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            <v03110702b29ab433e75a@[130.237.37.82]>
            <13938.39518.68424.927988@fell.open.ac.uk>
            <199812092035.VAA16014@na6.mathematik.uni-tuebingen.de>
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Message-ID:  <199812162024.OAA24073@dcdrjh.fnal.gov>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1998 14:24:23 -0600
From: "Randolph J. Herber" <herber@DCDRJH.FNAL.GOV>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject:      Re: portable LaTeX
Status: R

The following header lines retained to affect attribution:
|Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1998 15:34:53 +0000
|Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
|From: Sebastian Rahtz <s.rahtz@ELSEVIER.CO.UK>
|Subject:      Re: portable LaTeX
|To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L

|Hans Aberg writes:

| > These are kind of examples that I am looking: One should work directly with
| > an enhanced DVI, so that one does not get dependant on a long chain of
| > fixes.

|pdfTeX is a TeX version that implements an enhanced DVI, its called
|PDF. you know, that language for which our dot-matrix-loving-friend
|Herber can write drivers. there are two good, free, open source
|implementations of PDF drivers to start from

Dot matrix is not what I love.  (I also own a NEC LC890 as I already
mentioned which is an Adobe PostScript capable printer and is the mode
in which I usually use that printer.  Rather, it is the operating expense
difference that caused me to use the NEC P6 Pinwriter until it died.

A more accurate description is that I dislike PDF since, in my experience
supporting about 400 scientists whom use print files in a variety of formats,
generated by a variety of programs on a variety of platforms and which they
expect to display and print faultlessly everywhere, PDF files seldom work
properly.  I admit that that fault may not be with the design of PDF but
rather with the means by which they were generated.  I seldom have trouble
with DVI files.  I disagree with your description of PDF as an enhanced DVI,
based on that experience.  If PDF is desired, then use a DVI to PDF converter.

|now i ****promise**** not rise to any more baiting until next year

Yes, your baiting is unwelcome.

|sebastian

Randolph J. Herber, herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov, +1 630 840 2966, CD/CDFTF PK-149F,
Mail Stop 318, Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510-0500,
USA.  (Speaking for myself and not for US, US DOE, FNAL nor URA.)  (Product,
trade, or service marks herein belong to their respective owners.)