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	["749" "Wed" "25" "June" "1997" "12:00:10" "-0400" "Mark Steinberger" "mark@CSC.ALBANY.EDU" nil "21" "on LaTeX as a standard language" "^Date:" nil nil "6" nil nil nil nil nil]
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In-Reply-To:  <199706231925.VAA00389@frank.zdv.uni-mainz.de> from "Frank
              Mittelbach" at Jun 23, 97 09:25:18 pm
Date:         Wed, 25 Jun 1997 12:00:10 -0400
From: Mark Steinberger <mark@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
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Subject:      on LaTeX as a standard language
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Frank made an important point about use of LaTeX as a standard from
which other formats can be prepared.

I have found this to be very useful for pdf. The examples Frank gave
are even better. And sooner or later, LaTeX to XML is going to be an
important feature of publishing on the net.

Because of this, it would be very useful to be able to convert other
dialects of TeX into LaTeX. About half my authors, for instance,
prefer to work with AMSTeX.

Does anyone have a decent program for converting AMSTeX input files to
LaTeX? Are there conversion programs for other TeX dialects?

This issue is important from the point of view of our discussions
about the future of LaTeX. Such conversion programs would help insure
this future.

Cheers,

Mark