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Modern LaTeX Replacement?
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?"
Framemaker?
It's called typesetting and, unfortunately, LaTeX is still the freakin' best.
I always used Lyx as an interface to LaTeX.. until it broke, and then I had to hack the LaTeX manually.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You just made it abundantly obvious that you have no comprehension of the submitter's problem.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
And it's not happening. To beat latex at typesetting requires a lot of of work, and with latex basically perfect from a bug perspective any sort of realistic replacement is going to start with it as a base.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
Math in OpenOffice is even uglier than in MS Word. I consider this quite an achievement considering how ugly Word is to begin with. AFAIK, LaTeX is still the only way to get decent-looking maths.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
http://lout.wiki.sourceforge.net/FAQ
Simple, do what I did and start using http://kile.sourceforge.net/>Kile
That's rather surprising, considering that he's not dead yet (cue Monty Python music).
Remember, when you're doing highly technical writing like that, you're literally out at [or beyond] the top 1% of 1%.
The sad truth of the matter is that the servicing of highly technical writers just isn't a very big market [and, barring something like artificial manipulation of the genome, will NEVER amount to a very big market], and you're gonna be lucky if anyone bothers to release a product for it.
Heck, we mathies ought to count our lucky stars that Knuth ever took the time to design TeX in the first place.
I find this funny that I just learned LaTeX two weeks ago. I ported my entire thesis over to LaTeX and have had nothing but professional and consistent results.
What's the problem with it, again? It doesn't have a fancy GUI? It works great for me.
I can't help but question the complaints on the complexity. I generally have a repertoire of packages that I use frequently like the ams packages, pstricks for image drawing, beamer for powerpoint-like presentations, and the external program image magic to make pictures the correct format.
Using other packages periodically tends to not have too many conflicts, except when trying to conform to required document classes of certain journals. But the workarounds generally don't take too much time.
I have yet to find something as robust as LaTeX, yet relatively user-friendly. Then again, I've never tried to create my own document class, merely modified what is already there. That always seemed to be the domain of the nuts-and-bolts programmers rather than the people who just want a typsetting language. So my idea of "user-friendly" may be a little skewed.
I've used it for university assignments (mostly lab reports), and while it's better than the offering from MS, it still doesn't compare to LaTex. Remember that there's a reason that some journals only have a few formats that they'll accept papers in, and that LaTex is usually one of them.
PlAsTiC?
At least for mathematics publishing, LaTeX is still the first choice. It is more robust, and gives the user more control over appearance, than anything else I've seen. Kinda like the original post says, if it's not relevant anymore, what's the alternative?
Any replacement for LaTeX that intends to do most of the same things is pretty much doomed to be markup language, even if you dump XML pixie dust on it. XML after all is just a horrible human unreadable markup language itself.
So once one accepts that the question simplifies to can LaTeX be replaced with something more usable by humans. First off the font system is purely a legacy thing, since Tex predates pretty much all other currently popular font tech. So could LaTeX be retrofitted to use TrueType for everything? Probably. In a 100% backwards compatible way? Only if a genius pulls a freaking miracle out of his butt.
If someone were to do a total rethink/rewrite, and if said person were a genius on the level with Knuth, then by making use of what we know today a new and better typesetting system could probably be created. Getting everyone to agree on anything else would be the biggest problem.
Democrat delenda est
What do you mean by "unfortunately"?
Badass Resumes
Type setting is a very different task than word processing. Proper type setting involved heavy math in order to optimize the formatting of the document. Look up the Knuth-Plass line breaking algorithm for the most basic example (there are better algorithms now days). These sorts of formatting tweaks are things that OpenOffice and MS Word just don't do.
Having used LaTeX to typeset my dissertation, I share these concerns about LaTeX. The documents it produces are beautifully typeset and look great -- especially for math. The notion that the writer is agnostic of the typesetting procedure and methods with LaTeX is a complete lie. I've never had to worry about ratios, measurements, indentations, word-per-line, empty pages and other problems as I have in LaTex. LaTeX submissions to journals are becoming less and less available -- in physical chemistry and chemistry journals at least.
There is a large and important market for high-quality typesetting software with excellent math functionality. More importantly, something which interfaces with bibliographic software well, and produces high quality PDFs. (Bibtex does a decent enough job, but I find that it's plagued by the same problems as LaTeX.)
I've searched for an alternative as well, and I'm quite sure that none exist. I haven't seen other type setting documentation formats for journal submissions, which I think is an important hint.
I understand your qualms with LaTeX as a long time user, but given the alternatives I find it better (though word processors are easier to use, LaTeX makes things much prettier).
A word processor front end (let's pick Open Office Writer as an example) with a LaTeX backend would be a good mix, but also give you the downside of WPs, namely constant layout fiddling instead of focussing on content.
I don't quite understand your complaint about the way LaTeX is structured wrt packages. It's pretty much the same thing you see with Firefox where you have a core program with lots of useful plug-ins for added functionality, and as such it's the same argument as it has.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
It's a gray beard technology.
You need to be a master of the arcane to understand it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Anyone weigh in?
Sure. That's not even close to what this guy is looking for. LaTeX is to printed publications (or PDFs) as HTML is to a webpage. He's not looking for a program for changing fonts in a GUI. He's looking for a modern way to typeset documents kind of like going from HTML table layouts to CSS layouts. Where is badanalogyguy when you need him?
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Well what's the replacement? Word/Writer are garbage for writing research papers or theses, so what else is there?
PowerPoint, of course. To handle the math expressions, just use Comic Sans. That makes it look like the math problems were solved with a pencil, the way a real mathematician would do it.
The problem is that all the things with decent interface have crappy quality of output. Truth is, latex (tex really) have far FAR better output than anything else. Nothing comes close in terms of typesetting text and math correctly. I can spot a word document once it's printed. Not by the font, but by text layout. Reading something written in a gui word processor like word (or openoffice) hurts your eyes and your brain.
Plus, your problem was the interface. So why not consider something that outputs latex? It needs to be a front end that handles all the dirty work and uses latex for what it does best. Just like you don't care that most of your operating is written in C which is just as old technology.
Plus, most places that want mathematics documents, really want you to submit latex. You're better off with something that can output it natively.
Writing something that does the same thing is stupid if what is wrong is an interface. If a good interface is written, you might never know you are using latex (or tex) in the background.
Hire a calligrapher. Its gotta be cheaper than a FrameMaker license.
It's called typesetting and, unfortunately, LaTeX is still the freakin' best.
What do you mean by "unfortunately"?
Unfortunately no software since [LaTeX] has come close to the feature-set and quality of LaTeX.
For personal letters and so forth I veer between MS Word and LaTeX, but for anything with any complexity or math, LaTeX is still the only choice I know of.
A student of mine doing his first project gave a report with the math done in MS Word, and while he might not know all the tricks it looked horrible, and was nearly unreadable -- whereas the same things would have looked fine in LaTeX document produced by a neophyte.
It is LaTex, but made easy. Made very easy. It's managed by a co-worker and friend of mine, so I may be biased. But he's done some exceptional work with it (including many internal manuals here at Red Hat). So check it out. He is a big KDE fan, so it's made the transition to QT 4 recently and it looks fabulous. http://www.99b.org/wyneken/
You have no idea what you are talking about if you think OO is in the same class as LaTeX.
