At 11:38 AM 8/26/2001 +0200, Christof Schardt wrote:
> > >You mean, different settings based on wether we're running pdftex,
> > >pdf-e-tex or knuth's tex?
> >
> > Just to remember: There's another TeX, the best for PDF: VTeX.
>
>Can someone tell some words about Y&Y-TeX and ContexT?
>(resp. VTeX vs. Y&Y)
>
>I wonder, wether Context will make it obsolete
>bying one of those commercial packets, and
>- if not - which are teh benefits.
yandytex is just tex, but with dynamic memory allocation; long ago it
wasthe only big tex along with hugeemtex, but nowadays there is no need for
bying a tex any more since there is web2c and miktex, which are both big
and fast. Furthermore, yandytex does not produce pdf output. the dvi to ps
backend of yandy is one of the best there is and may be worth bying if you
want to produce ps or go from ps to pdf; but i must admit that i always use
pdftex today; also dvipsone does only run on windows and does not support
virtual fonts
vtex is another story, since it is an extended version of tex [although i'm
not sure if it also implements etex]. It has a pdf backend as well as a ps
interpreter on board [think of tight integration between tex and gs]; as a
result, you can do graphics trickery.
In order to use the power of vtex [and not fall back on low level codig]
you need of course macros to handle that.
pdfetex, well, you know that one i suppose, it is a triptest compatible tex
with dvi and pdf backend, and a couple of extras that make live more easy
as well as some extra typographical extensions
context is a macro package, that works on top of any tex, but in orde to
access special features of some tex or backend, a special driver is needed,
and writing one is not that big a deal since there is a high level of
abstraction;
to be honest, i don't know how well context+metapost compares with
latex+vtex but so far i can do what i want; having nice low level trickery
available without decent support from the macro package is not interesting
for me. on the other hand it should not be that hard to interface to vtex,
but i would probably not use the graphic features in there as long as i can
use metapost; some font trickery on the other hand looks interesting [and i
wonder how hard it would be to extend pdftex with it]; another interesting
vtex feature is the html output but i never looked into that
so, unless you need very special features present in vtex, you can stick to
pdfetex+context; in any case, it may be worth looking into some of the
yandy [lucida,mathtimes] and.or vtex [times,helvetica,informal,...] fonts
Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
