Re: hierarchy etc

Cliff Joslyn (joslyn@KONG.GSFC.NASA.GOV)
Thu, 2 Nov 1995 12:36:36 -0500


Hans and I are talking about a paper of mine available over mmy ftp server:

>Most of these papers are in postscript or text, and both I can't use.
>This is a general commend on pcp-papers. If they are in these
>formats, they are unaccessible. But thanks anyway, I'll look into
>those.

Yes, this is a general problem. The point is that straight ASCII is simply
inadequate for a document of any complexity, involving fonts, text styles,
formatting, or mathematics, let alone any kinds of figures. There are many
other formats out there which capture that information. On the one hand,
there are binary special-purpose word processing format like Word and
WordPerfect. Then there are ASCII-markup forms like LaTeX, postscript, and
rtf, and the new formats like HTML and Acrobat. These work best over the
net. Postscript is, by far, the industry standard. Virtually all complex
documents available on the net which are intended to be printed are in
postscript.

The point is, increasingly people limitted to plain ASCII will find their
situation inadequate. I'd ask around at your university to see who has
postscript capability, probably someone does. Otherwise, I can send a
hardcopy.

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| Cliff Joslyn, NRC Research Associate, Cybernetician at Large
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