I've taken a couple of stabs at LaTeX through the years. I have no real need for a proper type-setting platform like LaTeX because I am not in the world of academia that demands it, so I was never able to get past the learning curve imposed by LaTeX.
Now, let me say... I get it. I understand how invaluable it is to submit a paper in a format so less time can be wasted "making it pretty" and more can be spent on the meat of the work. That fact doesn't elude me.
What I never figured out was how to download a stinking template from IEEE and start writing a document. I never figured out how to compose my own document type so I could use it to empower the written arts that I am interested in. I never got past the hurdle, so to this day I still use OpenOffice Writer as my word processor and haven't been able to "transcend" to a proper type-setting program so make all the boring formatting tasks easy.
I even read the LaTeX Wikibook a number of months ago and this didn't even get me over the hump on my way to publication.
So, I echo the sentiments of the article submitter. LaTeX is hard, and either better documentation or a better alternative is needed to make it accessible to the rest of us.
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It sounds like FrameMaker will probably do just about everything you want, including a very robust equation editor, automatic cross-referencing, robust table creation, Postscript and TrueType font support, and even XML includes.
However, know in advance that you will never love FrameMaker, nor will it ever love you. Its ways are Harsh and Unyielding. You will have to walk The Way of The Frame Within the Frame, and it will not make you any happier. (Except, unlike Word, your pictures won't decide to move for no apparent reason.) You must embrace the Pain Which is The Reference Page, and come through the other side.
But once you have mastered The Beast Which is FrameMaker, it will dance (albeit slowly) at your bidding...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
What is it about LaTeX that makes it so special? Can't scientific documents be laid out correctly in a word processor? I ask out of ignorance, not rhetoric.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Really, as a coder, LaTeX is far friendlier than word. That's not to say it's good, or that a gui would necessarily be bad in all circumstances, but anything that couldn't be hotkeyed would be fairly worthless in writing a 50-page thesis.
And though Word has the capabilities of sectioning and the like, it does not provide a friendly interface. A friendly interface would not have bold, italic, paragraph, center, or any of that on the default toolbar. It would provide you with "new section" "header" "book title" "emphasis." Not only that, but it would be aggressively difficult to work in the word processor paradigm. You want this title to be italic, and this one bold? Deal with it. The program exists so you don't have to think about that, because you should be thinking about content, not style. And if the styling affects the content, you should figure out how you can express the idea without the styling. Just because Word contains document processing functionality does not mean it is in a friendly interface. The friendly interface does what most people have wanted for the past two decades, and it does that very well. What most people have wanted for the past few decades is not particularly useful to those who seriously write.
Sadly, I think I'll be sticking to Emacs for the forseeable future, and saving all of my documents as text. Though that second part I'm more glad of, since most of my writing is non-technical.
Here, fixed that broken link for you: Mellel
Well its not that bad.. Sure making your own document class is pretty much impossible if you have a life, but using existing ones is pretty easy. Go to the conference you want to submit to, download their latex template and put your content into their sample file. That's all there is to it.
But I really only use latex for the stuff where exact formatting is critical and a template exists. Sure there are tools that let you use Latex for presentations, but it doesn't seem worth it for a presentation where the format is pretty much free form. You just end up with boring cookie cutter presentations.
So tell the AAAS that... http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/docx.dtl "Because of changes Microsoft has made in its recent Word release that are incompatible with our internal workflow, which was built around previous versions of the software, Science cannot at present accept any files in the new .docx format produced through Microsoft Word 2007, either for initial submission or for revision. Users of this release of Word should convert these files to a format compatible with Word 2003 or Word for Macintosh 2004 (or, for initial submission, to a PDF file) before submitting to Science.
Users of Word 2007 should also be aware that equations created with the default equation editor included in Microsoft Word 2007 will be unacceptable in revision, even if the file is converted to a format compatible with earlier versions of Word; this is because conversion will render equations as graphics and prevent electronic printing of equations. Regrettably, we will be forced to return any revised manuscript created with the Word 2007 default equation editor to authors for re-editing. To get around this, please use the MathType equation editor or the legacy equation editor included in previous versions of Microsoft Word, which can be accessed from "Insert Object" from the "Insert" ribbon in Word 2007."
Um... I don't think Word is an answer
I asked a mathematician how to solve constipation and he said, "Work it out with a pencil."
So I did.
I'm just glad I didn't ask an engineer or I'd have had to use a slide rule.
1.Netcraft confirms:In Soviet Russia all your base welcomes a beowolf cluster of CowboyNeal overlords. 2.? 3.Profit!!1!
An other strength is its flexibility. Any replacement which dumbs things down makes things more rigid. LaTeX itself is already a "dumbed down" version of TeX which sacrifices some of the beauty of TeX but makes it more accessible. I myself use it primarily.
I could imagine a variant of LaTeX, which makes certain things easier, like positioning of pictures.
From the user prespective the problem of LaTeX is that it has a relative steep learning curve which once overcome saves enormous time. Processors like Word get you started immediately, adding more and more frustration once the user wants more control.
Check out PrinceXML. It actually adds footnotes, page number, and all that stuff to standard XHTML+CSS. It has already been used to typeset a book, and it looks quite nice. The authors of the one book have talked about their experiences with it
Their tool renders into PDF, but the same based XHTML will work in a web browser, giving the option of having the same document look good on paper and on the web.
There is also a Google Tech Talk on PrinceXML
I use both Word (2007) and LaTeX. I think you're completely and utterly wrong, and I note the complete lack of specifics in your post. Just consider this entry from the Microsoft Office Team Blog. Create a 3 column table to number an equation! You've got to be kidding me.
Layer on top of this the fact that in Office 2007 Microsoft has created a totally new equation editor that isn't compatible with its old editor. How long will this one last? Maybe they're finally turning Word into a capable, consistent tool, but it will take several more versions to be sure.
Making complicated tables in LaTeX is a pain, I'll grant that. But why don't you tell us exactly what it is that makes the latest version of Word such a capable tool for creating lengthy, cross-referenced, equation-laden documents.
Hi, I recently finished a PhD in math; while I probably haven't Texed as many pages as you, I have plunked out my share over the years. I've found the unix/linux front end program Kile to be extremely labor saving, particularly its newest version. It has forward/backward search, automatic completion for \ref commands, and a built in library of click-to-use symbols (and for these you are automatically advised of what packages are needed to use them.) I am agnostic on the issue of whether something "better" than LaTex is possible, or whether with great power always comes irritating details, but for what's out there, I think Kile can greatly improve the experience.
...LaTeX is still the first choice. It is more robust, and gives the user more control over appearance, than anything else I've seen. Kinda like the original post says, if it's not relevant anymore, what's the alternative?
Polyurethane. A little more expensive, but thinner and hypo-allergenic.
The next thing you know someone will ask for a replacement for vi.
I Heart Sorting Networks
Actually, I strongly disagree, In my opinion it is one of the few things in which OOo truly tops office. Of course LaTeX tops both, but really OOo is quite fine.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
> LaTeX is hard
You're probably applying it in layers that are too thick.
