Is Latex Still Worth Learning?

Bocaj asks: "I have start back to college and have to write a few technical papers. Right now it's mostly physics, but I'm a CS major and there will be many more papers to come. I've tried all of the office suites with little luck in getting them to format complex formulas correctly. I'm trying to learn Latex, but I am wondering if I should. Is Latex still the defacto standard for this kind of stuff? What about SGML or XML? What is everyone else using?"

Comments

If you're asking..

[GiMP]

Then you have no clue about the purpose of LaTeX, XML, and SGML. That is ok, I can enlighten you :)

LaTeX is a set of macros for TeX. TeX compiles to DVI, TeX input file should produce the same DVI file regardless of which implementation of TeX is used to produce it. When you write something in TeX you know how it will look in the resulting DVI file. DVI is most closely related to PostScript and PDF; however, it is not a programming language like PostScript and only contains positioning and formatting information. DVI stands for "DeVice Independant".

SGML and children (XML and HTML) are structured markup langauges. These are simply designed to store information in a human readable fashion. HTML is a slightly different format which contains formatting but no positioning information. To define positioning information one must apply Cascading StyleSheets (CSS). CSS adds the ability to format and position the text in said markup languages; however, CSS is device dependant.. the result will format/position differently depending on the device/medium on which it is presented.

Thus, if you wish to have your paper look the same regardless of the device it is displayed on; such as for a book, magazine, etc.. then DVI, PDF, or a subset of PostScript (some features are device dependant) will be perfect. If you're looking to display this information across a wide range of machines and faciliting accessibility features such as those used by the blind or the deaf, XML/HTML would be preferrable.

One other mentionable is that the LaTeX macros for TeX really speed and facilitate the process of writing books and research papers by requiring the creation of chapters, sections, and paragraphs. BibTeX will aid in automatically creating a bibligraphy, and LaTeX can automatically create your Table of Contents. Additionally, LaTeX can be easily converted to HTML.

latex has its problems

[Jack Tanner]

There are many nice things about Latex, but here are some downsides.

I recently had the experience of submitting a paper (bioinformatics) written with Latex to one conference, having it get rejected, and then having it get accepted to another conference. The first conference didn't have a style file I could use, and I had to go through a bazillion hoops and custom commands, packages and settings to get Latex to produce something acceptable. It was really painful to get Latex to then produce something acceptable for the second, since merely including a different style file didn't actually do what I needed.

Verdict: use Latex only if the conference or journal provides you with a style file, and you think you'll need to make ZERO formatting changes to the source of your paper.

Another painful moment about Latex is that it only does the basics well. For example, it's easy to create a table, and it's relatively easy (if crude) to create a two-column document. But it's difficult to get Latex to place that table into just one column of your two-column document, and it's a complete hack if you want to place it intellegently so that there aren't huge chunks of unnecessary whitespace due to how pages and sections break.

Re:careful what you look for...

[Electrum]

Lets just say that you don`t want to Google for "+latex +pictures"

Not to ruin a good joke, but actually, the first result is exactly what you want.

Re: APS?

[ggwood]

Yes, the American Physical Society accepts LaTeX files submitted electronically. It is pretty big news that they are now about to accept Microsoft Word format as well. (Note that they just began accepting Word format this June - although PRL (the rapid communication journal) has been accepting since all of July 2002!)

The learning curve to latex is steep but not really long. Whatever you are thinking about doing in LaTeX has probably already been done, so try to get a template if you can and just begin playing around with it - this is the best advice I can give you.

I used word until I began my thesis. Then I learned latex, beginning with a sample thesis file from my friend. (But most universities have sample files on file somewhere if you ask around.) At the end I handed it in to be checked and the graduate division found about 4 or 5 formatting problems. The nice lady who broke the news to me was quite used to pitched battles with M$ word users unwilling to go back and even try to get word to make their margins line up - even with the help of good old Clippy. I told her none of the things she talked about were difficult to fix, and I had the new copy back in a few hours. She almost had kittens.

I now use latex for quizzes because it takes me about the same time to write the entire quiz that it would for me to enter two equations into the M$ word equation editor - and this is something that latex is kind of bad at (since consistant formatting, which is one of latex's strengths, is unimportant). At the end of last semester I ran dvipdf on all the quizes and put them up on my homepage. No one complained about unreadable formuli. I have tried this with Word files and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
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