Content-Type: text
Message-ID:  <199710081303.JAA01564@fenris.math.albany.edu>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
In-Reply-To:  <m0xIrvr-000OWIC@dcarlisle.demon.co.uk> from "David Carlisle" at
              Oct 8, 97 09:57:27 am
Date:         Wed, 8 Oct 1997 09:03:18 -0400
From: Mark Steinberger <mark@CSC.ALBANY.EDU>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject:      Re: LaTeX journal and publisher macros
Status: R

David writes:

> I don't know of any converter myself, but do you have any idea why
> they still use amstex.

In some cases, it may be due to the reputation of the AMS. Some
mathematicians may see this as the "real" in-house markup system,
and therefore a classy way to typset math.

Others dislike using big packages, and see amstex as closer to plain tex
than latex.

In any case, it took some of my colleagues a long time to realize the
value of latex, and others haven't gotten there yet.

> Also in what way do you want to treat the latex.

I'd like to get something that will convert to real latex syntax, so
I can then use latex classes with custom features (e.g., customized
hyperlinking features).

The alternative seems to be to directly duplicate the latex classes in
amstex, which is quite a bit nastier to work with on the class level.

The most formidable difficulty for any system of processing amstex
papers would seem to be dealing with the bibliographic syntax/system.
(Perhaps amstex --> bibtex would be the best route for this, if a
conversion existed for the rest of the markup.)

--Mark