Let the hate commence. Anyway:
XSL-FO is another markup language, but there's a good bit going for it, not the least of which is an application that renders it directly to PDF: http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/
The main good thing about FO is the ability to take advantage of related XML technologies to help you generate the documents (and the various tools that you can use to generate them). You can embed SVG diagrams and MathML if you're comfortable with the namespaces; FOP can definitely render SVG via Apache's Batik project (which is also very good) and I'm pretty sure will also render inline MathML via an optional plugin. A lot of people mentioned OpenOffice, and the cool thing there is that since the documents it generates are XML documents (I'm pretty sure its equation editor emits MathML), you can use XSLTs to transform the documents that it generates into XSL-FO documents for rendering.
The obvious missing feature is the WYSIWYG app, but you'll find a bunch of links at the W3C's XSL-FO site.
Anyway, like I said, let the XML hate commence.
C
The Sun is proof that we can't even do fire properly.
Where is badanalogyguy when you need him?
Well, ya see this just like a guy who has got a bitchin' Funny Car with eight cylinders and 500 ci of displacement, cranking out 8,500 hp. The only thing is that he is getting a little nervous juicing it up with nitro and was looking for something with as much performance with less risk of swallowing a piston.
And then you come along offering a Toyota Prius because it gets pretty good gas mileage and you think it has some pep. Of course you aren't sure, because you haven't actually taken it on out on the highway.
Andrew Binstock has been working on a project called Platypus.
http://platypus.pz.org/
MathML is pretty full featured. Equations are stored in a standardized XML format.
http://www.w3.org/Math/
Really?
Wikipedia has a great example on why MathML (or XML in general, rather) isn't that great. At all.
Following is the quadratic formula in LaTeX:
x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}
Now, in MathML:
BEHOLD! No, it's not the first code sapmle. It's not the second or third either.
(/. didn't allow me to post the monster here)
Am I the only one that never liked LaTeX? I really tried, but plain TeX worked a lot better for me. I did my thesis in plain TeX and wrote the math tests I used to give in it as well. My solution was to develop a set of basic macros to import each time. I could never get used to how LaTeX tried to do everything for you. I much prefer a blank slate to build upon rather than someone else's vision. As I remember, even importing pictures (eps/ps format) was simple. Maybe plain TeX is worth taking a look at. You don't need to learn a whole bunch of complicated commands because there aren't any :). And it's a safe bet that once you've learned it, there won't be too many changes made in future releases. There's this four volume book set (I don't remember the author, but they were green) that I learned from. It showed you everything you'd want to know.
Make PDFs of two documents with square root radical formulas, one in OO.o, the other in Office (Equation Editor/MathType). Compare: The OO.o version is _really_ ugly and is not a continuous sign when you zoom in on the PDF view. The Office one, while not perfect is at least decent.
It's an MS Word addon that is specifically designed for highly technical formulas. I cannot personally rate it, as I don't use it. However the people who are using it are professors of electrical or computer engineering, so it clearly works for that field at least.
I'm currently using Texmacs to type in my math. Entering greek characters and structured expressions is a breeze. For example, to get \alpha^2 you'd enter the following keystrokes:
[a] [tab] [^] 2
Texmacs is WYSIWYG, like a word processor, so you only see the typeset document, and not the underlying text file.
There are disadvantages though; for publication, I have to make use of Texmacs "export to Latex" feature, which does not provide an optimal Latex file. It is also not possible (I believe) to import a Latex file. And Latex is the lingua franca of scientific writing. Texmacs also seems to have a small user base.
Nonetheless, Texmacs is the fastest and most efficient tool I have found for math heavy writing.
Well, really it's called \LaTeX, which renders all in caps with A a raised smallcap; the E subscripted; and the "X" a $\Chi$.
But who gives a shit anyway?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
On the contrary, it is extremely important what papers (and websites) look like. If your paper doesn't look professional, it will be ignored, regardless of the merits of its content.
Try sending a resume written in crayon - I doubt they'll even look twice at it. Go here http://www.utahwolfproductions.com/ and see if your eyes explode. Do you still think that how things look doesn't matter? (I'm unaffiliated with that site, I just use it as an example of eye-exploding ugliness.)
If your paper says something worthwhile but is butt-ugly, then I wouldn't look at it - I'd give it back and say "resubmit it in a readable form." You can say "f you" all you want but if the powers that be don't like ugly papers then you have to play by their rules.
Imagine if Microsoft's site looked like the site I linked to above. Do you think they'd be taken seriously?
Maybe it has improved in the last couple of years, but last time I tried maths in OpenOffice I ran screaming. I pretty much couldn't figure out how to do anything, nor could I find any useful documentation. I now use LyX for anything mathematical.
While I'm panning software, avoid TeXmacs. I once spent two hours trolling through documentation trying to figure out how to do something simple (I think change the footer on a page) without success. (This was the experience that converted me to LyX.)
I have had a few issues with LyX, but mostly it works great. I few weeks ago, it mysteriously decided I needed a package I didn't have, and I ended up having to change to the root account* and loading the document there before the auto-package-download would work to fix the problem.
* Technically the admin account, as I'm on Windows these days, but I can call it root if I want to.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I thought that math was actually pretty reasonable in OO. I usually use it to write short equations, but I found that it was convenient to have the functionality to program a math function rather than deal with some wissywig editor. If I needed to write any moderately complex equations though, I'd probably go with LaTeX hands down. Learning it is a pain, but you have a bit more control when dealing with various markups and macros.
It's not as bad as it seems.
Let me begin by explaining how I came to use LaTeX. One of my friends pointed me to LaTeX. I read the Not so short Guide to LaTeX and loved the thought behind it. I used it for everything. Biology, chemistry, physics, math, papers, letters, essays, type setting in other alphabets... The list goes on and on.
And I discovered something: while it has a steep learning curve, LaTeX is easy. The problem is that people don't grow up using it.
That said, there are some poorly designed packages... These can be difficult to use... Just search ctan and read documentation till you find one that you like...
LaTeX is an abomination of the original TeX by Donald Knuth. LaTeX requires 17 some passes for a document, while TeX will only need one. The LaTeX designers failed to understand TeX so they took it apart and rewrote it. When Knuth wrote it in the first place it was after he did Metafont. What better way to understand typesetting than after solving the vector font problem? Needless to say there is much less support for TeX than LaTeX, and images are still an issue. I think it's time for someone to step up and fill Knuth's shoes and write up some core mods for TeX (keeping with the 1 pass elegance).
First of all, you have zero chance of finding anything better than LaTeX for mathematical/scientific typesetting. However, there are ways of solving lots of the problems you mention without chucking LaTeX out the window.
Above all, be patient, and be open to learning. It's understandable that you want to do powerful and flexible document processing, without having to learn a whole bunch of commands. Unfortunately, this has a lot of similarity with people who want to program computers without learning a programming language. ("Why can't the computer just understand what I want it to do, in plain English?") Any program powerful enough to do everything you want is also powerful enough to do lots of things you don't want -- and because the computer can't read your mind, you have to learn how to tell it exactly what you want.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Since most journals are still published on paper or PDF, with editors who want a consistent look, yes it does matter. More importantly, it's very hard to make complex equations in Word that are numbered correctly. Nobody will cite your paper if they can't read the equations.
Who follows the TeX world closely knows that a number of new steps are being taken, from the already mentioned XeTeX to luatex and the libification of many programs. I see these as significant steps towards the renewal of TeX towards the introduction of a full-featured, scriptable but with GUI available, typesetting system.
