Why do people hate CorelDraw???
Olaf
wrong with this program? For us, this program beats Illustrator and
Freehand in all ways. It even does a great job in page-layout and
imposition is standard in this program. Even printing to our
imagesetter, colour-copier and laserprinter is great. It can even open
PDF's, import Photoshop PSD files including the layers which can be
ungrouped again for editing, i have not see this feature in any other
program today. I would like to hear from you people what you think of
it.
Olaf.
Michael Powell
Version 4.0 of Coreldraw made them a lot of enemies. It would not export a
useable eps or print reliably to a Postscript printer. The only way we
used to get anything out of it was to save back to version 3.0 which was
as solid as a rock.
Thankfully Corel have now lifted their game and Coreldraw 9.0 which we now
use for output is pretty stable. The only gripe I have with it is that
when we use Scenicsofts recommended method of output ie. exporting to eps,
the bounding box is set to the bleed size instead of the page size.
It would also be nice if you could set the default bitmap editor, so that
right clicking on a bitmap and selecting "edit bitmap" could be set to
open Photoshop instead of Photopaint.
Regards
Mike
SCG
even after it was "patched". There were other PostScript printing problems
with it. But since then it has been a joy to use and I prefer it over
FreeHand or Illustrator.
SCG
Olaf wrote in message <3A94E411...@printgroup.nl>...
Scoop
> when we use Scenicsofts recommended method of output ie. exporting to eps,
> the bounding box is set to the bleed size instead of the page size.
Are you using Preps? When exporting the EPS, use the page as the bounding
box, and turn off the bleed. The bleed will show up, and you will have your
proper trim size.
Scoop
Olaf
is a basic imposition function in the printpreview-menu and i've not seen
another imposition program that is as user-friendly as CorelDraw's imposition
function. It's very good in handling step & repeat stuff. It can do perfect
binding, saddle binding, collate & cut binding and a custom binding. That's all
i need... so why pay $ 4000 if you get it for free???
Greetz,
Olaf.
Scoop schreef:
Scoop
Indesign files in Corel's "free" imposition program. It's fine if all you do
is Corel files.
I suppose you could impose Quark .ps files in Corel, and Import them
one....page...at..a...time. Not the best solution.
"Olaf" <in...@printgroup.nl> wrote in message
news:3A953C95...@printgroup.nl...
Marek Williams
One of the main reasons for the negativity toward CorelDRAW in the
prepress world is that for many years there was no Mac version. Even
when Corel did finally come out with a Mac version it was so buggy as
to be virtually unusable. And Mac users were already happy with
Illustrator or Freehand, so Corel had a hard time penetrating the
market. It is human nature to assume that nothing can be as good as
the tools we are familiar with. Furthermore, if it is a Windows
product, it must be a toy; not useful for serious professional
prepress work, right? The roots of this attitude are easy to
understand, even if CorelDRAW does not deserve the reputation.
Much is said about Corel bugs being the cause of negative attitudes,
but I wonder if that is really as significant as some would believe.
Quark, Inc. releases software that is just as buggy, yet QuarkXPress
is hailed as the standard for prepress. But then, QuarkXPress probably
doesn't deserve that reputation either.
Don't reply to the e-mail address in the header. It's bogus. But
I read the newsgroup every day so post here.
Del Tree
<a...@spooron.com> wrote (snipped some):
>Much is said about Corel bugs being the cause of negative attitudes,
>but I wonder if that is really as significant as some would believe.
>Quark, Inc. releases software that is just as buggy, yet QuarkXPress
>is hailed as the standard for prepress.
It may well be, but long-term professional users (I almost said
"victims") would say it was just as buggy as some versions of CorelDraw!
Even now we have the issues with Clipping paths in Photoshop 6 which, if
were not for that fact that using earlier versions of PS or eschewing
paths in TIFF's provides a workaround would cause major grief at output.
Then there were the various PS issues with 4.0.1... The list is easily
as long as Corel's.
Frankly, you answered the question yourself. Corel has no long pedigree
on the Mac, Quirk does. And because of it's dominance of the industry it
gets away with murder.
>But then, QuarkXPress probably
>doesn't deserve that reputation either.
It does in my book.
Only today when printing a 28pp brochure Quirk popped up some cryptic
message about an "I/o disk error" on my PC. And before you could say
"this application has unexpectedly quit" it had, and that was the end of
that document. Period. Corrupted beyond help or repair. If I had not
just minutes before backed it up to our server (as is my wont) I would
be a very, very unhappy chappie. As it is disaster was averted by good
housekeeping.
When was the last time Corel did that to a document, or Photoshop or
Illustrator come to that? Quirk sucks IMV. Always has, and sadly,
probably always will. And the more xtensions you run with it the worse
it gets. That's not to say we don't rely on it and depend on it day in
day out for our livelihood. Nor is it to say that it doesn't do the job
it's intended for since it manifestly does. But no way is it a stable or
predictable application and those who are new to it and don't take
precautions are in for a very rude awakening. The Quirk pro's here will
know what I mean when I say that working with Quark is *never* a relaxed
business. And that, to me, is a serious flaw which has dogged the
"flagship page-layout app" since the day it was born in Tim Gill's shed.
Quark are fully aware of this, just as they are fully aware that if they
serve up the same old crap with version 5 there will be very few
questions here on Quirk in five years time because we'll all be using
InDesign or something even better.
Just my two pennorth!
--
Del Tree
Paul Harris
> Mike's right about Version 4. The eps export filter would not work properly
> even after it was "patched". There were other PostScript printing problems
> with it. But since then it has been a joy to use and I prefer it over
> FreeHand or Illustrator.
> SCG
SCG is exactly right. As a long-time PC user who grew up with
CorelDRAW, and mostly loved it, these have been my experiences. I
switched to the Mac last year, and tried CorelDRAW 8 for the Mac, but
found it somewhat lacking. I'm seriously looking forward to CorelDRAW
version 10 for the Mac, which apparently has been delayed so that it
can be optimized for OSX. In the meantime, as I HATE Illustrator, I've
been learning FreeHand, and while I did some head-pounding at first,
I'm starting to like that program too.
