview the updatedfile. Click the typesetter button again. This time you don't have toinvoke the previewer again: if you've left it running in thebackground it will now automatically display the updated typesetversion. When you're done with an editing session you can delete thetypeset version of the file to conserve disk space. You just need tosave the ASCII source file; the typeset version can easily berecreated whenever you need it. 3 Digital dissemination
The previous section was mostly angled towards producing good-lookingtypeset output at the printer. Some other considerations arise whenyou're preparing a document with digital transmission in mind (email,web pages and so on).
Take email first. Cookie 5 0 6 protect your online privacy. Typically if people wish to send a short, ad hoc,message they type that message directly into an email client program,whether it be a 'traditional' text-based client such as Pine or aGUI (Graphical User Interface) program such as Netscape or Eudora. Inthat case the message probably goes out in the form of ASCII (orperhaps in HTML, i.e. HyperText Mark-up Language, the language of Webpages, which is itself mostly composed of ASCII). But what if youwant to send a longer piece of text that you have already preparedindependently of your email client program?
For this purpose it is increasingly common to 'attach' a document ina word processor format. How does the alternative strategy work inthis case?
Well, we have to distinguish between two situations: Is the text inquestion relatively short and uncomplicated (a memo, a letter, minutesof a meeting, a listing of agenda, a schedule for a visit) or is itmore complex (an academic paper-perhaps with a lot of mathematics, areport with illustrations, a book manuscript)? The 'ASCII plustypesetter' approach leads to different suggestions in these twocases. 3.1 Simple documents
With simple documents, we have to ask: Do we really need thetypesetting, the font information and all that? Is it not moreefficient, more in the interest of effective and economicalcommunication, just to post plain ASCII text, with the minimalformatting that ASCII allows? This both conserves communicationsbandwidth (remember that word processor files can be much bigger than ASCII files containing the same actual text) and ensuresthat nobody will be frozen out of the communication effort becausethey happen not to be running Snazz 9.0. You can attach an ASCIIfile, created in a text editor, in the same way that you'd attach aword processor file, or you can simply paste it into the body of youremail (since it's nothing but plain text). Since TeX source filesare nothing but ASCII-and if we're talking about a simple documentthere won't be too many annotations, and those prettyself-explanatory-they can be treated in the same way. 3.2 Complex documents
Longer and more complicated documents may well be easier to read intypeset form. Math may be hard to convey in ASCII and of coursecomplex diagrams and images are out altogether. So what about TeX,in this context? I have argued that word processor files can beproblematic, because your correspondent might not have Snazz 9.0 likeyou do. But doesn't this cut both ways? Even if you're fired upenough about TeX to give it a try, how many of your correspondentshave a TeX installation? This is a reasonable query, but it isanswerable. If you want your correspondent to be able to see atypeset version of your file, and she doesn't have a TeXinstallation, you have these options:
Convert the TeX source file to HTML. There are good conversion programs for this purpose. (HTML and TeX actually have a strong family resemblance, in that they both involve logical mark-up, so inter-conversion can be accomplished with a high degree of fidelity. 1 ) Then your correspondent can read your text using a web browser.
Does your correspondent have access to a Postscript printer? In an academic or business environment this is quite likely. In that case you could send a fully typeset version of your document in the form of a postscript file, which she can just send to the printer. And/or she can view it on screen if she installs the 'ghostview' program (free for downloading from the Internet).
Does your correspondent have the 'Acroread' reader for Adobe PDF files installed? (Again, it's a free download.) If so, you can send a PDF version of your typeset document.
In discussing the options for transmitting text via email, we'vealready hit on the issue of preparing text for web pages. You havethe option of writing HTML directly. If you don't want to do that,you can write HTML indirectly using a suitable GUI editor, NetscapeCommunicator for example. Sure, you can also produce HTML using MSWord (incidentally, horrible HTML, full of extraneous tags that makeit awkward to edit using any other application). If you're in TeXmode it's easy to convert your documents into (clean,standard-compliant) HTML. 4 Qualification
I have attempted to make a strong pitch for the 'ascii plustypesetter' alternative to word processors. I will admit, however,that there are some sorts of documents for which a WYSIWYGword processor is indeed the natural tool. I'm thinking of short, adhoc, documents which have a high ratio of formatting 'business' totextual content: flyers, posters, party invitations and the like. Youcould do these in TeX, but it would not be efficient. The standardLaTeX document classes (report, article, etc.) would be of littleuse to you. And while LaTeX is very smart at handlingautomatically the range of fonts that you're likely to want in aformal text, it's not geared toward the sort of 'mixing andmatching' of jolly fonts that you might want in a casual production.Logical structure is not really an issue: you're interested in 'rawformatting'. You want to know, for instance, If I put that line into a 36-point font, will that push my last line onto the nextpage, which I don't want? WYSIWYG is your man.
