mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Felix Breuer <address@hidden>]

Hello Joris, hello MS,

I totally agree that importing LaTeX style files is impossible to
implement, and I also do not see the point of such an attempt: journals
want standart .tex files that use their styles, not .tm files that look 
like they do. 

But I really agree with MS that it is just as futile to hope that
journals are going to accept .tm files anytime soon. I am going to ask
my editor if they accept .tm files, but it won't do much good. I won't
press the point, as I am the new author who tries to get published and I
am not in the position to make demands. 

But even if many journals accepted .tm files, I would still ask for a
LaTeX export function that generates macro-free LaTeX. Why? Well, no
matter how much I advertise for TeXmacs among my colleagues, many still
prefer to use LaTeX. I disagree with their choice, but again it is their
decision. So, when I want to cooperatively write a document with them,
we will have to agree on LaTeX as file format, simply because it is "the
standart" and the least common denominator. Have you ever tried to merge
LaTeX files written by different people? It is a nightmare, that can
only be made bearable, when *everyone* agrees *not* to define custom
macros and *not* to use "non-standart" LaTeX packages.

Bottom-line: many people I know are reluctant to use TeXmacs, because
they want to be compatible with what most of the scientific community is
using: LaTeX. So they try out TeXmacs, export their first document to
LaTeX, try to copy-and-paste some part of it into some .tex file they
have written and are turned away because it won't compile/they have to
include macros they haven't written themselves/"this isn't standart
LaTeX" or whatever. 

So I think: the key to making TeXmacs more popular is to make migration
for long-time LaTeX users "less scary".

How to do this: provide a LaTeX export function that generates a .tex
file, which is "as standart as possible" and *not* one that "looks as
much as the .tm document as possible".


I may write some of these "standart" export functions as I go, but I
can't promise anything yet.


Just my 2 cents,
Felix