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From: D.M. Procida on 15 Dec 2009 13:36 Elliott Roper <nospam(a)yrl.co.uk> wrote: > > What a pleasant surprise to be using an application where I haven't > > bumped into an annoying design limitation within 24 hours! > > > > And when for curiosity I tried to type into a freehand shape, neither > > wanting it for real nor expecting it to be available, Pages quietly > > declined to offer an insertion point and quietly withdrew all reference > > to fonts in the toolbar. And quietly made text entry immediately > > available again when I moved on to another regular shape. > > > > That's quality, that is. > > Well, I dunno whether it was quality or not, but somehow it tricked you > into believing you could not fill an arbitrary space with text. > > Against every article of Jobs-olatry I (furtive glance) used the help > in Pages, created a custom shape with pen, and followed the > instructions for inserting text. It just worked. Image fill worked just > as well. I /had/ been using Omnigraffle for invitations and cards, but > Pages has now won me over for that job. Pages has become (and bear in mind that I'm still using versopn 3, from iWork 08) a stunningly-good word-processing and document/page layout tool. It works very well for longer, structured documents. On its own, I think it's worth more than the price of iWork. Daniele
From: Rowland McDonnell on 15 Dec 2009 18:02 Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > Jochem Huhmann <joh(a)gmx.net> wrote: > > > real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid (Rowland McDonnell) writes: > > > > My LaTeX output looks good because the typography's done for me by LaTeX > > > - and who cares what the artistic aesthetic appeal of the source text > > > might appear to be? > > > > When my content starts to vanish beneath tons of markup I do care very > > much. Editing complex tables is such a case. Dropping in, placing, > > scaling and rotating images is another. But then generating tables (or > > generally parts of documents) from data pulled from elsewhere > > (databases, files) is a snap with LaTeX and not so with Pages > > And very simple in Microsoft Word. The fact that MS Word is so very /VERY/ bad at tables compared to LaTeX is one reason why my wife does as much in LaTeX as she possibly can. MS Word is also notably bloody awful at including graphics. Neither my wife nor I can produce a table in MS Word that matches what we want - and we've both sat down with the docs. I once spent an entire day on the job before realizing that I wasn't getting anywhere and giving up. [snip] Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Rowland McDonnell on 15 Dec 2009 18:02 Jochem Huhmann <joh(a)gmx.net> wrote: > real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid (Rowland McDonnell) writes: > > > LaTeX is ideal for doing letters - nothing better, if you've prepared > > your own local letter class file so you don't have to type in your own > > name and address etc. > > Which of course can be done as well with a Pages template But equally of course quicker with LaTeX, easier with LaTeX, more stable with LaTeX, more reliable with LaTeX, and higher quality with LaTeX. (providing that you've learnt how to do it in advance, that is, and you've used a sensible approch - which I did not, so my letter class has developed over the course of - oh god, the oldest fragments date back to the 1980s...) So yes, if you want to do that particular job the low quality slow hard way, you use Pages. How do you create a Pages template that lets you change the `name, title, address, etc' formatting with a simple switch? Ditto page layout? It's not possible, is it? The problem I've got with these wysiwyg templates is that if the one you've picked isn't right, you've got to start from scratch if you want to use a different one. This is not an efficient way of working. With LaTeX, I can send different options to the class/package files and just try out a different `template' without having to re-work the entire document by hand. Get the machine to do it - that's the way. (There's me and my wife, and sometimes I'm Mr and sometimes not; sometimes she uses Dr and sometimes not. Sometimes we'll include our phone number, sometimes not. Ditto email addresses. Sometimes, my wife wants to use her work contact details. All selectable with switches. And then you can say `Hmm - page breaks are duff. Try lessvspace, being a vertically compressed layout. And so it goes on. Not so easy to fiddle like that using a wysiwyg setup) > -- and you can > also use the Addressbook to drop in things. So what? Address Book.app assumes that you're using Mail.app for email - completely useless. I've no idea what the point of it might be, but I don't use it for anything and can't see any reason to start. > The main reason I'm still > using LaTeX for that is the fact that I'm too lazy to recreate my custom > layout in Pages. > > >> That being said, for more ad-hoc things I tend to use Pages more and more. > >> It may suck as a word processor but it's a great DTP app for dummies. > >> And positively beautiful. Returning to fruit-salad syntax-highlighted > >> LaTeX source makes me cringe sometimes now. There! I said it! > > > > Yeah, but you'll get better looking output from LaTeX - although for > > ad-hoc layouts, LaTeX is lousy: if you can't get the layout from one of > > the standard packages/classes, you need a different format (or maybe a > > different typesetter entirely) - such as ConTeXt, so I'm told. > > Which still is a nightmare