Question about Lout

[R. D. Davis]

Greetings!

This message is from someone who is new to Lout, but is familiar with
a similar document processing system: IDOCS Mint, which ran, or should
I say runs - I still use it! :-), on PERQ graphics workstations.  I
understand that Mint had been ported to UNIX and was supposed to be
placed on an FTP site somewhere.  The thing that attracted me to Lout
is, from what I've been able to learn, its similarity to Mint (which
is similar to Scribe).  Is Lout descended from Mint?

I haven't obtained a copy of the recent Lout software yet, but the
version that I have doesn't seem to support the placing of shaded
(different shades of grey) boxes with different width borders around
text as does Mint.  Is this something that is supported in the
newer versions?  

Also, does Lout, like Mint, support the placing of icons in text, such
as small pictures, or drawings, in the middle of a sentence?  For
example, using Mint, one could have a drawing of the computer keys
"ctrl" and 'c' appear in a line of text instead of the text control-c.

One other question: is there any chance, and I'm guessing that this
chance is very slim, that I can include .pic format picture files,
generated on the PERQ by progams such as Paint from Advent Imaging or
Picasso from Prolog software, in Lout documents?  Is anyone here
familiar with these .pic files?  I think that Metafont also supported
the .pic format.

Thanks very much for any information that anyone can provide about
the above questions!


-- 
R.D. Davis           |         Eccentrics have more fun! :-) 
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