In my opinion, LyX or something like LyX is what the OP needs. Yes, it's "just" a front-end to LaTeX, but so what? Would he really care what's "under the hood" if the frond-end took care of things such as getting the proper image format, solving package incompatibilities and easying table layout?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
You should think of TeX as a slightly high level description language for your document, eg if PDF (say) takes the role of machine languague, then in this analogy TeX would be C and LaTeX would be C++, and LyX would be like Visual Studio. With this analogy, we can see the flaw in your question: there's nothing wrong with these tools, other than the fact that you're no longer willing to use them, because you want something even higher level.
You really have two choices depending on your temperament: If you like to have control of all the layout details, then you should learn the tools properly and start taking advantage of the features to simplify your workload dramatically (you obviously don't know the tools well enough or you wouldn't complain about document classes, table composition, etc.) I suggest you learn how to use macros, and maybe read the TeXbook. In this way, you will be able to grow your own high level interface to LaTeX which will suit you extremely well. Since you've used LaTeX for years already, this is a good investment.
If however you're happy to delegate the fine tuning of your documents to the software, then your other choice is to give the LyX developers some feedback on what you'd like to see, or wait for a better front end to come out, which hides the complexity even more than LyX. Those things happen every once in a while, but they invariably introduce complications that make life more difficult when working on a joint paper together with other people. Try TeXmacs if that's what you want.
Speaking of markup languages, what about Docbook? Would that do what he wants?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I can have LaTeX installed on my Linux box, including all sorts of crazy extras, with less than one uninterrupted minute of effort. It obviously takes a few minutes to download and install, but I don't have to pay attention after getting the ball rolling. I don't know about other "Linux hackers", but I, for one, don't enjoy wasting my time on chores like software installation.
I'm interested to see if this thread reveals any credible alternatives to LaTeX, but in the meantime, there's Getting to Grips With Latex, and the more available Wikibooks copy, for those who need to get it done in LaTeX.
Unfortunately, because it's an imperative language used to perform an inherently declarative task. Maybe growing up with HTML spoiled me, but I'd rather describe what my document is, rather than sequential instructions on how to create it.
Also, I like the separation of semantic meaning and presentation that comes with modern HTML+CSS, and I don't think LaTeX offers that.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'd say its main problem is that it's the wrong paradigm. Documents are declarative, not imperative. Therefore, the computer language used to express the document ought to be declarative too.
Personally, I tend to use HTML+CSS for writing documents (although lately I've gotten lazy and just used OpenOffice). The trouble with that method, though, is that despite "media:print" it really wasn't designed to be used in anything but a web browser (it's hard to control pagination, for example).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
LaTeX is hard
Didn't Mattel get in trouble having Barbie say that?
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Know what's harder than LaTex when you need math typeset correctly? Anything that's not LaTex.
The advice given in the above post may sound intuitive, but it lacks on certain details. The most important being tool selection, and the wrong type can be a real pain. If following the above, remember to ALWAYS use the right sort of pencil. A #1 is generally too soft and will not be effective. A #3 or above will definitely be too hard of a choice and can lead to severe problems. It is imperative that the right pencil be chosen: and for the task at hand, that of course would be a number two.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
I use LaTeX because its output looks better than anything else I've seen on the market. The difference is subtle, but noticable. If you place a LaTeX document side by side with the same text processed by a different system, the LaTeX one is obvious. The reason for this is that the designers of TeX and LaTeX knew about proper typographical conventions. They knew about how to space letters, about line spacing. Looking at a well made LaTeX document is like looking at an elegantly typeset book. You aren't sure exactly why it looks good. But it does.
I've used Framemaker. It isn't bad. It's keystrokes for creating mathematical equations are efficient. However, its output still doesn't have the elegance of LaTeX. LaTeX does things that no other system does. For example, when you put an equation inline with text, it changes the format of the equation to fit in the line. Usually, inline equations don't cause the spacing of the line they are in to change. Try that in Word!
I do agree that tables are a pain to use. But I usually find that once I've made a template, then I don't have to mess with the details later. I use LaTeX to create mathematics exams, and I wouldn't use anything else. Using templates, it is faster than any other tool I have seen.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
At the Internet, but not at condom selection.
Polyurethane condoms don't stretch---and one size does not fit all. Neither falling off nor cutting off blood flow and leaving an angry purple ring bruise under the band is a desirable outcome.
On top of which, they're usually shaped like crayons, and since they don't stretch... suffice it to say that "purple Crayola with a white wrapper" is not the most dignified look, even for that least dignified of organs.
How many times can one person +5 for saying the same thing repeatedly in the same topic?
A hypergenius that could not only exceed Knuth (Knuth, for Bob's sake!), but do it without resting on the established highest technology in the field (i.e. TeX and packages built around it)
I don't know about that. I think a more ordinary genius could do it, simply because they have the wisdom of Knuth plus others to build from, even if they reject the technical base of LaTeX, but incorporate the ideas and theories behind it.
Still, it would be quite an achievement, and I still agree with you that a full-on replacement is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Speaking as someone who is now pretty experienced at TeX (haven't yet *released* any packages but I've been writing some as I work on my thesis) and knows about the internals I have to say that LaTeX has an absolutely awful design. Sure, it produces pretty output but the macro language is almost as bad as brainfuck or assembly language.
To be fair this wasn't really a design failure on Knuth's part. He specifically wanted to avoid TeX becoming a full fledged programming language and I believe he expected other front ends to produce TeX commands but was eventually convinced to add some programming features to TeX. Combine this with the strong emphasis on compatibility and the restrictions of machines at the time and you get a language whose programming model is based on redefining parts of the language and involves finite numbers of registers and tokens.
Not to mention a number of really annoying limitations like the inability to use more than a dozen or so math fonts in the same document.
Unfortunately TeX works well enough to typeset papers but is too complex to inspire many people to hack the source. Thus there is not a great deal of manpower devoted to producing a successor and no one will buy an incompatible commercial product that won't interoperate with their colleagues.
This isn't to say no one is working on a replacement. LuaTex seems to be the way forward but I just wish it would come along faster. BTW as a stopgap measure perltex is pretty useful.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
You didn't mention what type of science you are doing, so if you are an EE the best way to get schematic diagrams is still a LaTeX derivative. Circuit Macros is still the best I can find for now, located at:
http://www.ece.uwaterloo.ca/~aplevich/Circuit_macros/
Takes a few weeks to get really good at it, but the diagrams are the absolute best. There was a person who was making print quality symbols for gEDA through gschem, but I'm not sure that ever panned out. If you want a simple way to draw diagrams in ps then you might send the author an email.
I don't know if this is the case for you, but I find most people who find LaTeX hard are using it wrongly. Specifically, they are trying to precisely control the formatting, placement, etc. etc. of everything in their document. This is, pretty much, how you use today's WYSIWYG word processors. It's very cumbersome and arcane to do the same in LaTeX, and the results don't usually look very good in either case.
The right way to use LaTeX is to basically enter the semantic structure of your document, let LaTeX do all the typesetting, and then tweak it a bit as necessary. Realizing this was the point where I stopped fighting with LaTeX and started letting it work for me. I've been getting compliments on how beautiful my documents are. There's a lot of typesetting knowledge encoded in LaTeX, and, really, it probably does a better job than most of us can hope to do. One particular example I like to share is that, when I took my thesis to the printer, he remarked how glad he was that, finally, someone had thought about making the margins large enough that the text would be readable once printed and bound. I hadn't. But LaTeX had.
