RE:why Lout?

[Ian Carr-de Avelon]

>Why do we use Lout (am really curious), why are we
>trying to understand it, what do we think it has and
>other dtp systems have not and what should it be like?
>
I run a small Linux based ISP which is in close partnership with a 
Windows based DTP company. I come back to Lout if we have a slack 
time as it looks like a good system to perform 2 functions:
1)Printing program output on forms. I scoured the net for a way
to put addresses in the right place for window envelopes with
TeX and never got it to work. With Lout it is quite simple so
Lout provides an ideal system for billing etc.
2)It could be the basis for the "to paper" and "to .pdf" part of a
system giving XML to WAP-WML WWW-HTML paper and .pdf. Sort of
like what docbook is becomeing for the Linux Documentation 
Project.

For me the main problems remain:
1)Getting Polish characters to work
2)Producing colour separations for printing.

I'll be downloading the latest source and trying again soon.
I think that these are both examples of things where sufficient
documentation is difficult to provide, because there is a lot about
fonts and colour separations which the average programer does not
even suspect. On the other hand, once it works nobody will read the
documents, so there is not much payback for the investment.
Yours
Ian