RE: support for 'macro' formatting languages

Subject: RE: support for 'macro' formatting languages
From: Pieter Rijken <pieter.rijken@xxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 13:01:37 +0100
> > Norman Gray writes:
> > 
> >  > small part of the issue.  The killer is how you write 
> the maths, and
> >  > I can't think of any SGML-only solution to that.
> > 
> > how do you think all the Elsevier journals work? they are full-text
> > SGML, with math
> 
> I didn't doubt it, and I'm sure that works well for Elsevier. 
>  What I'm
> talking about is a solution that works for the author.
> 
> >  > of even slowing down.  I am an SGML evangelist, but I know that I
> >  > would have to abandon any publisher that demanded I 
> submit maths in
> >  > anything other than LaTeX.
> > 
> > Why don't you just plug a LaTeX to MathML translation into your tool
> > set? thats what I would do. And don't say there aren't any, 
> please...
> 
> What Elsevier (or whoever) plugs into _their_ toolset is none of my
> business.  MathML would probably be a better archival format 
> than LaTeX,

I'm sure MathML is better is specifying the formula content, but
that it is not good at getting formula's displayed correct.
Has anyone ever tried to format a 6 page formula? (Please do not tell
me that you can avoid this, believe me, in physics the resulting
formula can be as large as 400 terms...... Splitting it up in 50
subexpressions so that each of them fits to one line does not solve
anything.)

Typing in the
formula is not the problem in LaTeX. Within 15 to 20 minutes one has
typed the entire formula in LaTeX. But figuring out how to split
the formula across lines and keeping terms together in this process
such that the displayed formula still is understandable. That is the
real problem with formula's.
This you cannot get right with SGML, MATHML and DSSSL. In such a case
one has to know the formatting language (rtf, tex, etc.) and somehow
specify in SGML what the formula should look like. Formatting instructions,
architectural forms,.....

pieter


-- 
Pieter Rijken                          E-mail: pieter.rijken@xxxxxx

CMG Telecommunications and Utilities B.V.
Division Advanced Technology
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