Incidentally, the above is also why I don't see a lot of value in WYSIWYG editors for LaTeX. On the one hand, being able to see what your final document will look like while you are creating it is good. On the other hand, it makes it very easy to fall into the trap of spending all of your time correcting this or that perceived layout error, instead of getting your actualy work done while letting LaTeX do the typesetting. I am not even sure WYSIWYG can be made to work right; a lot of algorithms in LaTeX are simply slow, and changing even one letter can cause your text to jump around, which is very annoying while editing.
Then, of course, there is the matter of commands. I recognize that having to type in commands is a significant hurdle for many people. Being a programmer and having a lot of experience with HTML, this isn't the case for me - I am used to using commands. As a programmer, I actually see LaTeX as having an advantage here: by defining new commands, you can automate repeating tasks and increase the maintainability of your code...err...document. I don't actually do this a lot, but it's very nice to have that ability for when it's useful.
All in all, I won't deny that LaTeX is hard. I know it is. On the other hand, I am not actually sure it is harder than Microsoft Word, which, in my experience, is its main competitor. Although Word is probably easier to get started with, learning the basic LaTeX necessary for creating a simple document is really not that much work, and the documents you produce will look a lot better than what Word produces. When you get to more complex documents, I find Word has a tendency to screw up - it will crash and/or eat parts of the formatting or content of your document. Granted, that's bugginess, not something inherent in WYSIWYG word processing, but it still ends up causing you a lot of frustration and losing you a lot of time. I've never seen LaTeX do this, and, even if it did, you would still have the source code of your document - at the very least, all your content is still there.
So, there you have it. My opinion, my experience, with input from quite a few others - LaTeX users, non-LaTeX users, and "I tried LaTeX but couldn't figure it out" users. In the end, my conclusion is that LaTeX is far from perfect, but it's still the best.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The best reason I can think of is that I have never seen Word reflow a whole paragraph when I typed a single word at the end like I have seen LaTeX do. I think the requirements of a smooth user experience means that Word breaks lines on a per-line basis, while LaTeX can afford to do per-paragraph optimization.
Languages aren't inherently fast -- implementations are efficient
I dunno. How many times can one person +5 for saying the same thing repeatedly in the same topic?
Here is some info from the FAQ:
Lout is similar in function to LaTeX and troff. Indeed, it borrows ideas, techniques and conventions from these typesetting systems. For example, Lout uses Knuth's (the author of TeX, on which LaTeX is based) optimal line breaking algorithm, and has extended it to paragraph breaking across pages. For simple documents, Lout, LaTeX and troff offer much the same functionality, with different syntax (see the "Simple Examples" section). Lout is much more "programmer friendly" than TeX's macros (and a fortiori than incomprehensible troff macros). See the "Advanced Examples" section.
Lout makes it easy to mix text and graphics. You can draw lines, arrows and boxes, scale and rotate objects, use color commands. While many of these things are possible in LaTeX by including Postscript files generated by utility programs such as xfig, you have to specify the size of each included figure, losing a lot of Lout's flexibility.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
PlayTeX
to give you that extra typesetting protextion
But who gives a shit anyway?
After the Grammar Nazi, enter the Case Nazi.
at least 3...
* Technically the admin account, as I'm on Windows these days, but I can call it root if I want to.
I was going to mark this +1 informative until I found out that the poster runs windows :-)
But seriously, I had the exact opposite experience. I started on Lyx, got really frustrated, and moved to TeXmacs. But I'm in Linux: maybe the TeXmacs interface is worse in Windows? Or maybe's it's just a matter of taste. Either way, I'd definitely suggest trying out both.
Needing BadAnalogyGuy is like needing Superman and getting Batman instead. (That was the best I could come up with.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The best (only?) way to learn and write in LaTeX is to take another person's example file, and modify it with your own text.
When it comes to typesetting, never do anything yourself. Steal, steal, steal.
You know, this is actually a good analogy to the original problem presented.
Mod him down! ;P
[http://it-tastes-so-good.blogspot.com] Are you hungry?
> I use vi+latex to write my papers
Pfft. It's 2008 now, time to use a modern text editor and typesetter. I recommend vim+LaTeX.
"And there be unix which have made themselves unix for the kingdom of heaven's sake." - Matt. 19:12
While it's not quite as flexible as CSS, LaTeX is flexible enough for most people's needs display wise. The exact same document can easily be turned into a presentation from an article or similar with few changes beyond the document class. In fact, this is one of the major benefits of LaTeX over any other document preparation system: you write the content, and the document class takes care of making it look like whatever it's supposed to look like.
http://www.donarmstrong.com
I never figured out LaTeX; TeX always did what I needed, so I didn't see what the point was.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
MOD PARENT UP!!! Thanks for your extensive comments.
/tx/ pronunciation (that is, with a voiceless velar fricative as in Modern Greek, or the last sound of the German word "Bach", similar to the Spanish "j" sound)."
What software do you use with LaTeX?
Quote: "When you get to more complex documents, I find Word has a tendency to screw up - it will crash and/or eat parts of the formatting or content of your document."
I've experienced that. Sometimes Word even ruins its own files so badly that it can't read them. If that happens, here's a tip: Load the Word file in Open Office, and save it in Word format. That repairs the file. Word will then be able to read its own file. So, Open Office is a necessary Microsoft Office utility.
I sure wish Open Source authors would choose sensible names for their projects. The name TeX and LaTeX has undoubtedly reduced the acceptance of the software. See this quote, for example:
"TeX's creator Donald Knuth promotes a
Didn't he look around and see that no professional communication was using "Voiceless velar fricatives"? Did he decide that all other writers in the entire English language were wrong, and he was being more communicative than the professionals? Or was he intentionally making communication difficult?
IMO, the equation editor in Word 2007 was a huge improvement over the previous versions.
But you can include TrueType and other fonts.
Given that this is a clean rewrite, some other problems might have been solved on the way.
LaTeX is the final stage of evolution in its category, there will never be anything better. Let me show you some basic points here:
LaTeX works internally like old typesetting mechanisms (lead matrix,...). It composes everything of boxes and springs (the simplest decomposition possible). There is no better system to make it universal.
There's no shorter sintax for markup language. You specify command only where it acts, and you only have one excessive backslash.
It's Turing complete. It has to be, in order to be able to do anything (you can play chess in LaTeX). If it wasn't so, there would soon be a document that couldn't be typeset.
I find the learning curve of some of you disturbing. For a basic user, all you need to remember is \sqrt, \frac, ^, _, \section, \insertgraphics, \tabular. For advanced user, you only need some more logic and understanding, and some 40 other commands.
Templating is the heart of LaTeX. You define your macros, indentation sizes and formats only once. Then you just import it. You have to go fishing for examples only if you deleted previous documents.
I agree that font management is strange, but it has to be. It's badly known only because of ignorance of 99.99% population. Regular font system is meant for 1D-type of stacking together and treats everything as a character. LaTeX needs more flexibility (positioning accents, stacking symbols together, similarities), and more special symbols (integrals,...). Anyway, it should decide completely against bitmapped fonts and rely on postscript fonts only.
Good day to all of you.
