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Modern LaTeX Replacement?
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Jul 28, 2008 09:02 PM
from the hardly-seems-like-too-much-to-ask dept.
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?"
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Submission: Stick to LaTeX by Anonymous Coward
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Adobe (Score:5, Informative)
Framemaker?
Re:Adobe (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Adobe (In Depth) (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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lout (Score:5, Informative)
http://lout.wiki.sourceforge.net/FAQ
Top 1% of 1% (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
LaTeX does what I need it to do (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The complexity seems worst at first. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:The complexity seems worst at first. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't help but question the complaints on the complexity.
I'm a hard-core TeX user. Not a LaTeX user (sorry, I disagree violently with Leslie Lamport's aesthetics, and the code just isn't solid enough), but a TeX user.
Although TeX may be at times frustrating, there are two things that I know to be true, and provide comfort:
1. Although there may be opacity in the system, logic and rationality pervades its design, so that, given sufficient time and effort, I can understand exactly what, how, and why something works or does not work the way it does. This is huge. I will never, ever, understand many of the operational choices in OpenOffice and Word because they are not based on a rational, logical framework, leading to the impression that they are both horribly idiosyncratic.
2. TeX is bug free. If text isn't laying out the way I want it to, it's because my code is not correct, not because there's some problem with TeX. In contrast, I've lost track of the number of bugs I've seen in OO and Word.
You can, and should, clamor that LaTeX is not bug free. It isn't, and very often the packages distributed for it are riddled with bugs. The IEEE Transactions class is one, embarrassing, example. But then, if you roll your own packages, like me, you have no one else to blame when they don't work correctly, and can take comfort that when they do, you've done a good job and your documents are beautiful.
The biggest problem with any of the WYSIWYG editors I've used (and, having typeset two conference proceedings that solicited contributions in LaTeX and Word, I've seen many and varied instances of this) is that the settings are not explicitly represented in the visible document, and so become hidden and often missed. If you aren't careful, it's very easy to have one paragraph appear in a slightly different font than the next, or to have one stretch of lines be ragged right and the rest be fully justified, or have the hyphenation settings change from one portion of the document to the next. It's horrible, and fixing this is a royal pain. Having explicit formatting within a compiler paradigm is the only way to go when producing professional quality documents.
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Modern LaTeX Replacement? (Score:5, Funny)
Misunderrtanding the problem set (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Misunderrtanding the problem set (Score:5, Informative)
What sets TeX apart from other formatting systems is that it has a mathematical foundation. At it's core, TeX has a metric for how "good" a document looks and formats it to optimize that metric. Someone who wants to make a better TeX will have to have a thorough understanding of the math behind it (e.g. some "goodness" metrics are known to be NP-hard). See "Knuth-Pass line breaking" for just the tip of the iceberg on this.
So, yes, it will take someone who is a wiz at math, computer science and user interfaces (?) to overthrow TeX.
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Re:Misunderrtanding the problem set (Score:5, Informative)
A quick note for unfortunate souls who actually try googling "Knuth-Pass line breaking", it's Plass, not Pass.
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Re:Misunderrtanding the problem set (Score:5, Funny)
I've heard of two-pass algorithms, and n-pass algorithms, but I can only guess that a "Knuth-pass" algorithm gives you the benefits of an infinite number of passes in only one pass.
Knuth really was a smart guy.
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Re:Misunderrtanding the problem set (Score:5, Interesting)
[disclaimer: I am the main author of LilyPond, a system that you could easiest describe as "LaTeX" for music notation]
The problem is not with TeX. Knuth is mostly as brilliant as people say he is. The problem is that
1. the extension infrastructure of TeX is very outdated (WTF, a macro expansion language?)
2. the development ecosystem around TeX is filled with souls that are of lesser stature than Knuth. They're mostly people that need to write mathematics (physicists. mathematicians), as opposed to people that know how write software.
LilyPond back in the day used TeX as a backend engine, and I vividly recall all of the brokenness I encountered in the support-tools that surround TeX (dvips, xdvi, etc. etc.). Things have gotten a lot better now that we have pdflatex - it cuts a whole truckload of crappy tools out of the document pipeline.
Font handling remains atrocious. In case you're wondering: someone was bright enough to base parts of the fontsystem on the DOS 8.3 restriction, so URWGothicL-Demi is and will be called uagd8a forever inside TeX -and worse- if you have to add a modern (OTF, TTF) font, you have run scripts to make LaTeX's font subsystem understand these files in terms of the ridiculous naming scheme.
People get hung up over TeX's beautiful formatting algorithms, but they are not actually that complicated, and by todays' standards TeX is a small program: tex.web is just 25k lines, and that includes its ample comments. LilyPond has page layouting and line breaking that is far more complex.
The real problem with typography, whether for music or documents, is that it's full of traditions that predate automatic processing, and are not specially suited to computerizing. For example, in some language words change their spelling/typography when they get hyphenated (eg. the German eszet letter which hyphenates to s-s).
IMO The challenge is designing the software such that these idiosyncrasies can be captured effectively without hardcoding them, so people can create their own idiosyncrasies.
As for the original poster's question, the system that looked the most convincing to me is Lout, but I have never tried it out.
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Re:Misunderrtanding the problem set (Score:5, Informative)
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.
You just described XeTeX [google.com]. Here's a list of the features, taken from Wikipedia:
XeTeX is a TeX typesetting engine using Unicode and supporting modern font technologies such as OpenType or Apple Advanced Typography. [...] XeTeX has simple font installation and can use any installed fonts in the operating system without configuring TeX font metrics. XeTeX uses AAT when working on Mac OS X using the xdv2pdf driver, or FreeType using dvipdfmx (which is the default on Windows or Linux). As a result, XeTeX can access font features such as alternative glyphs, special ligatures, swashes and variable font weights. Support for OpenType local typographic conventions (locl tag) is also present. XeTeX allows even raw OpenType feature tags to be passed to the the font.
I've written my research proposal [tungare.name] using XeTeX and modern typography, and am in the process of typesetting an entire book with the same foundations.
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Re:Misunderrtanding the problem set (Score:5, Informative)
The font system has a lot of benefits (it is defined algorithmically, so if a font is defined correctly, it is completely scalable
On paper this looked really good, but it turns out that font designers do not think algorithmically. Computer Modern (the font Knuth designed) is virtually the only font that is a real MetaFont, where you can vary any of the fonts aspects shape by altering parameters.
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Re:Misundertanding the problem set (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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My LaTeX writing experience (Score:5, Interesting)
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'm somewhat split on the subject (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I don't know if anyone's mentioned Wyneken... (Score:5, Informative)
A stupid question, but I need to ask... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A stupid question, but I need to ask... (Score:5, Informative)
This is not a stupid question. Let me say at the outset that I avoided LaTeX for years and boy, was I wrong. LaTeX proponents often talk about the pretty formatting, but for me the advantage is the robust document structure you easily create.
LaTeX pretty much requires you to create a structured document, and the document class you're using automatically handles the formatting, display, and numbering, and it is easy to do extensive cross-referencing of equations, tables, figures, etc. By structured I mean that you create entries like
\section{This is my first section}
This creates a new automatically numbered section, creates a formatted section head, and resets all equation and subsection numbering. Entries automatically show up in a table of contents if you elect to create one (a one-line command). If you create structured technical documents, it's fantastic. Tables are a pain, but for me that's the one big weakness. And the more you have to control the detailed formatting of specific pages (which I don't need to do), the less you will want to use LaTeX.
Yes you can do all this in Word or OpenOffice, but it requires setup and in my experience almost *no* user of those programs bothers to do it. It's just too much of a pain. With LaTeX, on the other hand, it's hard to extensively change the default formats (this is what the OP meant by creating a new document class) but the standard classes for articles and books are fine for many people. New LaTeX users have to overcome the urge to tweak the formatting. Once you just leave it alone, it's liberating. You can focus on content and logical structure, and the result is a decent-looking document.
It appears to me that there is a movement *towards* the use of LaTeX in economics (my field), most commonly by using Scientific Word [mackichan.com]. This is just an impression, and I can't speak about other fields.
Finally, the experience one has with LaTeX will depend on the front end (which can simplify entering equation and structure commands). Lots of folks use Scientific Word. I use Emacs/AucTeX. I am *very* happy with that combination.
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What's next? (Score:5, Funny)
XSL-FO? (Score:5, Informative)
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/ [apache.org]
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 [w3.org] site.
Anyway, like I said, let the XML hate commence.
C
Nope -- but there are better ways to do LaTeX (Score:5, Informative)
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
you're asking the wrong question (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Knuth is rolling in his grave !! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Funny)
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?
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Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Informative)
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 [andy-roberts.net], and the more available Wikibooks copy [wikibooks.org], for those who need to get it done in LaTeX.
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Re: karma whore much? (Score:5, Interesting)
How many times can one person +5 for saying the same [slashdot.org] thing [slashdot.org] repeatedly [slashdot.org] in the same topic?
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Re: karma whore much? (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno. How many times can one person +5 for saying the same [slashdot.org] thing [slashdot.org] repeatedly [slashdot.org] in the same topic?
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Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikibooks.org] 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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Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Funny)
> LaTeX is hard
You're probably applying it in layers that are too thick.
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\LaTeX is not complex (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [oetiker.ch] 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...
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Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Know what's harder than LaTex when you need math typeset correctly? Anything that's not LaTex.
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Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Funny)
...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 [amazon.com]. A little more expensive, but thinner and hypo-allergenic.
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Re:Your lack of faith is disturbing (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Your lack of faith is disturbing (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [msdn.com] 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.
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Re:XHTML and CSS (Score:5, Informative)
Check out PrinceXML [princexml.com]. 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 [alistapart.com]
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 [youtube.com]
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Re:Nope. (Score:5, Funny)
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