for things you want to use only once. Indeed. TeX has limited applicability - but where it *is* applicable, it's brilliant. > And if > this involves fancy images and backgrounds and shapes you'd be silly to > use anything TeX-based for that. I'd say it's daft to use a TeX-based approach when you've got a one-off layout or a visual layout job to do, but TeX is brilliant for including backgrounds and fancy images, very much better than most wysiwyg systems. I know - I've been using a Mac since 1990 and LaTeX since about 1988/89. Including graphics with LaTeX used to be a major pain. Now, it's very very easy and works very very well - much better than MS Word, for example. > > I've tried to learn how to use Pages and failed to manage to work out > > how to use it just to produce a plain page of ordinary text, such as I > > can knock out with MacWrite II very easily. Pages does indeed suck as a > > WP and it's bloody hard to learn how to use to do anything. > > For that just use an empty WP template and start typing. <puzzled> Well, I've never managed to work out how to use Pages properly. You say `just use an empty WP template and start typing', but that doesn't let me control the output I get so that I can produce something of quality that matches what I can do with MacWrite v4.5 on my Macintosh 512Ke. And Pages is a lot harder to use than MacWrite or MacWrite II. I know. I've tried. (admittedly, I'm not sure I can connect my 512Ke to a decent-quality printer and get useful output, at least with the kit I currently have in the house. But I used to use the old 512Ke for WPing and it was very nice indeed for simple jobs.) And I'd forgotten. Pages thinks that centimeters is a unit for a rule. No, that's 1/100th of a measuring instrument; centimetre is 1/100th of the distance unit the `metre'. And anyway, where are millimetres as an option? Centimetres are for dressmakers, as any number of old fashioned engineers and technicians have said in my hearing. > No, where Pages > starts to suck is with complex word processing, because it's rather > limited here and can also get really slow (I haven't tried with recent > versions though, it certainly has gotten better and faster). Slow? Irrelevant - Apple sorts out speed issues and in any case I grew up with slow WPs, so no modern WP counts as `slow' to my mind, I wouldn't have thought. NOt that I use 'em to speak of. I recall it taking 40 minutes to typeset my MSc dissertation on a Mac Classic (LaTeX, BibTeX, LaTeX, LaTeX - Mac Classics aren't /that/ slow). I've got a 3.06GHz Core2Duo iMac now. LaTeX's pretty damned quick, but still not instantaneous - I'm used to waiting a bit. > > My LaTeX output looks good because the typography's done for me by LaTeX > > - and who cares what the artistic aesthetic appeal of the source text > > might appear to be? > > When my content starts to vanish beneath tons of markup I do care very > much. <puzzled> I don't understand what you mean. I'd rather *see* the instructions to the machine than hope that the mess of formatting commands that I've executed ends up adding up to something sensible. Hard to get it right, doing complex things with a wysiwyg rig, for that reason, as I've found myself. I've had to cut-paste to a plain text editor, then copy-paste back (to remove all formatting) when trying to do complex things with a wysiwyg rig in the past, all because it's ended up with a mess of invisible overlapping confusing formatting commands which is kindly kept hidden from the user, so the user couldn't make the bloody machinery work right. >Editing complex tables is such a case. Complex tables are *MUCH* easier to create and edit using LaTeX than anything else I've ever met. And I do mean not merely much, but *MUCH*. I can produce highest possible quality tables using LaTeX quicker than you can produce any sort of version of the same table in any wysiwyg application. I guarantee that - and I'll put gold plating on that guarantee if you're using MS Word. > Dropping in, placing, > scaling and rotating images is another. LaTeX makes that much easier than anything I've ever met on the wysiwyg side. What else other than LaTeX lets you place items with a precision and accuracy of 5.3629 microns? (That's 1/65536 of 1 TeX point, being 1/72.27", being /very/ close to the official standard printers' point definition) Okay, if you want to flow text around an image and don't mind if positioning isn't exactly right, wysiwyg is the best bet. Or if you're doing visual layout of any sort. Magazine pages, for example - don't use LaTeX, do what I did: send 'em to the pre-press house and have a drone slam it into Quark Xpress then send back a proof copy. That works very well in some cases - it's reliant on the pre-press house being competent. Not all of them are. > But then generating tables (or > generally parts of documents) from data pulled from elsewhere > (databases, files) is a snap with LaTeX and not so with Pages. I've always found that to be very hard to do using LaTeX. You say you can do so easily - what method do you use? Any pointer would be welcome. > As always > the trick is using the right tool for the job at hand. And neither Pages > nor LaTeX is the right tool for *everything*. I see no sign of anyone suggesting anything else. > > Rowland. > > (who's got very little time for most modern software, which is mostly a > > lot less usable than what he's used to) > > Things you're used to are always more usable, yes. You have missed the point. When I first started to learn how to use Macs, decent software documentation existed. I