Huh? Word is a non-starter out of the box because it is totally incapable of producing typography that doesn't look like ass. The kerning doesn't work, control over every sort of spacing and positioning is far too coarse. Every document that comes from Word can immediately be recognized as such, and even if you personally aren't observant enough to, there's still a subliminal effect that whispers to everyone "this is an amateur production".
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
ConTeXt? Like LaTeX, but perhaps better in many aspects?
Sorry, no help here.
Oh, somebody cruel has forbidden you to use XeTeX, write in UTF-8 and use OpenType fonts directly from your system? Shame on them!
Ezekiel 23:20
How many times can one person +5 for saying the same thing repeatedly in the same topic?
If it ain't broken, don't fix it. I really don't understand why you would want to replace LaTeX. Sorry, but your points sound pretty weak to me: LaTeX does a pretty damn good job at placing figures automatically (and if you insist, you can always fiddle around with those "htbp" tags, but I find the default location to be generally fine), I never had any problem producing EPS or PDF figures, etc... Besides, if you've really been using it for years, like me, you should be used to its "complexity" (I'm sure I'm much faster with Emacs + LaTeX than people using MS Word or whatever...)
Really, I think you're gonna have a hell of a time finding any serious alternative out there, especially for this price. But then again, why would you ? Just because it's been around for so long ? Please...
Installation, and the basics of LaTeX are not terribly hard. Graphics support is a pain--it helps to have something like Illustrator that can make high quality EPS files out of anything. Then again, Word support for EPS has been pretty crappy also (dunno about 2008, however). Mathmode produces stunning results, but is a seriously nasty bit of code to read. Going from tex to a camera-ready pdf is fairly nasty, I write a makefile for this, which pretty much puts setting up an efficient LaTeX workflow out of reach for any non-programmer. Some of the command line tools don't have sensible defaults either (e.g. partial font embedding). There are enough differences in installations that steps for going from dvi to pdf can vary wildly from one installation to the next.
Getting LaTeX to comply with a template can be a pain--editors may be more accustomed to submissions from Word users, and not aware of LaTeX-specific problems. Sometimes the templates don't even comply with their own requirements. Some editors don't have standard bibliography formats either, and editing Bibtex templates seems to be a black-art, so one can't always count on that tool being available.
LaTeX has a few default settings that are rather silly... like over-eager hypenation and an insane idea of how much space a figure should be allowed to take up. This page got me past some of the more tedious problems: http://dcwww.camd.dtu.dk/~schiotz/comp/LatexTips/LatexTips.html
Overall I'd say its a fairly horrible experience--the only thing worse is MS Word.
No it's not, proper casing is proper casing. That's right, I'm the Semantics Nazi.
Docbook XML uses MathML inputs. MathML is a lot of voodoo from experience but not as much as LaTeX
And the good thing is, you can get LaTeX formulas even in OpenOffice: http://ooolatex.sourceforge.net/
[--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
GNU TeXmacs is the best document processor out there. It is also Free as in speech. It is inspired by TeX, but not a frontend for LaTeX like LyX as many believe. It will import your old LaTeX documents. I've used it to write my thesis (100 pages plus many, many figures and photos) and it works excellent, because you don't have to worry about layout. It just produces beautiful text and math.
http://www.texmacs.org/
WISSYWIG - What You See Say You What I Get
Duh!!
Word and Openoffice is a pain because you never know what object you are changing, and where the bounds of certain markings are. Is it a link to an object? Is the object itself integrated? What if you copy the file to another machine, will the picture still be shown? It's horrible. Something like WordPerfect 5.1, with a source view would be excellent.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Simple Latex is ok; but usually some bug or need occurs which means that you *must* make an amendment to an existing format, and then two days later you still haven't figured out how to do it. The often-found combiation of Latex plus Deadline is nerve-tearing.
This is not a signature.
Know what's harder than LaTex when you need math typeset correctly? Anything that's not LaTex.
Agreed, I just finished my PhD thesis in Latex ac ouple of months ago and I have say that I like Latex quite a lot.
Although Latex is not for everyone, once you get to know it, you will see all the benefits. For example, just yesterday a colleague was preparing a paper to submit for a conference, in word (2007 no less) and he spend about 4 hours (or more!) getting the references right. In latex, a combination of using the JabRef [bibtex] database and \citep [Natbib] take care of the references for me.
Not to mention indexes, references (I work in the same Word paper I mentioned putting references in word, having to mark, insert a label, then insert reference, sheesh!).
Similarly, just about two months ago (for my Viva) I decided to "learn" to use Beamer to do my presentation. I tried to do it in Lyx, but I felt like if Lyx prevented me from doing things, I finished going back to Kile and doing my presentation in Latex + beamer.
BTW, for those of you who hate the Maths package available in Microsoft Office, I would recommend Texpoint. That lets you edit your formulas in Latex inside powerpoint, and creates an image (png IIRC). That is what I used (before going to Beamer).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Will all you Nazis just bugger off? That's right, I'm the Nazi Nazi.
NO SOUP FOR YOU!!
That's right, I'm the... well, you get it.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
> I don't know if this is the case for you, but I find most people who find LaTeX hard are using it wrongly.
Very true words. The whole idea of LaTeX is that it does all the formatting work for you. So complaining about "complexity" is really missing the issue: LaTeX is as complex as necessary for the task. Use it wisely, and it will go a long way.
If you do not want to deal with the complexity of different styles, then a front end like LyX can hide a lot of it. You still get high quality results, you can switch between styles, and you can use additional features manually if necessary. This does not mean that LyX is without fault, but I think it is a step in the right direction (very much unlike Word).
Concerning the OP's question about a document processor without the "compiler metaphor" (and it is a paradigm, not a metaphor)... there is no such thing. The whole idea of a document processor is that things are done right, and not fast. Doing this in real time is just asking for trouble. So you either end up with a draft view as in LyX, or with a sluggish real time preview (as you find in a few LaTeX editors). Anyway, with a document processor you are supposed to put down semantics, and not form, so looking at the exact final form is wasted precision. If you want to have certain things in certain places, LaTeX has commands and overrides to achieve that.
You have to install new packages for new features
apt-get install
compatibility issues are everywhere
Compatibility between what and what?
you need to know commands for everything
Not if you use a GUI like Kile.
table composition is torture
\begin{tabular}{ll} col & col \\ col & col \end{tabular}
image insertion is an odyssey if you don't have the 'right' format
\includegraphics{foo.png}
Use \DeclareGraphicsRule to convert
and you need to be a LaTeX Jedi master to create a new document class
You can thank Don for that; the underlying language (TeX) is indeed about the most user-hostile language ever devised. Fortunately, LaTeX hides it pretty well.
However, designing new document classes is hard: there are dozens of parameters and rules that go into one. LaTeX actually makes it fairly simply by reducing it to a bunch of parameters.
but that is not stuck in the 1980s with the compiler metaphor and weird font technology.
Trust me, it's not the 80's. The 80's was the decade of graphical user interfaces and object oriented programming. TeX is more like the 1960's: machine language and macro processing. LaTeX is trying to bring it into the 1980's.
An application with visual interface and so on
Well, if you want a WYSIWYG version of LaTeX... you can't have it. People thought 20 years ago that TeX/LaTeX wouldn't last long because of GUIs. But nobody has figured out how to combine the power of something like LaTeX with a WYSIWYG interface. Microsoft Word tried, and you can see the result for yourself.
