Re: Scientific Word Processors

["Donald E. Simanek" <dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu>]

On Fri, 15 May 1998, Kevin Grant wrote:

> Just to further muddy the waters, I use WordPerfect and have never found an
> equation that I could not write.  I use Mathcad for more equation intensive
> documents.  Both do a fine job.
> Kevin Grant

I, too, use WordPerfect for all of my work, and have never found any
equation I couldn't write, and the results (on a Laserjet) appear as
elegant as those typeset in textbooks. I wasn't thrilled with the equation
editor's interface in version 5.1, but got used to it quickly, and I have
found it is no more difficult than the competition. After an hour or so it
becomes intuitive. But for 98% of my work, I just don't need the equation
editor, since the full symbol set handles most everything. I started using
WP for equations about ten years ago, with version 4.2 I think, on a Sanyo
computer and dot matrix printer. That version allowed you to write your
own printer driver and create your own symbol and font set by mapping the
dots in the matrix as a binary number.  So I redefined many of the ASCII
symbols from 127 to 255, as Greek letters, math symbols and pieces of math
symbols and set up handy keyboard macros (control-a for alpha, control-b
for beta, alt-t for upper case tau, control-t for lower case tau, etc.). 
At that time I was using a Sanyo 555 and a Tandy 2000, both of which
allowed you to redesign (dot by dot) the characters for your screen. So I
designed screen fonts to match my printer font redesign, and I could do
text and equations with "what you see is what you get" on the screen. That
was before WP had page preview--but I said "Who needs page preview?" Gee,
I miss those days when one could really customize one's personal computer
environment to one's personal needs and prejudices without having to march
to the tune of Bill Gates or Apple. I was the only person in the world
using my math wordprocessor system, and that was just fine with me.
(WordPerfect did add my DMP2100P printer driver to their driver
library at their customer service site).

Equations were done in a monofont type. The keyboard macros worked so well
that I carried them over into later versions of WordPerfect, but used the
math symbols those versions supported (everything one could want,
including bits and pieces to build up large integral signs, summations and
various styles of large brackets). It's no sweat to do the pre-subscripts
and pre-superscripts for nuclide symbols.

I mainly use the equation editor to produce very large type for making
overhead transparencies.

Here's a tip for those using the equation editor for nuclide symbols. Set
up the sub and superscripts as a matrix without brackets.

Now if only they'd get their act together and incorporate math symbol
capability into html.

	-- Donald

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Dr. Donald E. Simanek                            Office: 717-893-2079
Professor of Physics                                FAX: 717-893-2048
Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, Lock Haven, PA. 17745
dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu                 http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek
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