used it, so I could learn to use the software. Modern software is generally not documented at all in a fashion that I would call `documentation', therefore it is impossible for me to learn how to use. For example, I get new OS versions simply to permit me to use a new computer - I cannot learn how to use new OS-supplied UI features on the whole, since there is no manual and I find it impossible to learn from the `Mac Help' presentation Apple uses for OS X user documentation. (the style and method of presentation chosen by Apple ensures that whatever I read in Apple-sourced Mac Help text is impossible to remember) I must keep access to my older software because I cannot learn how to use the replacement software due to the absence of competent documentation in most cases. The issue here is not that I just want to use what I already know about, but that it has become impossible for me to learn about most new software due to the fact that proper manuals are simply no longer available in the general case. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking
From: Woody on 15 Dec 2009 18:17 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > Jochem Huhmann <joh(a)gmx.net> wrote: > > > > > real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid (Rowland McDonnell) writes: > > > > > > My LaTeX output looks good because the typography's done for me by LaTeX > > > > - and who cares what the artistic aesthetic appeal of the source text > > > > might appear to be? > > > > > > When my content starts to vanish beneath tons of markup I do care very > > > much. Editing complex tables is such a case. Dropping in, placing, > > > scaling and rotating images is another. But then generating tables (or > > > generally parts of documents) from data pulled from elsewhere > > > (databases, files) is a snap with LaTeX and not so with Pages > > > > And very simple in Microsoft Word. > > The fact that MS Word is so very /VERY/ bad at tables compared to LaTeX > is one reason why my wife does as much in LaTeX as she possibly can. I have done a document with 12 tables on word 2007 tonight without issues. But this was refering to generating tables from databases or other data, which is very easy to do in a microsoft word document (with or without microsoft word). > MS Word is also notably bloody awful at including graphics. No disagreement with that one, it is hard to get it to do anything useful with graphics. I am sure pages is better at that, but sadly any documents I have to do have to be microsoft word .doc 1997-2003 format. If I was doing them for my own benefit, I would probably use pages, as it would do what I wanted. Unless it was just layout based, then I have indesign CS3. -- Woody www.alienrat.com
From: Rowland McDonnell on 15 Dec 2009 18:49
Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > Jochem Huhmann <joh(a)gmx.net> wrote: > > > > > > > real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid (Rowland McDonnell) writes: > > > > > > > > My LaTeX output looks good because the typography's done for me by > > > > > LaTeX - and who cares what the artistic aesthetic appeal of the > > > > > source text might appear to be? > > > > > > > > When my content starts to vanish beneath tons of markup I do care very > > > > much. Editing complex tables is such a case. Dropping in, placing, > > > > scaling and rotating images is another. But then generating tables (or > > > > generally parts of documents) from data pulled from elsewhere > > > > (databases, files) is a snap with LaTeX and not so with Pages > > > > > > And very simple in Microsoft Word. > > > > The fact that MS Word is so very /VERY/ bad at tables compared to LaTeX > > is one reason why my wife does as much in LaTeX as she possibly can. > > I have done a document with 12 tables on word 2007 tonight without > issues. I expect the formatting is bloody awful. I've never seen a decent table done in MS Word - never. Not once. > But this was refering to generating tables from databases or other data, > which is very easy to do in a microsoft word document (with or without > microsoft word). So you say. How? I can't do it. > > MS Word is also notably bloody awful at including graphics. > > No disagreement with that one, it is hard to get it to do anything > useful with graphics. I am sure pages is better at that, but sadly any > documents I have to do have to be microsoft word .doc 1997-2003 format. Hmm! Well, working to one version of an MS Word standard has benefits. My wife has to supply MS Word documents for collaboration reasons, but she often runs into version problems causing various people to be unable to use MS Word documents from one person with their version of MS Word. One advantage of LaTeX is that that sort of problem is - umm, different... The basic file format has only changed once, and there is a backwards compatibility mode that works with all my old format documents (the bit that doesn't work from old to new is old-style fount definition commands, but not many people used them in the old days). Version problems can exist, sort of - but if so, all you need to do is download the latest version of whichever freely downloadable package you're missing. > If I was doing them for my own benefit, I would probably use pages, as > it would do what I wanted. Unless it was just layout based, then I have > indesign CS3. Uhuh. Rowland. -- Remove the animal for email address: rowland.mcdonnell(a)dog.physics.org Sorry - the spam got to me http://www.mag-uk.org http://www.bmf.co.uk UK biker? Join MAG and the BMF and stop the Eurocrats banning biking |