Paul Harris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WORD WORKS
1013 Pendergast Street Ph: 250-384-3076
Victoria, BC V8V 2W8 Fax: 250-384-4402
CANADA
E-mail: The_Guy_...@WordWorks.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
William F. Adams
First, Corel, with the knock-off fonts which they bundled with early versions
was one the prime causes of ransom note typography, as well as a casual,
``gotta-have-'em-all'' attitude towards fonts for designers.
Second, bugs and lousy PostScript code---apparently this has improved since
v4---couldn't 've gotten worse.
Third, weird UI which I find inefficient (have the drawing tools changed?). In
FreeHand, with then bezier pen tool selected, I can create points, move points,
drag control handles and re-shape curves _without_ going back to the toolbox or
double-clicking anywhere.
Fourth, lousy H&J algorithm. Okay, guess I'm spoiled by TeX---take a look at
http://members.aol.com/willadams/tex/tboft.pdf for my current project in TeX.
Fifth, no DPS, and it only runs in Windows or Mac OS. Virtuoso.app runs on my
Cube, and Display PostScript and Services make it a joy to use.
William
--
William Adams
http://members.aol.com/willadams
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Michael Powell
Mike
Ola Pedersen
Ola
Del Tree wrote in message ...
>...
Warren Tryk
>need) Quark, PM, et al. I wouldn't think of trying to impose files
>from one program in another (save for specific imposition programs
>like Preps etc.)
>
>I don't have even the limited imposition options of CorelDRAW! 9 -
>I'm still using 8 - but I provide my printer with press ready SRA2
>sheets where I have manually imposed and made allowance for creap
>etc. as and where necessary. Admittedly the biggest job I have done
>was a 72 page A4 stitched booklet.
>
>JG
***
I understand completely... I bought one of those top-of-the-line Swiss Army
Knives, and I was able to get rid of all the other tools in my garage. My wife
loves it, but now I find I'm having to call in repairman out more often :-)
You did a 72-page booklet with CorelDraw? Reminds me of the time, as a
youngster, that I tried to cut two acres of springtime grass with a 20-inch
rotary push mower... I did it, but I was exhausted, and by the time I finished
(days later), I had to start all over again ;-)
I guess if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
-Warren
Warren Tryk Design
Tumwater, Washington, USA
William F. Adams
>Now what on earth could be even better than InDesign?:-))
TeX - does math, long documents, indexing, etc., no plug-ins necessary, and
works on hardware ordinary people can afford.
Neil Gould
William F. Adams <will...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20010223100542...@ng-cg1.aol.com...
> Ola asked:
> >Now what on earth could be even better than InDesign?:-))
>
> TeX - does math, long documents, indexing, etc., no plug-ins
necessary, and
> works on hardware ordinary people can afford.
>
Yes, with the only caveat being that one needs extraordinary
preconceptual abilities to have a clue as to what a TeX document will
actually look like when printed.
Best regards,
--
Neil Gould
----------------------------------------------------------------
Terra Tu AV http://www.terratu.com
Technical Graphics & Media
Hunter Elliott
> Fifth, no DPS, and it only runs in Windows or Mac OS. Virtuoso.app runs on
my
> Cube, and Display PostScript and Services make it a joy to use.
there are Linix versions of Corel products as well.
TacitR
Um...a program that allows object-by-object trapping...like, say, QuarkXPress?
;)
------
Onyx, the game of sexual exploration; Xero, the industrial magazine
of art, fiction and photography; and online photo gallery--all at
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Jono Moore
years ago and it has had problems shaking that image.
That said, stay away from Corel 10 until the first patch comes out. ;)
Versions 8 and 9 were quite good though.
And hey, if it works for you then don't pay attention to what other people
say.
--
Jono Moore
Prepress Department - Hillside Printing & Copy Centre
3050 Nanaimo Street, Victoria, BC, Canada
Tel: 250.386.5542 Fax: 250.386.7838
prep...@hillside.bc.ca www.hillside.bc.ca
Ola Pedersen
Is that all that you can think of as being better than InDesign?
Ola
William F. Adams wrote in message
<20010223100542...@ng-cg1.aol.com>...
Eric Gill
>
> William,
>
> Is that all that you can think of as being better than InDesign?
Tricked-out QXP, especially on a fast Thunderbird machine.
--
'We Celtic women obey the demands of Nature in a more moral way than the
women of Rome. We consort openly with the best men, but you, of Rome,
allow yourselves to be debauched in secret by the vilest.'
Marek Williams
>>But then, QuarkXPress probably
>>doesn't deserve that reputation either.
>It does in my book.
>Only today when printing a 28pp brochure Quirk popped up some cryptic
>message about an "I/o disk error" on my PC. And before you could say
>"this application has unexpectedly quit" it had, and that was the end of
>that document. Period. Corrupted beyond help or repair. If I had not
>just minutes before backed it up to our server (as is my wont) I would
>be a very, very unhappy chappie. As it is disaster was averted by good
>housekeeping.
>
>When was the last time Corel did that to a document ...
Corel products all have a penchant for doing that when you save the
document. The application crashes right after it deletes the backup
and the previous version on disk and just before it writes the new
version, leaving you with nothing at all for all your work. The only
safe way to work with Corel products is to do a Save As every time you
make a significant change.
I've never had an Adobe product do that. And as for QuarkXPress, well,
I gave up on it back at version 3.12 and went to PageMaker. I'd been
using QuarkXPress as my sole layout app for a year at the time, but
just couldn't tolerate the bugs any more. Quark's bugs have lost them
at least one customer.
Of course, now I've become a big InDesign fan. I'm hoping it does
*not* become the standard of the industry but, rather, becomes an
equal to QuarkXPress. We need at least two applications equally
positioned in the marketplace to drive competition and innovation.
When we are reduced to just one, things stagnate and the attitude of
the vendor towards customers becomes snotty.
