[Tfug] Followup [Re: Desktop Publishing Software]

[Predrag Punosevac]

On 11/8/07, Claude Rubinson <rubinson at u.arizona.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 08, 2007 at 11:34:16AM -0700, Andrew Ayre wrote:
> > One of his requirements, I believe, was a system that someone else could
> > take over after his stint is done.
> >
> > Predrag Punosevac wrote:
> > > I was not participating in previous discussion but sounds to me that
> > > you are better of using Latex/TeX:-)  If you are putting that much
> > > effort you might as well learn real thing.
>
> Andy's correct.  Moreover, I work in LaTeX every single day.  Of
> course I thought about using it.  But it's not the correct tool for
> all tasks--despite what some people think (see, e.g., Beamer).  In
> particular, it's not ideal for tasks such as this which are primarily
> about presentation and layout, rather than structured content.
>
> Claude
>

I do not know what you mean by Beamer. Do you need to do presentations?
There is far superior class of Latex presentation to Beamer called powerdot.
It is not as popular as doesn't allow using pdflatex option. You have
to go through ps files to get the final product which is pdf
presentation (dynamical effects are readily available)
You may check on www.ctan.org and can be easily added on the standard
teTeX distribution of TeX (standard for Unix). It is by default
included in TeXLive which is going to be standard Unix distribution of
TeX when the dependency issues are resolved but Debian for instance
already includes TeXLive among available packages. It is by default
included in MiKTeX 2.5 which is standard Windows distribution of TeX.

I understand that if he needs to outsource job eventually TeX probably
should not be the first choice. I honestly didn't try to use TeX to
write a news-letter/newspaper so I might be very wrong about
suitability of the TeX for such things.