Re: LaTex on a Mac
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg18661] Re: LaTex on a Mac
- From: Jens-Peer Kuska <kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de>
- Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 01:45:49 -0400
- Organization: Universitaet Leipzig
- References: <7mei23$9es@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi Paul,
to make it clear, I know about the keyboard shortcuts and I know allmost
all TeX aliases of the frontend, but I don't like to type a text with
the frontend.
ok here are some examples:
I type some text as a section header, in TeX I can simply say
\section{some text}
I don't have to touch the mouse. I Mathematica I have typical to type
the text,
select the cell with the mouse and can use Alt-4.
Next example: I will type a file name. Typical I use different font
shapes
to decide between filenames, Mathematica Indentifers ... In TeX I have a
nice
macro say \FileReference{}. Now I can simply type
\FileReference{someinput.m}
In Mathematica I have to make a new cell style "FileReference" and than
I create a
palette that makes from a selected text a new
StyleBox[_,"FileReference"].
Even with the best collection of keyboard short cuts I can't avoid to
use
a mouse.
More over if my publisher say : Make a separate index of all the file
names
you have referenced I just change my TeX macro a bit and it will work
for the next 100 years.
An other example, I have two macros \diff{f}{t} and \Diff{f}{t} to
typeset
\frac{\partial f}{\partial t} and \frac{\DifferentialD f}{\DifferntialD
t}.
Clearly the macros save a lot of typing. How ever neither a style box
will manage
this because I have two parameter nor a automatic replacement will help
me
because the automatic replacement don't kow what to use for the
parameters
and I can't have two selections. Ok I can make a palette with
placeholders but
than I have t use the mouse again and it is always slower than to type
$\diff{f}{t}$.
More over if it turns out that my publisher don't like the \DifferntialD
and would
like to see a \mathrm{d} instead, it take me a smile in TeX to change
that.
Mathematica's expanded version will cause that I have to change every
used \Diff{} because it is expanded.
The next example is a typical german case. I german you may type
"Schroedinger Gleichung" or "Schroedinger-Gleichung" for the
Schroedinger
equation. It depend on your personal taste to use a hyphen or not. How
ever
it is important that the document does not mix up the two versions. In
TeX you can simply make a macro \SEqn and all works fine. A key event
translation
will not help me because it expands the definition when I type it in.
If it turns out that I have written "Legendre-Polynome" (with hyphen)
but "Schroedinger Gleichung" (with out a hypen)
I have to change the expanded sequences in Mathematica, in TeX I can
just
modify my macros and I have a consistent naming scheme.
The general advice while preparing a document is
a) think about all the typographic elements you whant to use
b) make macros for *every*, absolute every typographic element
c) use the macros stricly in the text to keep the logical markup
independent of the layout
The Frontend make it extrem complicated to make a well structured
document. Finaly I would end up with a over crowded screen for my
30 markup macros and I would be still unable to use more than one
parameter for a StyleBox[].
Regards
Jens