Del Tree
<jo...@spacemoose.com.snip> wrote
>In article <20010223130208...@ng-md1.aol.com>, TacitR
><tac...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> >Now what on earth could be even better than InDesign?
>>
>> Um...a program that allows object-by-object trapping...like, say, QuarkXPress?
>
>overlaps an image frame by 1/4pt. grrrrrr...
...And one the *won't* spread trap a fine serif headline simply because
it's sitting on an indeterminate background eps that *happens* to be
white! Quirk's default object level traps are by no means bad but when
it comes to getting things *right* as opposed to "somewhere near" it
sucks and is no alternative to in-rip trapping by a pro.
--
Del Tree
William F. Adams
>> Fifth, no DPS, and it only runs in Windows or Mac OS. Virtuoso.app runs on
>my
>> Cube, and Display PostScript and Services make it a joy to use.
to which Hunter Elliott replied:
>there are Linix versions of Corel products as well.
But Corel doesn't make use of DPS, so no in-line display of arbitrary
PostScript stroke/fill code and there's no provision for anything like Services
yet---www.gnustep.org is working on it, but their drawing program, GYVE, still
has a long way to go.
Charles House
> we'll all be using
> InDesign or something even better.
>
> Just my two pennorth!
> --
> Del Tree
Just curious, Del; by saying "even" better are you couching InDesign in a
positive light?
--Charles House
Del Tree
wrote
>Just curious, Del; by saying "even" better are you couching InDesign in a
>positive light?
Yes and no :-)
Yes, in regard to those features where it is superior to Quirk, notably
typographical control and insofar as it shows the way forward.
No, inasmuch as it's sluggish performance is a serious disadvantage in a
busy production environment.
--
Del Tree
Tim Monk
>> positive light?
>
> Yes and no :-)
> Yes, in regard to those features where it is superior to Quirk, notably
> typographical control and insofar as it shows the way forward.
> No, inasmuch as it's sluggish performance is a serious disadvantage in a
> busy production environment.
From what I've heard, InDesign's "sluggish performance" is its biggest
downfall in the eyes of avid Quark victims (to quote you from an earlier
post). Adobe is aware of this concern, and I think/hope we'll all be
pleasantly surprised with the next major release. I expect it to overcome
much of the speed problem. When/If that happens, I'll become excited about a
possible alternative to Quark!!
--
Tim
*remove NOSPAM to reply.
William F. Adams
>Is that all that you can think of as being better than InDesign?
regarding my having said:
>>TeX - does math, long documents, indexing, etc., no plug-ins necessary, and
>>works on hardware ordinary people can afford.
>>
>>www.tug.org
Not sure what you mean by your query.
TeX works for me (or is working for me---still learning it), but un-like
WYSIWYG apps, it's not limiting in terms of what it can efficiently do (once I
learn how such a thing is done). As Neil noted, it does require a bit of effort
to get from .tex source to finished/formatted output, both conceptually and
visually (there is a WYSIWYM program that helps with this though, LyX,
www.lyx.org), but I'm fortunate in using NeXTTeX on a NeXT Cube running Display
PostScript, so get a more immediate/accurate/thorough rendering more readily.
Alan Hoenig's wonderful _TeX Unbound_ is a paean to the virtues of using TeX
with Display PostScript.
Let me try turning things around to put things in perspective. The nicest thing
InDesign has going for it is its wonderful H&J algorithm (which is the same as
TeX's) with the additional feature of doing on-the-fly character width
adjustment and optical margin alignment. TeX can work towards the latter with
active characters and some (relatively) simple macro programming (see _The
TeXBook_ where it's described as, ``an easier problem'').
Negatives for me are the weird UI---Adobe doesn't understand the way that I
work---Macromedia comes a lot closer with FreeHand anyway, and the hefty
hardware requirements (at home anyway, guess it'd run fine on the G4 at work).
Also the fact that it's closed source/proprietary in not only the binary, but
also the file format.
Del Tree
<tmonk...@timmonkNOSPAM.com> wrote
Agreed. We will have to wait and see.
--
Del Tree
sim...@nuffield.co.uk
>
> Hi all,
>
> William F. Adams <will...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20010223100542...@ng-cg1.aol.com...
> > Ola asked:
> > >Now what on earth could be even better than InDesign?:-))
> >
> > TeX - does math, long documents, indexing, etc., no plug-ins
> necessary, and
> > works on hardware ordinary people can afford.
> >
> Yes, with the only caveat being that one needs extraordinary
> preconceptual abilities to have a clue as to what a TeX document will
> actually look like when printed.
Whch is what "TeXPerfect", and other projects, are supposed to deliver:
Open Source, unix, word processor with proper typesetting etc., unlike
Quark, Ragemaker etc..
--
Simon Dales, Publication Software Engineer
"The impossible is easy"
Nuffield Press Ltd., 21 Nuffield Way, Abingdon, Oxford, OX14 1RL,UK
+44-1235-558637
Neil Gould
Tim Monk <tmonk...@timmonkNOSPAM.com> wrote:
>
> From what I've heard, InDesign's "sluggish performance" is its biggest
> downfall in the eyes of avid Quark victims (to quote you from an
earlier
> post). Adobe is aware of this concern, and I think/hope we'll all be
> pleasantly surprised with the next major release. I expect it to
overcome
> much of the speed problem. When/If that happens, I'll become excited
about a
> possible alternative to Quark!!
>
In actual use on a PIII933, I don't find InDesign to be sluggish at all,
unless you have all the bells and whistles switched 'on'. This isn't
necessary while 'roughing in' a document, so it really isn't an issue.
IMO, the biggest hurdle is for users to take a step back and look at
InDesign from a viewpoint that disregards how they do things in QXP. The
paradigm is quite different, and much easier to learn for those familiar
with (and appreciative of) other Adobe applications.
Isn't the idea of 'snappy performance' seems somewhat misconstrued to
me. It isn't so much how fast an application draws a screen, but how
long it takes to finish a project. In that light, I think InDesign is
more than competitive.