There are several LaTeX editing environments with live preview; those are quite neat and help a lot.
Does anybody know of a decent, scientific-structured document processor that is a modern application?
LaTeX is pretty good at what it does, that's why it's still the de-facto standard for scientific publishing. It's also an intermediate format that a lot of word processors can output. The other standard in this area is DocBook, but if you thought LaTeX was messy...
I'd recommend to invest the time to learn LaTeX reasonably well; if you write a lot of science, it's worth it. You'll write faster than you ever could with any WYSIWYG tool.
I think any LaTeX replacement will basically have a LaTeX syntax, but replace the underlying language (TeX) with something more modern. Also, TeX's layout algorithms, groundbreaking as they were 20 years ago, are pretty obsolete.
But I thought the Nazis were anti-semantic.
I hope this comment is well received... I could have moderated instead!
Persecutors will be violated!
I'm not submitter, but I share some of his frustration.
First, I've used LaTeX since around 1987 (that was on the Amiga, btw) and I'm still convinced that for most of the documents I write LaTeX is clearly superior to other systems I've tried.
That's not to say there aren't some obvious points for improvement. Font support is archaic and really not something from this decade (nor the previous). I understand that XeTeX has some improvements in this area, I'll check it out. I need/want to use the Gentium font but after jumping through all the hoops that are indicated in the sparse documentation, it no worky.
But, for me, the number one frustration is the sheer impossibility to create a new base class. I write software for a living and have used many obfuscated languages. However, I just don't "get" the intricacies of programming for LaTeX.
I would love to have a letter.cls that doesn't look like it's an afterthougth. There is dinbrief.cls, but that has all sorts of problems of its own. I've tried several times to create a letter class, for A4 paper, that looks professional to use in a business. No such luck, I just couldn't do it. And the lack of alternatives on the 'Net seem to indicate that there aren't many others that could do it either.
So, to summarize, LaTeX a wonderful tool for typesetting reports and articles. Especially if those are heavy on math. But for other correspondence it isn't so great, or at least, it hasn't kept up with modern developments in font technology and document design.
Technically speaking Semantics is about the meaning of a given word or sign. Therefore proper casing is not about semantics.
Like so many other Nazis, you're misinformed.
Why on earth?!?!? Nobody in this forum seems to think Silicone is an excellent Latex replacement.
I'm amazed at the seriousness of this thread. It says something about the demographic inside this topic that somehow disturbs me.
WUSSYWIG - A hairpiece for people who aren't assertive.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
I have used Open Office and the math entry part is what I would classify as adequate for simple math, however there are much better GUI typesetters such as Framemaker but you have to pay for it. Even Microsoft has a document preparation system and it also costs. I have not used it but talking to those who have Framemaker is preferred.
Because LaTeX is a "mark-up language" many people who are used to a GUI find it a bit difficult to get into it, however if you buy the LaTeX book the first page is rather good in that it actually gives you basic hints of how not to read it. The problem is that for math there is no alternative but to read the book.
Granted you have to get your head around using LaTeX particularly with regard to maths however if you are required to display math on a paper I would assume if anyone is smart enough to write and understand mathematical formulas then writing the those formulas in LaTeX would be a fairly straight forward. Even if you don't have the LaTeX book which IMHO is essential there are plenty of web examples such as here and here.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
No one's (I think) mentioned longevity yet. This is a really important benefit to something like LaTeX, especially for academics.
I wrote my PhD thesis in LaTeX 20 years ago. I still have the source in my home area somewhere, and it still works perfectly. I needed a copy for my homepage and I was able to reformat it to make a double-sided, single-line-spaced, 10pt PDF in just a few minutes.
With LaTeX, papers aren't fire-and-forget. You can be pretty confident that if you come back to a subject again, maybe many years later, what you wrote last time will still be useful.
And check out Apache FOP for something up the same alley, but FOSS
Speaking as a maths teacher (but formerly a programmer for 20 years) the formula editor is the one thing that enabled me to insist on having OOo installed on my school Windows PC (in addition to the Microsoft Office which was installed by default). At the time (admittedly about 5 years ago) the OOo formula editor worked and the Microsoft Office one simply didn't in several odd ways. For instance you couldn't embed a formula in a table in MO, which made it kind of useless.
I now use OOo all the time because I have to use Windows at school and I use Linux at home so it gives me easy portability. In September I start at a new school and everything there is Apple, so I suspect I'll still be pushing for OOo.
Obviously I wouldn't push OOo as a viable substitute for LaTeX, but it does seem to have the edge on MO in some areas.
(Incidentally, I have no difficulty with interworking with colleagues who still use MO.)
All our documentation was in LaTeX and we moved in 2001 over to XML DocBook. The reason for this is that we are able to process the information so much easier through standard XML tools. DocBook is quite big and polluted with all sorts of domain specific aspects, but we restrict ourselves to a relatively small subset and do automatic course note generation from a knowledge repository of little docbook documents. We still render via LaTeX as the LaTeX rendering is more mature than the FOP rendering.
The language for creating new BibTex styles is so retarded it's not even funny. Basically, you can't do it.
Check out the biblatex package (http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/entries/biblatex.html). It is far easier to create and modify bibliography styles. Although still rather new, it is rapidly gaining users and hence robustness. I work in the humanities and bibliography citation has never been handled adequately by any BibTeX style. I stumbled across biblatex a year ago and never looked back.
putting a lameness filter on slashdot is like putting a shit filter on your asshole.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I completely agree: LaTeX is a typesetting tool. Nothing more. When I had some time at work, I started LaTeX-ing a large technical manual. I had to build, then rebuild, then rebuild over and over to get the formatting right. But what kept me going was the unbelievably beautiful typography (not so beautiful content) that finally emerged ... I do share the author's frustration with the tools to use LaTeX, but I'm not sure there's a way around it, because setting LaTeX can be idiosyncratic.
No, we just hate juice.
At the time (admittedly about 5 years ago) the OOo formula editor worked and the Microsoft Office one simply didn't in several odd ways. For instance you couldn't embed a formula in a table in MO, which made it kind of useless.
You sure about that? I wrote my Masters dissertation 6 years ago in Word (I know, us lazy engineers) and had no problems putting equations in tables. As this involved linearising multivariate equations for numerical solution on the computer, I had plenty of Jacobian and other matrices that I lined up using tables.
I dunno about you, I'm just anti-Symantec.
LaTeX has become a virtual standard for scientific & mathematical publication, so I don't think you're going to find much in the way of replacements any time soon.
... I can't disagree that LaTeX has a sharp learning curve, but the same can be said of any programming language.
... Yes, it is.
... Use OpenOffice Draw to export your picture to ".eps". (Be sure to export just the "selected" image, so that it creates an eps bounding box.) This will solve 99% of your LaTeX image problems.
... Most people should not have to create a document class -- they can comfortably start off with an "article" or "report" class and override many of the basic settings. This typically works for most cases. It's quite rare that I've seen anyone having to create a whole new document class when there are many such classes already made and available for free download. (Plus, the typical IEEE or ACM conference usually has their own style files.)
... It's the compiler metaphor which makes LaTeX so powerful, in my opinion. If you read Knuth's TeX book, you'll find that Knuth did this on purpose because (to quickly summarize) he wanted people to focus less on layout and more on writing.
