From: pswanson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Swanson)
Subject: Re:  Mac OS just sucks -- "ease of use" = "lack of freedom"
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 23:01:38 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.124525.7113@ms.uky.edu> justin@mik.uky.edu (Justin Sullivan) writes:
>Philip McDunnough writes
>> Word is totally inadequate for long technical documents. Why not ask the 
>> AMS,etc...why they have standardized on TeX? AmigaTeX is every bit as
>> good as any Unix TeX you will find. You basically don't know what you're
>> talking about.
>
>Word 5 is MORE then adequate for long technical documents. Word 4 was not.  
>(FrameMaker was, though)
>I am well aware of the fact that AMS has put their support behind TeX. That's  
>because TeX can be used on any platform, and it does the job. Word 5 would make  
>the job much easier, but not everyone uses a Mac. Most AMS members use UNIX  
>systems or mainframes of some sort, where text is the only way you have to  
>interact with the system (except for X). 
>

Justin, Justin, Justin.  You seem to be confused about ease of use.  To
initially get set up using TeX is much more work than Word.  However,
there is a definite crossover point where TeX becomes easier to use than
Word.  Technical documents are well beyond that crossover point.  Let me
give you some examples of exactly where TeX is easier to use.  First let
me preface this by saying that I mainly use LaTeX and only resort to TeX
when things get too complicated.  

Equations are the first obvious area where TeX often surpasses Word (or
your favorite equation editor) in ease of use.  Simple equations are of
course easier to create with an equation editor.  However, I have found
that complicated formulas come out looking poor with equation editors or
require vast amounts of work to make correct.  There are very few
instances where I have found TeX equations to be lacking.  These cases
were all due to too many levels of subscript resulting in an unreadable
font being used.  However, modifying this is trivial in TeX.  I have
read that MathType on the Mac will allow equations to be entered in TeX
style but then using this option is admiting in some sense that TeX is
easier to use.

The one big area where I have found Word lacking is in the treatment of
floating objects.  Mixing figures in with text I have found to be
somewhat complicated in Word, mainly because I haven't figured out how
to get Word to fill in the current page with text if a figure ends up
not fitting on the page where I put it.  A page break is inserted for
the figure and I may end up with half a page or more blank.  Also,
figure or table numbering is lacking in Word.  There must be some way to
get Word to automatically number tables and figures but I have yet to
figure out how.  This does not seem to be ease of use.  In LaTeX it is
trivial.  Along the same lines, I like to label all my figures and then
always refer to them by label.  This makes editing and rearranging
documents much easier.  However, I have no idea how to do this in Word.

The bottom line is that I consider the above to be highly desireable in
the preparation of technical documents and in these areas TeX is easier
to use than Word.  Of course if you really want to stir things up post a
message saying you think Word is better than TeX in comp.text.tex.  Then
you can find out the full extent of your ignorance.

Paul.