William F. Adams
1 - a WP-> LaTeX converter
2 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/texperfect/ a project which intends to
create a ``split-screen'' view/editor of one's TeX source and formatted
document.
I guess it's the latter which Simon was putting forward.
One half of this has already been done---TeXtures from Blue Sky Research on the
Mac does this sort of thing (but it's not opensource), and before that there
was NeXTTeX and InstantTeX on NeXTstep.
-I'd dearly love to see an interactive/visual TeX design tool (draw/tweak text
and type in a window, get TeX code to create said example in another
window---which seems to be something of what ``texperfect(2) has in mind, but
it's hard to tell from the web page)
http://texperfect.sourceforge.net/en/texperfect.html
I think the project is going to be slow-moving 'cause of the very ambitious
nature of it, which is rather a shame.
For my part, I'm working on a modular approach to laying out/learning a TeX
document which is working for me thus far---what're everyone's thoughts on the
absolutely essential/fundamental aspects of a document's design/format/content?
sim...@nuffield.co.uk
> 2 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/texperfect/ a project which intends to
> create a ``split-screen'' view/editor of one's TeX source and formatted
> document.
>
> I guess it's the latter which Simon was putting forward.
You guess right.
>
> One half of this has already been done---TeXtures from Blue Sky Research on the
> Mac does this sort of thing (but it's not opensource), and before that there
> was NeXTTeX and InstantTeX on NeXTstep.
Not a Linux one yet?
> -I'd dearly love to see an interactive/visual TeX design tool (draw/tweak text
> and type in a window, get TeX code to create said example in another
> window---which seems to be something of what ``texperfect(2) has in mind, but
> it's hard to tell from the web page)
I have been working on an improved TeXCAD (ItC) system over the last few
years. This radically simplifies the problem. Your TeX can be very
cutdown and integrated to the GUI. ItC is eventually going to be
reconfigurable, so that you can add your own graphic objects, and they
render correctly in your window.
> I think the project is going to be slow-moving 'cause of the very ambitious
> nature of it, which is rather a shame.
That's why I've gone for the much more limited project (and that's
slow-moving too :-)).
> For my part, I'm working on a modular approach to laying out/learning a TeX
> document which is working for me thus far---what're everyone's thoughts on the
> absolutely essential/fundamental aspects of a document's design/format/content?
>
> William
>
> --
> William Adams
> http://members.aol.com/willadams
> Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
--
cann
> >Who mainly uses it?
>
> People doing mathematics, also database publishing or hyperlinked documents
> using Texinfo
If I think about this it is kind of backwards. Why do people in
mathmatics, science, database publishing need great H&J? Most people in
science and math don't know squat about that. The people in publishing
do but seem not to care anymore. So you can make a masterpiece and all
the people want is the info out of it. Might be just a waste of time.
Ted
Neil Gould
Interesting thread!
Ted cann <ca...@dca.net> wrote:
>
> If I think about this it is kind of backwards. Why do people in
> mathmatics, science, database publishing need great H&J? Most people
in
> science and math don't know squat about that. The people in publishing
> do but seem not to care anymore. So you can make a masterpiece and all
> the people want is the info out of it. Might be just a waste of time.
>
Oh? I find that my technical publishing clients are *far* pickier about
typography than those that I run into looking for brochures, flyers and
other general advertising pieces. Additionally, such things as equations
and formulae can quickly expose the differences in capability between
various layout applications. So, to turn things around once again, I
suspect that it is the proliferation of applications that handle these
aspects inefficiently (or not at all) that has lead to the general
decline in typographic quality.
That being said, I still do not think that Tex and its variants are
quite ready to oust other technical publishing applications.
William F. Adams
>Why do people in
>mathmatics, science, database publishing need great H&J?
To produce beautiful documents.
>Most people in
>science and math don't know squat about that.
With TeX they (almost) don't need to.
>The people in publishing
>do but seem not to care anymore.
There's a lot of that going around unfortunately, but little real justification
for it (pardon the pun).
>So you can make a masterpiece and all
>the people want is the info out of it.
Typography is defined as, ``The art (or craft) of setting type so as to enhance
the text.'' ``If it's done well, no one will notice''---the one-line version of
Robert Bringhurst's _The Elements of Typographic Style_. A beautifully/well set
text will ease/make more efficient getting the info out of a text whether they
notice this or not.
>Might be just a waste of time.
Never.
Suggested reading:
The afore-mentioned Bringhurst book (try to get a hardcover)
Dr. Knuth's _Digital Typography_ Dr. Knuth created TeX 'cause he was
dissappointed with the quality (or lack thereof) of his series _The Art of
Computer Programming_ and being a computer scientist, decided computers should
be able to assist with such a difficulty. Wonderful interview over at
www.techreview.com
RSD99
and formulae can quickly expose the differences in capability between
Plus *Tables*
None of the so-called "major" page layout applications handle these
natively. So the people that need these capabilities are forced to migrate
to programs such as
(1) Corel Ventura
(2) FrameMaker
(3) TeX
And then we come to the requirements for Indexes, Tables of Contents, Tables
of Illustrations (Figures), and etcetera!
IMHO: Microsoft Word (UUGGGGH! ... PUKE!) handles all of these requirements
*far better* than Quirk, PageSlasher, or InDesign (no flames please, I only
use "Word" when the *client* demands it!).
"Neil Gould" <ne...@terratu.com> wrote in message
news:97j8qm$525$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net...
cann
Neil Gould wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Interesting thread!
>
> Ted cann <ca...@dca.net> wrote:
> >
> > If I think about this it is kind of backwards. Why do people in
> > mathmatics, science, database publishing need great H&J? Most people
> in
> > science and math don't know squat about that. The people in publishing
> > do but seem not to care anymore. So you can make a masterpiece and all
> > the people want is the info out of it. Might be just a waste of time.
