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Modern LaTeX Replacement?

Posted by kdawson on from the hardly-seems-like-too-much-to-ask dept.

javierzinho writes "For many years I have been using LaTeX to compose scientific documents, but truly I am getting tired of its complexity. You have to install new packages for new features, compatibility issues are everywhere, you need to know commands for everything, table composition is torture, image insertion is an odyssey if you don't have the 'right' format, and you need to be a LaTeX Jedi master to create a new document class. I'm looking for a document processor (not a word processor) that is a viable replacement for LaTeX, possessing all of its advantages — consistency between text and math text, automated cross references, direct PDF creation, etc. — but that is not stuck in the 1980s with the compiler metaphor and weird font technology. An application with visual interface and so on. I've tried Scientific Word and Lyx but both are front-ends for LaTeX. Publicon only produces PDF files by exporting to LaTeX and subsequently using pdflatex. Add-ons for MS-Word are a joke, and webEq is intended for web publishing, not for PDF production. Does anybody know of a decent, scientific-structured document processor that is a modern application?"

4 of 918 comments (clear)

  1. OpenOffice.org by sleeping123 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I know you said no word processors, but OpenOffice has a math thing built in. I don't have much experience with it, however. Anyone weigh in?

    1. Re:OpenOffice.org by KGIII · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Supply and demand. I had no choice but to use LaTex in college, really, and as far as I'm concerned they have a well-deserved ranking for this. I'd be willing to argue the monopoly bit but, c'mon now... There aren't any real alternatives from what I've toyed with over the years.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  2. LYX by Mad+Indian · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I think you will be pleased. http://wiki.lyx.org/

  3. Re:Why latex at all ? by mdmkolbe · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I sympathize with your predicament. One of the biggest problems with LaTeX/TeX is that while it has a strong mathematical foundation (see the Knuth-Plass line breaking algorithm), it's front end is a badly designed macro-based programing language.

    Macro-based langauges can work, but most of them are just a pain to work with (M4 anyone?). Unfortunately, Knuth didn't have the advantage of a lot of language research that has been don't in the past few decades.

    On top of this the layers that have been built on top TeX to make it "easier" have insulated users so much that they don't understand what is really going on when TeX formats a document. If you're doing simple stuff that's okay, but imagine trying to drift a car if you didn't know how the searing wheel controls the front wheels instead of the back wheels.