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A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !
Nicole Cremel CN/ASD, CNL editor
Michel Goossens CN/ASD, Technical co-editor
.
Dear Mr. Rückemann,
We did not exactly change the PostScript version of the CNL ``from LaTeX
to Netscape'' but more precisely the preferred markup language from
LaTeX into HTML. The reason for this change, as explained in our ``Letters
from the Editor'' section in CNL 223, is that it follows the trend
in electronic publishing: more and more contributors were sending articles
marked-up in HTML for publishing on the Web. As an increasing number of
our readers also use the Web to access the CNL, and, possibly,
print only a few pages in their domain of interest with the ``print''
command provided by their Web browser, we decided to emphasize the
HTML version of the CNL for the Web. The automatic conversion tools
from HTML to LaTeX and back are not yet very powerful, and a lot of
hand work still had to be done to provide the two versions (Web and
LaTeX). Having decided to move to HTML, we even thought that it might
not be necessary to provide a PostScript version. But, as a few users
(about ten), for various reasons, were complaining about the lack of
a PostScript version we decided to provide the PostScript automatically
generated by Netscape with as little hand-work as possible. We must say
that all users who read this PostScript version were happy with it.
Also we hope that this automatically generated PostScript
version will be improved in the future, with new tools that may appear
on the market. We must say that you are raising the eternal issue
that does not have an easy answer: it is impossible to reach the same
quality level in the representation of a document to be viewed on a
computer screen as one to be published in printed form. These two media
are completely different. The CNL is a vehicle for distributing
up-to-date information fast, so that a timely distribution, with as little
hassle as possible for the authors, who retain control of their contributed
pages, is more important than layout on the printed page. We went for a
compromise, which minimises work and optimises usefulness. I hope you will
understand our point of view.
Best regards,
Nicole Cremel (Editor).
Michel Goossens (Technical editor).
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