> >
> Oh? I find that my technical publishing clients are *far* pickier about
> typography than those that I run into looking for brochures, flyers and
> other general advertising pieces.
Your clients maybe but not the people who actually read the stuff. They
want the info, nothing more. But brochures etc. have to catch the eye,
etc., therefore there is more design. I am generalizing of course.
Additionally, such things as equations
> and formulae can quickly expose the differences in capability between
> various layout applications.
It sure can.
So, to turn things around once again, I
> suspect that it is the proliferation of applications that handle these
> aspects inefficiently (or not at all) that has lead to the general
> decline in typographic quality.
And it seems people just don't know good from bad.
>
Ted
Ian Kemmish
says...
>Suggested reading:
>The afore-mentioned Bringhurst book (try to get a hardcover)
>Dr. Knuth's _Digital Typography_ Dr. Knuth created TeX 'cause he was
>dissappointed with the quality (or lack thereof) of his series _The Art of
>Computer Programming_ and being a computer scientist, decided computers should
I have a book, ``Anatomy of Lisp'' produced on the original TeX and
Metafont system, after Knuth had declared them finished, but before he had been
convinced that both needed complete re-writes. Trust me, you wouldn't want to
read it unless you absolutely had to;-)
We should be grateful that he decided time should not be an issue in going
through the re-writes, and that he sought the most expert criticism he could.
That, perhaps, is the lesson TeX has for all software developers....
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ian Kemmish 18 Durham Close, Biggleswade, Beds SG18 8HZ, UK
i...@jawssytems.com Tel: +44 1767 601 361
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Behind every successful organisation stands one person who knows the secret
of how to keep the managers away from anything truly important.
cann
>
> Typography is defined as, ``The art (or craft) of setting type so as to enhance
> the text.'' ``If it's done well, no one will notice''---the one-line version of
> Robert Bringhurst's _The Elements of Typographic Style_. A beautifully/well set
> text will ease/make more efficient getting the info out of a text whether they
> notice this or not.
Over time things change for the worse in this case. You will notice
typography that is well done since it is in the minority these days.
>
> >Might be just a waste of time.
>
> Never.
Sure it can be. For example conference booklets. Put the best typography
you can in but people won't care, they want the info short and sweet.
You might be proud of how well it came out but they don't care. That is
why e-mail can be so bad. People don't mind mispelled words etc. It gets
to the point. You don't write your e-mail in TeX than make a PDF of it
now do you?
Ted
>
William F. Adams
> So, to turn things around once again, I
>suspect that it is the proliferation of applications that handle these
>aspects inefficiently (or not at all) that has lead to the general
>decline in typographic quality.
I dunno, I remember reading 'bout _Publish_ magazine staffers setting their
headlines in MacDraw with each character as an individual text block so as to
make them look nice, c. 1985... It's more the availability of the tools
facilitating people cutting out the ``expensive'' composition houses,
typographers and graphic designers
>I still do not think that Tex and its variants are
>quite ready to oust other technical publishing applications.
Uh, in my experience, I'd turn that around---none of the other technical
publishing applications are ready to replace TeX---I'm almost done doing a
medium size (600+ pages) job in FrameMaker, and the workarounds to get decent
typography and to meet the specs (IEE's) doubled, if not tripled the amount of
time/effort it's taken (had to shift all punctuation which was adjacent to
in-line equations into the equation to get proper spacing). Our previous book
for IEE in Quark wasn't much better labour-wise and required a lot of tweaking
of things TeX automagically gets right. Haven't used Ventura Publisher in ages,
but haven't heard that it's improved markedly in H&J (though everything else
was half-decent if memory serves)
It's also trivial with TeX to return the text to the author with equations and
tables intact, and without hamstringing oneself as regards the next edition
(try doing that with a job done in Quark using York's math XTension...)
Neil Gould
William F. Adams <will...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20010228144518...@ng-mi1.aol.com...
> Neil said:
> > So, to turn things around once again, I
> >suspect that it is the proliferation of applications that handle
these
> >aspects inefficiently (or not at all) that has lead to the general
> >decline in typographic quality.
>
> I dunno, I remember reading 'bout _Publish_ magazine staffers setting
their
> headlines in MacDraw with each character as an individual text block
so as to
> make them look nice, c. 1985...
>
Perhaps. But, if they had instead used Ventura Publisher c. 1985, they
wouldn't have had to use such ridiculous measures to set their type, and
it would have been done faster and better, and with repeatable control.
> It's more the availability of the tools facilitating people cutting
out the ``expensive'' composition houses,
> typographers and graphic designers
>
The tools are there... the knowledge and skill has yet to catch up.
> >I still do not think that Tex and its variants are
> >quite ready to oust other technical publishing applications.
>
> Uh, in my experience, I'd turn that around---none of the other
technical
> publishing applications are ready to replace TeX---I'm almost done
doing a
> medium size (600+ pages) job in FrameMaker, and the workarounds to get
decent
> typography and to meet the specs (IEE's) doubled, if not tripled the
amount of
> time/effort it's taken (had to shift all punctuation which was
adjacent to
> in-line equations into the equation to get proper spacing). Our
previous book
> for IEE in Quark wasn't much better labour-wise and required a lot of
tweaking
> of things TeX automagically gets right. Haven't used Ventura Publisher
in ages,
> but haven't heard that it's improved markedly in H&J (though
everything else
> was half-decent if memory serves)
>
Interesting story. However, if setting punctuation was a problem, you
may not be taking full advantage of Framemaker's capabilities, such as
character formatting and/or definable formatting via reference pages.
Frankly, there isn't much that you can't do with Framemaker, given it's
programmability via MIF. Ventura is still up to snuff, as well. Version
8 is quite an improvement over 5 & 7 (i.e., it works).
TeX isn't going away. There's still a solid place in technical
publishing for such tools, particular in an *nix environment. But, it
isn't quite what I'd call "handy".