Ever try to submit a conference or journal paper to an IEEE or ACM publication? Some will allow you to submit in Word format, but most will ask you to submit the camera-ready copy in LaTeX.
LaTeX isn't without its faults, to be sure, but it's simply unbeatable when it comes to publishing acceptably-formatted academic papers.
Regarding some of your points, I think that most of them will be cleared up as you become more proficient with the language.
- Under Linux, I find that tetex has almost all of the packages that I require, and under Windows, I find that MikTex has even more.
- "you need to know commands for everything"
- "table composition is torture"
- "image insertion is an odyssey if you don't have the 'right' format"
- "you need to be a LaTeX Jedi master to create a new document class"
- "the compiler metaphor"
How about MathCad? Not only can you word process but it is easy to update the calcs in the document. You can embed charts and Excel spreadsheets if required. Check it out and see if it meets your needs.
Sorry, but that is wrong. I have tried using MS Word in it's styles usage and it's just a PITA. Sure, you can define styles, but it still does all kinds of screwy things; heaven forbid if you want to define a custom bullet-point style, or if you want to change styles within paragraphs (e.g., emphasis).
Word also seems to do screwy things with multiplying styles for the exact same formatting. In short, anyone who's used word styles for any length of time knows that there are all kinds of horrible problems with screwy things Word does.
Not to mention the zillion other screwy things Word does. The way it deals with tables, when you have to split cell, or merge cells, is just awful. After you've created a split or a merge, try deleting a row or column you want to delete, or inserting a new row or column. It just doesn't work.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Word uses essentially the same algorithm to manage paragraph flow as TeX does, just more sophisticated in the areas of inserting non-text objects such as images and much more sophisticated for mixing languages of different scripts.
The reason TeX output looks "better" to some is mostly that it looks different. TeX was created exclusively for dealing with European languages, and it was created for creating printed books, with only the typographical conventions of printed books, before desktop publishing really existed. By default it looks different and "more bookish", kind of quaint, people interpret that as being "better".
Don't get me wrong I love TeX and its legacy is gigantic (again, Knuth's algorithms were reused in modern word processor). It's just not the best tool anymore.
Perhaps the output doesn't look as nice, but entering them is vastly easier in OpenOffice. At least last time I did it, which was a few years ago. In OpenOffice, you could (but didn't have to) type in the entire equation with just the keyboard. This made entering equations very quick once you figured out all the keystrokes. In MS Office (2000 I think), there was no way I could find to just type everything in. Anything more complicated then 5+5 required you to make extensive use of the mouse. Which slowed things down a lot.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I've used only three guides to LaTeX to get along with it so far. The first two are free to download, and the third is a book by the father of LaTeX:
1)The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2?
2)User's Guide for the amsmath Package (Version 2.0)
3)LaTeX: A Document Preparation System
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Going from tex to a camera-ready pdf is fairly nasty, ...
This makes me curious, I had never actually had to produce a camera ready pdf myself, I just submit the tex fime, but is there anything wrong with pdf produced by pdflatex?
Graphics support is a pain...
Pdflatex can include pdf files and several bitmap formats. Is there any graphics format that cannot be easily converted to either png (for bitmaps) or pdf (for vector graphics)? Are there any drawbacks to such conversion? ...editors may be more accustomed to submissions from Word users...
Luckily, not in my field. Editors in my field are definitely more accustomed to LaTeX users, to the point where most journals actually require submission in LaTeX. ...like over-eager hyphenation...
I never had trouble with that, but if you want to limit the number of hyphenated words in an easy way, try pdflatex with the microtype package. It tries to solve problems with microtypographic extensions before hyphenating, and I have seen pages and pages of beautiful output without a single hyphenated word when using it.
AccountKiller
I learned OpenOffice five years before, why would I go back?
Because MS Office is a better product in this respect?
Esp. when it doesn't come with PDF output out of the box.
Adding PDF export to Office 2007 is trivial, and unlike the PDF export in OpenOffice, the MS Office version isn't riddled with obvious bugs that haven't been fixed for years and render it hopelessly unreliable.
And I don't trust that. Every version they say they improved something. Paying all that money just to find out is not that wise.
If you have a problem with MS Office for some philosophical reason, that's your prerogative, but please don't produce lame excuses like this and then criticise it without even trying it.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
And user-unfriendly? Windows? What a fucking joke. Go back to your terminal.
When it comes to software package management, Windows is indeed stuck in the 90s.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
OpenOffice on MacOS X requires you to have X installed.
NeoOffice is a Mac OS X port of OpenOffice to use the native Mac OS X GUI. I have NeoOffice and AppleWorks on my Mac Mini at home. And OpenOffice on my home Linux box. And MS Office on my windows work machine.
Well, a little bit of research shows that the p-attribute for tables will wrap them.
Btw, the way MS handles tables blows as well. See the problems I mentioned above. It's really awful.
My suggestion for editing tables in LaTeX, is to create a script to convert them to csv tabular format that OO.org can open up, and then edit them there. Then convert back from tabular format.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
This post seems internally inconsistent. Word uses the same algorithm, but people like TeX because it looks totally different? Perhaps we have different definitions of what it is to use the same algorithm.
Obviously I wouldn't push OOo as a viable substitute for LaTeX
Have you tried OOoLatex?
No easy way to do scientific notation? I defined a simple command so \scinot{10.6}{-6} does what you would expect. No dedicated "degrees" symbol? I defined one.
It's my personal preference (not necessarily that of anyone else), but I would never switch to a front end that took away my ability to create tools to make my life easier.
For the record, the definition is
\newcommand{\scinot}[2]{\ensuremath{#1 \times 10^{#2}}}
Actually, it wasn't so much made for European languages. It was made for typesetting in general. In fact, look to the KOMA-Scripts package, which was designed because European publishing wasn't originally well accounted for in TeX.
There are a number of other benefits which are, perhaps, why it looks more "bookish". Kerning, ligatures, finer control over hyphenation, glyph variants, real fonts, support for semetic languages, support for asian languages, etc. Take a look at the index of Knuth's Art of Programming. Arabic, Chinese, everything beautifully typeset. The Index seamlessly generated with appropriate sorting.
I suppose it's possible to look at professional typesetting and say, so what? In the end, though, that's the benefit. TeX is a typesetting system and a lot of people seem to want a Word Processor. These are different things.
There are things that are possible in TeX that aren't possible in Word. You have more control over the document (although Word certainly gives an appearance of control). TeX can make type that looks GOOD. However, some people think of text and publishing as commodities in the online world. They decide that they can live without these things.
That's fine with me. Personally, I enjoy seeing something done really well. I use TeX as it suits me. Someday, maybe someone will make a good WYSIWYG typesetting system. Until then, we have TeX.
I think Mauve has the most RAM. --PHB (Dilbert Comic)
Simply going to the OOo issue tracker and searching for issues with "pdf" in the summary would find you several examples. Try issue 43029 as a starting point: it dates from 2005, has 194 votes, and appears to have finally come onto the radar for the dev team more than three years and a few dozen comments later.
And no, it's not some specific thing with a printer driver. OOo PDF is export is simply broken, fundamentally and completely, if you want to use pro grade fonts in the most popular format available today.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.