[texhax] MS Word & Mathtype to TeX

[John C Frain]

On 19 December 2011 20:45,  <cornwall_5 at comcast.net> wrote:

> But, my question is: why can't that universal and stable program be MS Word?
> (+ Design Science's Mathtype)
>
> :)
>
The original TeX was issued in 1978.  AMSTeX was released in about
1983.  I am told that the tex documents written in those early days
can still be recompilled with current versions of the relevant TeX
program.  Latex is available and will continue to be available across
many platforms - Microsoft, Apple, Linux etc. Etc.

Microsoft windows came out about 1993.  The version of equation editor
that was available at that time was not good.  There have been at
least three major changes in format since MS Office was introduced.  I
understand that mathtype was not compatible with office 2008 for Mac.
(I understand that it is compatible with the current version of Office
for Mac.  Thus while it is fully compatible with office  for MS
Windows and compatible only with some versions of Office for Mac I
would think that it is incompatible with any other operating systems.
For many people this might be a serious problem.

I would think that LaTeX was a standard long before Office and
Mathtype were available.  I would think that Office and Mathtype only
became suitable long after Office was first issued.  As  I have
already mentioned I have a certain bias towards TeX.  It does require
a certain effort to master but modern TeX editors/IDEs make this
process easier.

Best Regards

John




-- 
John C Frain
Economics Department
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin 2
Ireland
www.tcd.ie/Economics/staff/frainj/home.html
mailto:frainj at tcd.ie
mailto:frainj at gmail.com