William F. Adams
>I have a book, ``Anatomy of Lisp'' produced on the original TeX and
>Metafont system, after Knuth had declared them finished, but before he had
>been
>convinced that both needed complete re-writes. Trust me, you wouldn't want
>to
>read it unless you absolutely had to;-)
My college library actually had a copy of the orignal _TeX and METAFONT
Book_---still nowhere near as bad as what one gets out of Word with default
settings.
My favorite line, Knuth's wife asking, ``Why don't you make them `s' shaped''
upon seeing his first attempts at an `s' with METAFONT.
then ted said:
>Sure it can be. For example conference booklets. Put the best typography
>you can in but people won't care, they want the info short and sweet.
>You might be proud of how well it came out but they don't care. That is
>why e-mail can be so bad. People don't mind mispelled words etc. It gets
>to the point.
But misspellings make a poor impression.
>You don't write your e-mail in TeX than make a PDF of it
>now do you?
I would if it were necessary to communicate a point. As it is, I do type thing
as if it were going to be TeXd, ` for opening quotes, ' for closing, -- for an
en dash, --- for em dashes---haven't gotten into the habit of typing $1/2$ for
fractions yet though ;)
I've always thought it rather a shame that Tim Berners Lee didn't look to
TeXView.app on his NeXT when he authored worldwideweb.app, and I would be glad
of a system which would use TeX's H&J when displaying e-mail on-screen.
William F. Adams
(re: Publish editors setting headlines in MacDraw)
>if they had instead used Ventura Publisher c. 1985, they
>wouldn't have had to use such ridiculous measures to set their type, and
>it would have been done faster and better, and with repeatable control.
They were working on aMac. I suspect buying a PC would've been a budget buster.
>However, if setting punctuation was a problem, you
>may not be taking full advantage of Framemaker's capabilities, such as
>character formatting and/or definable formatting via reference pages.
>Frankly, there isn't much that you can't do with Framemaker, given it's
>programmability via MIF
How does one accomplish nicely spaced punctuation around equations? In the MIF
the equations are widely separated from the text they're in, so a programmatic
solution there didn't seem feasible.
I hammered at this for the better part of a day before settling upon placing
the punctuation inside the equation---if there's a better solution, I'd like to
know for next time. The spacing around equations pushed the punctuation so far
away we had copy editors marking it up to delete ``space bands''
>Ventura is still up to snuff, as well.
Has it's H&J gotten better or does it still do it blithely one line at a time?
Does it try to re-set a paragraph to avoid a widow or an orphan?
>TeX isn't going away. There's still a solid place in technical
>publishing for such tools, particular in an *nix environment. But, it
>isn't quite what I'd call "handy".
I don't believe I ever described it as ``handy'' but it's the best tool for the
sort of work I do, and the hardware I own.
Neil Gould
William F. Adams <will...@aol.com> wrote:
> neil said:
> (re: Publish editors setting headlines in MacDraw)
> >if they had instead used Ventura Publisher c. 1985, they
> >wouldn't have had to use such ridiculous measures to set their type,
and
> >it would have been done faster and better, and with repeatable
control.
>
> They were working on aMac. I suspect buying a PC would've been a
budget buster.
>
So, instead, we see them achieving "quality typography" with products
like MacDraw? Yikes! Talk about using a screwdriver as a prybar!
> How does one accomplish nicely spaced punctuation around equations? In
the MIF
> the equations are widely separated from the text they're in, so a
programmatic
> solution there didn't seem feasible.
>
I don't know why not, as the placement of elements is unrelated to their
relative position in MIF code. The basic structures of Framemaker are
capable of placing any given element (or set of elements) anywhere in
the document with great accuracy. You can do it via the UI, or you can
do it via MIF, which is more precise. I don't know what you've already
tried. However, I can tell you that I have occassion to run equations
into text, and haven't run into much difficulty doing so.
> >Ventura is still up to snuff, as well.
>
> Has it's H&J gotten better or does it still do it blithely one line at
a time?
> Does it try to re-set a paragraph to avoid a widow or an orphan?
>
Hmm. That depends on how you look at it. Given that VP has always
supported vertical justification, and that the parameters are quite
flexible, I'd say that how it behaves is dependent on how well the user
knows the app and sets up the document. And, widow and orphan control
has always been a part of VP's basic typographic capability. If you are
asking for a comparison of the automated multi-line composition type of
H&J, a la InDesign, to Ventura's approach, I'd say that the end results
can be indistinguishable. And the time required to achieve those results
can be pretty much the same. And both are light years ahead of QXP or
Pagemaker.
Marcel Weiher
[good typography a waste of time]
>> Never.
>Sure it can be. For example conference booklets. Put the best typography
>you can in but people won't care, they want the info short and sweet.
People generally don't 'care', but they do notice. Not on a conscious
level, but the quality of the text does register.
>You might be proud of how well it came out but they don't care. That is
>why e-mail can be so bad. People don't mind mispelled words etc.
Exactly, and that's why it's so bad. People *do* notice, and all those
spelling errors do reflect poorly on the text.
>It gets to the point. You don't write your e-mail in TeX than make a
>PDF of it now do you?
That would be inappropriate for the medium, just like badly set type
is inappropriate for books or papers...
Marcel
--
Java and C++ make you think that the new ideas are like the old ones.
Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS.
- Alan Kay -
William F. Adams
>So, instead, we see them achieving "quality typography" with products
>like MacDraw? Yikes! Talk about using a screwdriver as a prybar!
My point was that at the time, a full toolkit was not available, and yet people
still put forward the effort to achieve quality work.
>The basic structures of Framemaker are
>capable of placing any given element (or set of elements) anywhere in
>the document with great accuracy.
Okay, how does one move a mark of punctuation so that it appears directly next
to an in-line equation without the appearance of an intervening space in
FrameMaker.
>You can do it via the UI, or you can
>do it via MIF, which is more precise
But the equations were in a whole 'nother section of the MIF, and I couldn't
find a command to adjust the spacing between elements.
>However, I can tell you that I have occassion to run equations
>into text, and haven't run into much difficulty doing so.
