Karl, I stand corrected. > I'm not sure there are such formats these days. > > mex still exists. > cs(la)tex still exists. I don't know about mex (what is that?) but is cs(la)tex doing anything other than hyphenation support and font stuff? > Not saying they are completely independent of latex (they aren't), but > they do exist as separate formats. actually you are right they provided some hacking into input encoding support in case of cslatex if I remember correctly (but then perhaps I don't) but most if not all of that should be doable via a package rather than via a format. Hpyhenation is a different story though. > But even if, the question remains what you gain. > > Indeed. :-) but perhaps there are 'night frank