On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 11:46:16PM -0400, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d wrote: > On 4/24/2014 9:54 PM, bearophile wrote: > >Walter Bright: > >>I don't get the reason for doing this. Are they trying to save paper > >>or something? > > > >They are often trying to save paper. Some conferences (and sometimes > >even some journals) set a maximum limit of pages for submitted > >papers. > > > > Don't they write them in Latex and then generate the PDF? You'd think > it'd be trivial to generate the microscope version to send off to > those who expect it, and then generate a proper one for actual > reading. This isn't exactly 1970 typewriter-era, after all.
True. In theory, you could make your LaTeX document flexible enough to produce two very different outputs depending on the occasion. I have done this before -- the Turing-complete macro system makes this very easy to do. Of course, it also suffers from the downsides of macro systems: it's very easy to screw up and end up with completely garbled output. :P (And, if not done properly, can lead to your document becoming a write-only mess that even you don't remember how it works -- LaTeX is very much like a programming language.) Which probably explains why most people don't do it. Hmph. OTOH, I believe journals nowadays actually give you a LaTeX template that you're supposed to follow, and they greatly frown upon submissions that don't conform to that template. So people are less likely to fiddle with stuff that they normally would otherwise. T -- The trouble with TCP jokes is that it's like hearing the same joke over and over.