This is a book with 100-200 display equations per chapter and lots more in-line
equations in the text. I found FM's default spacing of the punctuation around
equations abominable as did everyone else, and could find _no_ commands for
adjusting it.
I'm e-mailing you a mif for a small bit which I've unadjusted---I'd really like
for you to show me how to automagically fix it (and if you say the spacing as
is is okay I'm gonna have to hurt you >;)
cann
Ted
William F. Adams
>OK I am confused. How come you used Framemaker instead of TeX?
'cause that's how the files were supplied---I suspect the author will want the
up-dated files back too :(
Not that I'm not saying that TeX would've been an easy tool for the job (There
is an IEE trans pre-print style over on CTAN though...), but at least things
like section heads with turned lines aligning with the first word once set up,
would've ``just worked'' as opposed to requiring fiddling depending on how many
digits were in the section head #, or which letter a chapter appendix was
numbered as. In TeX this would've been just about trivial, set the # in a
smashed (no vertical advance) hbox, then the section title in another hbox.
Damned if I could figure out a way to automagically do it in FrameMaker though.
I'll use whatever tool the client specifies (even Quark). Doesn't mean I'm
going to be happy about it though.
Neil Gould
William F. Adams <will...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20010301092829...@ng-mi1.aol.com...
> neil said:
> >So, instead, we see them achieving "quality typography" with products
> >like MacDraw? Yikes! Talk about using a screwdriver as a prybar!
>
> My point was that at the time, a full toolkit was not available, and
yet people
> still put forward the effort to achieve quality work.
>
I understand, however my point is that, at the time, a full toolkit
_was_ available, but they chose tools that were incapable of the task at
hand. Now, why they chose those tools is anybody's guess, but I suspect
that they gave in to the "common wisdom", rather than assess their needs
and select the systems that best met those needs.
> >You can do it via the UI, or you can
> >do it via MIF, which is more precise
>
> But the equations were in a whole 'nother section of the MIF, and I
couldn't
> find a command to adjust the spacing between elements.
>
It does take some study to master MIF. MIF is a structured / procedural
language, which means that there is no direct relation between the code
for an equation and the code for its placement in a document. Not for
the feint of heart, and usually not necessary. I use MIF mainly for
database publishing.
> This is a book with 100-200 display equations per chapter and lots
more in-line
> equations in the text. I found FM's default spacing of the punctuation
around
> equations abominable as did everyone else, and could find _no_
commands for
> adjusting it.
>
I think it would benefit you to spend a bit of time studying how Frame
deals with wrappers for equations, character formatting, and formatting
via reference pages. It could save you a good chunk of time in the long
run.
> I'm e-mailing you a mif for a small bit which I've unadjusted---I'd
really like
> for you to show me how to automagically fix it (and if you say the
spacing as
> is is okay I'm gonna have to hurt you >;)
>
I've received it, and will take a look at it when I get a moment.
William F. Adams
>I think it would benefit you to spend a bit of time studying how Frame
>deals with wrappers for equations, character formatting, and formatting
>via reference pages. It could save you a good chunk of time in the long
>run.
I've got tons of reusable elements on the reference pages and use character and
paragraph styles throughout, 'kay? Some things seem to be impossible to do
automagically in FrameMaker without (for example) munging the table of contents
generation. Getting section heads to turn on the first word of the heading
comes to mind.
I then said:
>> I'm e-mailing you a mif for a small bit which I've unadjusted---I'd
>really like
>> for you to show me how to automagically fix it
>I've received it, and will take a look at it when I get a moment.
Thanks, looking forward to hearing what you think.
Jono Moore
ne...@terratu.com wrote on 3/1/01 14:40:
>> I'm e-mailing you a mif for a small bit which I've unadjusted---I'd really
>> like for you to show me how to automagically fix it (and if you say the
>> spacing as is is okay I'm gonna have to hurt you >;)
>>
> I've received it, and will take a look at it when I get a moment.
Interesting thread - just been catching up on it. Let us know how it turns
out. ;-)
--
Jono Moore
Prepress Department - Hillside Printing & Copy Centre
3050 Nanaimo Street, Victoria, BC, Canada
Tel: 250.386.5542 Fax: 250.386.7838
prep...@hillside.bc.ca www.hillside.bc.ca
jeff_cochran
>wrong with this program? For us, this program beats Illustrator and
>Freehand in all ways. It even does a great job in page-layout and
>imposition is standard in this program. Even printing to our
>imagesetter, colour-copier and laserprinter is great. It can even open
>PDF's, import Photoshop PSD files including the layers which can be
>ungrouped again for editing, i have not see this feature in any other
>program today. I would like to hear from you people what you think of
>it.
Never buy an even numbered version of CorelDRAW. :)
Pretty much got burned by 4, 6 and to a certain extent, 8. Even 9
still crashes on the PC's occasionally where the Adobe alternatives
are rock solid, but Corle is less expensive for sure. Printer, RIP
and EPS support has gotten a lot better in recent versions, but the
product has also gotten more bloated than ever. I have 10 on a
system, but it is crashing as well, and frankly, anytime I have a
Microsoft product and a Corel product on the same system it crashes
far more frequently. Since the Microsoft products are more useful,
Corel gets dropped.
For a long time Corel didn't actively support the prepress industry,
even killing Ventura Publisher just to spite me. Yep, I'm convinced
it was personal. Pagemaker and Quark became the standards and Corel
got sidelined. The Adobe trio was/is wonderful, though the newest
Photoshop has some annoying glitches, and Freehand was a great product
that time has passed by. Quark is still flakey for me, on both PC and
Mac platforms, but it's powerful enough to be useful despite
occasional flakiness.
My guess is Corel will implode anyway, they can't seem to decide on
the business they're in or the market they serve. They lost their way
after Corel 3, even though Corel 5 was actually a very productive
product for me. Since then, Corel gets pulled out when needed, but
other tools have proved to be more my mainstay.
Then there's my pet Corel peeve: Proprietary file formats. 'Nuf
said.
