Introduction

Increasing numbers of people are using computers for the preparation of documents. Many of these new computer users are not “computer types”; they have a problem (to produce a neatly formatted document), they know the computer can help them, and they want the result with a minimum of (perceived) fuss and bother. The terms in which they present the problem to the computer should be “theirs” – easy for them to use and understand and based on previous document experience.

Many powerful document preparation tools exist that are capable of producing high quality output. However, they are often awkward (some would say difficult) to use, especially for the novice or casual user, and a substantial amount of training is usually necessary before they can be used intelligently.

This paper presents the design of a document preparation system that allows users to make use of existing formatters and yet makes document entry relatively easy. The following topics are discussed:

• the requirements and overall design for such a system, and

• some of the issues to be resolved in constructing the system.

First, some terminology is clarified.

Terms and Concepts

We use Shaw's model for documents [Shaw80, Puruta82, Kimura84]. A document is viewed as a hierarchy of objects, where each object is an instance of a class that defines the possible components and other attributes of its instances. Typical (low level) classes are document components such as sections, paragraphs, headings, footnotes, figures, and tables.