On Thu, 20 Apr 1995, Michael S. Johnson wrote:
 
> Lee J. Silverman wrote:
> >         Could a LaTeX or postscript version be made available,
>
> Lee,
>   any graphical Web browser should allow you to print to a postscript
> printer.  Why make more work for these people?  I suppose we'll have a flood
> of "me too" messages clamoring for every file format imaginable.  RTF,
> anyone?  DCA-RFT?  WinHelp?  MacWrite?  Wordstar?  SGML?  UNICODE?  JIS?
> Esperanto?  Backus-Naur Form?  :)
 
        True, although I picked LaTex and Postscript as examples because
they are "universal" formats.  RTF should be universal as well, but since
Microsquish screwed up their implementaation, it isn't.  LaTeX is probably
a bad example, unless the original doc is written in LaTeX.  I'll rescind
that request :-) Same goes for SGML or GML or Scriptor Troff -- if it's
not in that form originally, it's hard to get it into that form.
Postscript is pretty universal, though, and very easy to generate no
matter what the original form of the document is.
 
        I guess it depends on how they are writing the manuals.  If they
are already planning on creating printed versions, they'll have postscript
around somewhere, or at least it can easily be generated.  Why not make it
available to everyone?
 
        Printouts from WWW pages are OK, unless the document is *really*
formatted for the WWW, in which case it'll consist of about 80 one-page
documents or maybe a dozen 6-10 page chapters which will be a pain to
print out.  And (IMHO) postscript formatting which was designed to be on
paper looks, and reads, much better than WWW output.  For one thing, if
it's on paper, you can have a meaningful table of contents and index.
Finally, remember that not everyone here has access to the WWW.  That
always strikes me as odd, (if they're smart enough to run a list, they
should get themselves a real net connection! :-) but it's something to
remember.
 
 
Lee Silverman     [log in to unmask]      http://www.netspace.org/users/lee/
Network: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances,
         with interstices between the intersections.  -- S. Johnson