> I bought the TeXbook in 1989 and liked it, despite the learning curve. Did you read the entire TeXbook and only then start TeXing ? Although I have read every page several times, I never set out to do so. For me it was a quick scan, modification of existing files, and then reading as needed. > I tried LaTeX in 1992 and junked it. The header&footers used > in the LaTeX book where impossible to create with LaTeX (which I think > amounts to cheating), so I dropped back to plain TeX. Nothing is impossible. You just have to write your own style files (in TeX). I have written several completely new LaTeX styles, you can do anything that TeX allows (that is, anything at all). In fact, I wrote a style for Hebrew Language PhD theses - that required reversing the line direction, different line splitting, etc. > The problem with most LaTeX documents I came across in 1991-1995 > was that they used style files that were extremely hard to find > (for someone not using a particular universities infrastructure). Most journals or textbook publishers that accept TeX in any form will supply you with their style file. The beauty is that you can prepare your text and then slap on the style at the last moment (or if one journal rejects your paper, you can easily prepare it for submission to another journal). I considered writing a style for IDs and RFCs. But although the initial effort would not be major, I don't want to be stuck for life with maintenance. Kudos to those who maintain the xml2rfc tools. Y(J)S _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf