Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MS Word 2010 Takes On TeX

Posted by timothy on from the math-journals-won't-be-switching-anytime-soon dept.

alphabetsoup writes "Office 2010 Technology preview was leaked a few days back. With its leak, a feature which was rumored to be present can now be confirmed. Office 2010 finally adds support for Advanced Typographic features (ligatures, number forms, alternates, etc.) of OpenType, allowing one to create documents so far possible only in TeX or InDesign. Between this, the new equation editor and styles, what are the chances of Word replacing LaTeX as the editor of choice in academia?"

8 of 674 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Low by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    But if it's free and takes a week to add 10 equations and format images and tweak layout, when paying $50 (academic version) you can do it in under 5 minutes, and display it on a projector for your aides to review, mark up, change on the fly and print it. Well, you do the risk-reward calculation.

  2. Re:Closed Source FTW by pottymouth · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Ahahahahahahahahaha!! Bet you voted for Obama too! Geez, stupid people are so cute!

  3. I'm surprised by the responses by risinganger · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Wow, this article really seems to have brought the soft science practitioners out in force. Where are all the real academics?

  4. Re:Low by hoggoth · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I had a teacher who gave instant 0 grades to those who programmed in any language but 'FORTH' because he thought it was so 'neat and efficient'.

    Of course, my story has no more truth than yours.

    --
    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  5. Idiot by omb · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You sir are a fucking idiot, and an example of why it will be so hard to get to rearing decent scientists in the USA. What earlier comments have been about is the difference between excellent and "good enough" but then I would not expect a M$ shill to understand that.

    Word's text layout algorithms suck, and always have, it does math badly, and it wastes users time tweaking the output by hand.

    Few users understand templates, or use them properly, and fewer yet can create new styles fluently.

  6. Re:TeX is neither obsolete, or Un-usable by geekoid · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "produces __beautifully__ typeset output"
    Link?

    "And it cost nothing but time to learn"

    so it costs the most precious thing of all?

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  7. Re:Low by geekoid · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You only say that because it is what you are used to.
    A trap I often find fools stuck in.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  8. Re:Where I'm confused is... by colinrichardday · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    provided you know what you're doing

    and that would apply to what percentage of Word users?