From joseogl@microsoft.com Fri Aug 28 04:42:50 1992 Received: from [131.107.1.4] by dkuug.dk via EUnet with SMTP (5.64+/8+bit/IDA-1.2.8) id AA13288; Fri, 28 Aug 92 04:42:50 +0200 Received: by outmail.microsoft.com (5.65/25-eef) id AA04260; Thu, 27 Aug 92 19:41:36 -0700 Message-Id: <9208280241.AA04260@outmail.microsoft.com> X-Msmail-Message-Id: 67AB0030 X-Msmail-Conversation-Id: 67AB0030 X-Msmail-Wiseremark: Microsoft Mail -- 3.0.729 From: Jose Oglesby To: SC22WG5-request%dkuug.dk.SC22WG5@dkuug.dk Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 19:29:47 EST Subject: RE: (SC22WG5.187) Processing Words, Part XLIV X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 Several issues have been brought up by various people in this debate. Although I am not a Word expert and have never used it (or any other system) to produce a book I will attempt to respond. There are people here at Microsoft who use Word to produce large complicated technical documents. From my talks with them, it appears that Word's main weakness is lack of flexibility in page layout. Otherwise, they assure me that solutions of some sort exist for all of the technical issues that have been raised. The solutions might vary depending on the way in which the document is organized. For example, the problem of finding all occurrences of a string in particular sections of the document can be solved by giving each of the sections (headings,bnf,program, examples, etc.) a different style. Search and replace operations can then be limited to a particular style. A programming language (Word Basic) is available which can be useful for special needs. Ultimately, however, it seems to me that our discussion should not be about the features of particular word processing environment although they are relevant. What we must do is to provide direction to the editorial committee about the format that we would like to see for electronic versions of the standard. This input might prove helpful to the editors in picking a system. The format choices (not necessarily exclusive) are the following. ASCII Text : I think we all agree that this is desirable and needs to be a requirement. This format needs to be as close to the printed form as possible. Postscript : I don't think this is required unless plain ASCII is all we can get. Markup Language : The problem with this format is that there aren't cheap, consistent, production strength systems available for a wide variety of platforms. For example, I have seem ads for PC versions of TeX but they were not free and I don't know about their usability. Another problem with markup languages is that specialized tools (sed/perl/awk) scripts must be provided. Just the markup language format without the tools is of limited value. Word/Frame/Other RTF derivative : Note that using Word format does not necessarily imply that you must use Word to do your editing (you can use Frame or Ami or any other system that can read and write the format). If Frame can save documents n Winword 2.0 format it would seem to be an ideal choice for the editors. Word format offers more flexibility in choice of processing tools. It would be nice to have all four types of formats readily available. I don't know of a system that is capable of this. If it proves impossible, my preference is for ASCII plus some RTF derivative. I will settle for a markup language. Plain ASCII or even ASCII plus postscript is unacceptable. Let me clear up the nature of what Microsoft can provide. If an electronic version of the draft is maintained in Winword 2.0 format (using whatever tool) Microsoft can provide copies of Winword (Mac or PC) to interested members of WG5 and X3J3. The number of copies to be provided would be enough to cover current membership plus some small delta.