why use TeX at all?



Stavros Macrakis wrote:
>>>If we could get maxima itself to generate TeX with the
>>>proper breaking included it would be wonderful,...
>>
> 
> Why bother with TeX at all if it can't handle line breaking?

I use mactex to produce smallish (1 or 2 line) formulas which
I then paste into a text TeX document. A 2-line formula I
break myself.

> 
> For Maxima to generate line breaks for TeX, it would have to know all
> the details of font sizes, kerning, page width, etc.  If it has to know
> all these things, it is not generating portable output, and it is not
> benefitting from TeX's algorithms.  So it might as well generate
> Postscript directly.

It is clumsy to embed all the TeX fonts in each little piece
of postscript, so you have problems here too, I think.

> 
> For standalone use, this also avoids the overhead of the TeX and dvips
> processes.
> 
If you assume the user has Computer Modern Math  fonts.

> For use within a document, presumably TeX handles embedded Postscript.
> 
>       -s
> 
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