X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil t nil] ["2274" "Thu" "8" "October" "92" "12:46:43" "BST" "Mike Piff" "M.Piff@SHEFFIELD.AC.UK" nil "52" "Re: letter style" nil nil nil "10"]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (serv01) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/1.9.92 ) id AA12934; Thu, 8 Oct 92 12:59:04 +0100 Received: from vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (vm.hd-net.uni-heidelberg.de) by sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.0/SMI-4.0-sc/19.6.92) id AA11191; Thu, 8 Oct 92 12:57:33 +0100 Message-Id: <9210081157.AA11191@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de> Received: from DHDURZ1 by vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5114; Thu, 08 Oct 92 12:56:53 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 5100; Thu, 08 Oct 92 12:56:37 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 5095; Thu, 08 Oct 92 12:56:32 CET Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 12:46:43 BST From: Mike Piff Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of Subject: Re: letter style Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 854 > > > I agree with everything Frank says. However, I have a much simpler and > > more pragmatic reason for including a letter style in LaTeX3. Most > > people would sooner have a tooth pulled than learn to use a new system. > > Regardless of how good or bad LaTeX is for writing letters, users who > > have made the effort to learn it should not be told that they also > > have to learn Word Imperfect if they want to write letters. > > > > Leslie Lamport > > Add ESPECIALLY Word[Perfect]. > > We had this resistance to using LaTeX for letters, memos, etc in my > department. Then I wrote a customizable letter format, complete with letterhead, > and most of the department---and the secretaries too---are won over. > > The thing about the other systems is, for a simple letter they give no > advantages---you type exactly the same text---but might have distinct > disadvantages---having to position things on the page yourself. > > If someone can't face using LaTeX to write a letter, they can always type > its text in the same editor they use to create LaTeX documents. > They really don't need to use any other system. > But by the time their editor has left and right justified everything and > they have carefully typed two addresses and inserted today's date, they > might come to the conclusion that they might just as well have hit > some hot key to produce a template > > \documentstyle[12pt,xyzlet]{letter} > \begin{document} > \begin{letter}{} > \opening{Dear } > \closing{Yours sincerely,} > \end{letter} > \end{document} > > and proceeded from there. > > If anyone wants to do mail merges from LaTeX, I have a .STY option file > to do that. > > Mike Piff %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Dr M J Piff %% JANET: %% Department of Pure Mathematics %% pm1mjp%hicks1.shef@sunc.shef.ac.uk %% University of Sheffield %% M.Piff@pa.shef.ac.uk %% Hicks Building %% %% Hounsfield Road %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% SHEFFIELD S3 7RH %% Telephone: SHEFFIELD (0742) 768555 %% England %% Ext. 4431 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%