Re: [O] Rationale for *text* -> \alert{text} for Beamer export?

[Thomas S. Dye]

Hi John,

Jumping in late here, with apologies if that's left me wide of the mark.

John Hendy <address@hidden> writes:

> On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Marcin Borkowski <address@hidden> wrote:

> Can you explain semantic vs. visual? As in you can more easily
> customize the meaning of \alert{} or \emph{} whereas \textbf{} and
> \textit{} only has one meaning? Sort of like using a css tag which can
> be later customized vs. specifically calling out exactly what you're
> thinking you want to do at the moment?

IMHO, the best discussion of this difference is the first chapter of
Lamport's LaTeX User's Guide and Manual.  Here is the gist as I
understand it:

1) A principle of typesetting is that the layout of a document should
reflect its logical structure.

2) A computer typesetting program can achieve this if it knows what key
parts of the document mean.

3) So, markup should be semantic, rather than visual.

It is possible to achieve identical results using visual markup, of
course, but why not let the computer keep track of things instead?
>
> Sure, and understood. In general, I'm using *text* simply to call
> attention to something important. I work in product development, so
> something like:
>
> Customer response to product sampling:
> - *US:* blah blah blah
> - *China:* blah blah blah
> - *India: blah blah blah

Here, to achieve semantic markup, you would use description lists

- US :: blah
- China :: blah
- India :: blah

The :: separator lets Org (and ultimately LaTeX) know that the part
before the separator is the term that is being described.

hth,
Tom

-- 
Thomas S. Dye
http://www.tsdye.com