If most of your word-processing work is of this kind, you probablystopped reading a long time ago. If most of your text preparationwork involves the production of relatively formal documents, thisqualification doesn't affect the essentials of my case. 5 Rant, rant
It may not have escaped your notice that I'm a bit worked up aboutthis theme. Yes, I am. The point is that it's not just a matter ofan academic debate between alternative modes of text preparation.It's a set of scales in which the might and wealth of the majorsoftware vendors is all on one side. To be blunt, we're looking at asituation in which MS Word is poised to become, for much of the world, the standard for the preparation of documents usingcomputers. But Word is a standard that has little to commend it otherthan the fact that it is (or aspires to be) a standard.
It's a bit like QWERTY. Do you know that story? Why the standardarrangement of keys on typewriter keyboards (and by extensioncomputer keyboards) has QWERTYUIOP along the top line? That was notthe original arrangement of typewriter keys. It was designed for apurpose, namely to slow typists down . The problem was thatthe expertise of the early typists quickly outran the capabilities ofthe early mechanical typewriters: a fast typist could jam the keys,hitting them faster than they could return after striking theribbon. QWERTY distributed the keys so they couldn't go so fast. Thisis clearly a crazy arrangement for the keys on an electronic keyboard,but it's too late to change: QWERTY is standard, and all attempts torationalize the keyboard have failed in the face of that reality.
Similarly, I'm arguing that MS Word has no right to be astandard for document preparation, since it's clearly less efficient(for most purposes) than readily available alternatives. I'm hopingthat it's not too late in this case, that there's still theopportunity of saying No to Word. Actually, in a sense Word is worsethan QWERTY: it's not a real standard, but rather an escalator. TheMicrosoft 'standard' for the binary representation of documentformatting is something that is variable at the whim of MicrosoftCorporation. The MS Word quasi-monopoly piggybacks off the MicrosoftWindows quasi-monopoly (an issue which I will not get into here). Andso long as they are not hard-pressed by commercial rivals, Microsofthas no particular interest in establishing any sort of long-termstandard for the binary representation of formatting. On thecontrary, they have a strong interest in forcing you to 'upgrade'Word at regular intervals. Oh dear, Word N.0 won't read the documentyour colleague just sent you, prepared using N+1? Well, you'd betterupdate then, hadn't you? Even if there are no features in N+1, thatwere not present in N, that are of any real value to you. 2 6 References
If you've come with me this far, you might be interested in moredetails about good text editors, the TeX typesetting system and soon.
The best place to start for info about TeX and friends is probablythe TUG homepage(TUG is the TeX UsersGroup). This will provide all the links you might need; one of themain ones is to the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network(CTAN) sites, from which you candownload complete TeX systems for just about all computer platforms.Such systems include the actual typesetter, a large collection ofmacros, a previewer, and software for generating printable files.
TeX packages (free ones at any rate) do not generally include thetext editor that you'll also need (unless you already have one thatyou like). There are many choices, but my personal favorite forworking with TeX files is Emacs,along with the AUC TeXpackage. The latter makes Emacs very TeX-friendly: it will highlightTeX syntax so you can see any errors in your mark-up at a glance, andit also offers a wide range of TeX-related commands on convenientmenus.
In case you're interested, here's a screen shotof an TeX editing session using Emacs (PNG, 40678 bytes). Footnotes:
1 The binary coding used by word processors is a quite different animal, so inter-conversion between TeX and word processor formats is not easy. In addition, since TeX is a superior typesetting engine, it is in principle impossible to convert a TeX document to, say, Word without loss of information.
2 For what it is worth, in my opinion as somebody who used Word for several years before switching to TeX, and who has a keen interest in typesetting, no worthwhile features have been introduced into MS Word for Windows since version 2.0 of circa 1990. File translated from T E X by T T H, version 1.93.
On 29 Jun 1999, 14:47.
