[OS X TeX] line-endings; Was: wrapping in TeXShop

[David B. Thompson, Ph.D., P.E., D.WRE, CFM]

On Jan 1, 2009, at 06:30 , M. Tamer Özsu wrote:

> Thanks much. FOr some reason I am getting the complaint that my co- 
> author sees each paragraph as a long line on his Windows system. I  
> am not sure what editor he uses, but I thought I could make it  
> easier by inserting hard wraps at wrap points. TextMate has a way of  
> doing this manually, but for many projects I prefer to use TeXShop  
> and wondered if I could do it within TeXShop.


Yours is an interesting situation. If I'm permitted to move off-topic  
just slightly, the research team I work with has four or five members,  
depending on the project. Of that group, three of us migrated most of  
our work from Winder$ to linux, then discovered OS X and moved to  
Apple hardware. The remaining one (or two) are still locked in the  
Winder$ world. I often find myself in the lead role for report  
preparation. (Being the old guy on the team will do that! ;) I receive  
documents from my Winder$-based colleagues mostly in Word. So, I cut  
and paste the text, fix the problems (because Word insists on using  
curly quotes and such), and typeset equations.

I understand your problem. When I worked in the Winder$ world, many  
moons ago, I used an editor called Programmer's File Editor (PFE),  
which was freely available and was a true text editor. I think that  
tool is still available in an unsupported state and will probably help  
solve your colleague's problem. I might suggest you pass on to your  
colleague the need for such a tool. I know that I keep a couple of  
text editors around my systems (my favorite bounces back and forth  
between BBEdit and Textmate -- hoping to avoid starting an editor- 
war :) just for that reason. There are times I need to open a foreign  
file format -- these tools provide the leverage I need to get the job  
done.

While my comment isn't meant as a slam to TeXShop, which I used for  
years, I find myself reverting to a text editor (currently Textmate)  
for writing LaTeX source, then either using the built-in facility to  
render the source or the command line to execute commands. I am  
currently using Skim as my viewer.

There isn't anything wrong with TeXShop. I just wanted more text- 
editor features than were available in that package. Yours is a case  
where you need a different tool.

Good hunting!

-=d

P.S. Can we start a good vi vs emacs vs ??? editor thread here? Just  
kidding!!!! Also, here's a hat-tip to Joe Slater for encouraging me to  
think outside the box.