Jeff
Neil Gould
Jono Moore <prep...@hillsideprinting.com> wrote:
> in article 97mfso$9ca$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net, Neil Gould at
> ne...@terratu.com wrote on 3/1/01 14:40:
> >>William's request for some help with Framemaker:
> >> I'm e-mailing you a mif for a small bit which I've unadjusted---I'd
really
> >> like for you to show me how to automagically fix it (and if you say
the
> >> spacing as is is okay I'm gonna have to hurt you >;)
> >>
> > I've received it, and will take a look at it when I get a moment.
>
> Interesting thread - just been catching up on it. Let us know how it
turns
> out. ;-)
>
If you have some specific questions... ask!
The sample was a set of simple equations, which I suggested could be set
as regular type more quickly. However the exercise was to learn how to
automatically adjust kerning when in-line equations were being used.
Since this is a multi-step procedure which ultimately requires that the
user be able to write utility programs to parse MIF, the task is
non-trivial. So, I set up the equation wrappers so that, by studying the
MIF code, William would have the basic reference material for writing
such a utility, should he come up to speed with MIF code.
Olaf
CorelDraw is not running like it should. Even Adobe's programs do crash and
i don't want to talk about Indesign or Photoshop 6!!! And could you tell me
what the alternative program from Adobe is called that works the same as
CorelDraw??? Don't tell me it's called Illustrator because i've not used it
for the past few years since i've got CorelDraw. You can't even import a
graphic that has transparent stuff from Illustrator 9 into PageMaker, Quark
or Indesign without problems. My collegue next to me is really stressed
because he had to do a layout in Indesign, he's out of his mind right now
and the program crashed even when he switched from one document to
another... Photoshop is telling me that it's out of memory, the file is 30
mb., there is enough memory in the system (640 Mb.) and the harddisk has 9
Gb. free, no other programs open too. I've been working with CorelDraw
since version 3 and i'm waiting a little longer until i upgrade v.9 to
v.10 because i read the newsgroups from Corel every day to check what the
problems are. Have you ever check Adobe's support website and the user
forums??? Don't tell me that Adobe is better than Corel because they make
the same buggy programs. Check the forums and see for yourself at
http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/main.html
At least Corel has the guts to brings out programs that have nice
version-numbers, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and not like Adobe's Indesign 1.0, 1.5,
1.5.2, PhotoShop 6, 6.01, PageMaker 6, 6.5, 6.52 and so on and on and on.
Why should i pay the full price if i allready have the other half. When
will PhotoShop 6.5 and Indesign 2.0 appear???
Greetz,
Olaf.
Jeff, Cochran schreef:
William F. Adams
>The sample was a set of simple equations, which I suggested could be set
>as regular type more quickly. However the exercise was to learn how to
>automatically adjust kerning when in-line equations were being used.
>Since this is a multi-step procedure which ultimately requires that the
>user be able to write utility programs to parse MIF, the task is
>non-trivial. So, I set up the equation wrappers so that, by studying the
>MIF code, William would have the basic reference material for writing
>such a utility, should he come up to speed with MIF code.
However, the document contained a large proportion of distinctly complex
equations. Moreover, Neil's offer to help came after I observed that fixing the
spacing in the MIF wasn't obvious, 'cause the equation frames were widely
separated from their placement in the text, the intended implication being that
that made it non-trivial.
I really appreciate Neil's effort, and've stored his files for reference the
next time we get in a FrameMaker book. The more I work with stuff like this,
the more I feel that using SGML or XML is a better idea (especially if one then
sets it in TeX ;). There was a lengthy discussion on this sort of thing in
comp.sys.next.advocacy a while back, with no readily available solution :(. Iin
this instance, the book had been done in FM by the author and contained
sufficient indexing and cross-references to preclude moving it to something
else 'cause of time and money. I still feel that my original point is valid,
that FM makes hard typographic things which TeX just gets right.
William F. Adams
>Freehand was a great product
>that time has passed by
I don't see that as being the case, save in some very specific narrow ways (no
Display PostScript support being the prima facie evidence---I'd rather like an
update to Virtuoso.app on my Cube).
FreeHand is wonderfully productive, extremely reliable in my experience and has
capabilities Adobe Illustrator is still catching up to. To beat CorelDraw, it's
productive and reliable :/
Olaf
Yes, i do have it but i don't get much work for Freehand. But... i must say,
Freehand is in my opinion better than Illustrator because your document can have
more pages.
Productivity is not in the program, it's a personal thing. Relialibility is not in
the program either, it's your OS that makes the difference.
Olaf.
"William F. Adams" schreef:
cann
>
> Productivity is not in the program, it's a personal thing. Relialibility is not in
> the program either, it's your OS that makes the difference.
>
to many nuts with the squirels.
I think numerous people in this NG can come up with programs that would
crash a system. I will tell you one. Illustrator 7 plain sucked.
Ted
William F. Adams
>> Productivity is not in the program, it's a personal thing.
Not being able to do math in dialog boxes makes Illustrator a _lot_ less
productive for me. Not being able to non-uniformly scale the output at my
previous job required extra steps for Illustrator jobs, lots of other such
examples.
>Relialibility is not in
>> the program either, it's your OS that makes the difference.
I dunno, FreeHand nee Virtuoso runs about the same in Mac OS, Windows and
NeXTstep in terms of crashing caused directly by the program. Mac OS has a
tendency to run out of resources or file handles (pre 9 for the latter), but
that's not an issue if one is only running the one program.
William F. Adams
>Productivity is not in the program,
Explain then, how I can be as productive in Illustrator when it doesn't
consistently do math in dialog boxes & c.? What's productive about having to
keep a mental list of where it works and not, and having to open a bloody
calculator, or do calcs in one's head when in FreeHand it ``just works''
>Relialibility is not in
>the program either, it's your OS that makes the difference.
Mostly here I meant PS code generation/output. The OS does little to control
that unless one is doing something screwy like generating OS-specific calls
which're getting piped through PDFWriter.