A high-level approach to computer document formatting

Abstract

The very best document-formatting system is a good secretary. He can be given scrawled handwritten text in no particular format, and without further instruction produce a flawless finished document. Nevertheless, we believe that document formatting should be done by computers, because so much of it is the tedium that computers handle so well. Existing computer document formatting programs have met with some success; indeed, most computer systems offer some sort of text formatting capability. These programs are often difficult to use, and are almost invariably tied to a particular kind of printing device.