Modern LaTeX Replacement? 918
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?"
Adobe (Score:5, Informative)
Framemaker?
Re:Adobe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Adobe (Score:4, Informative)
FrameMaker [adobe.com] is designed for huge documents, where you define the rules it should use to typeset the text, and let it do most of the actual layout for you.
The two products are nothing alike.
Re:Adobe (Score:4, Informative)
PageMaker is no logner maintained. It's replacement, InDesign is up to version three and, while not perfect, it absolutely has the tools to do long documents [adobe.com]. I've used it for my one book and it was better than I could have hoped.
I can't say if it's a good replacement for LaTeX as I've never used it.
Another popular option (some would say the defacto standard) for professional layout of long documents is QuarkXpress which is more mature than InDesign.
Re:Adobe (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Adobe (Score:4, Informative)
Adobe abandoned Pagemaker. InDesign is the replacement.
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.
Re:Top 1% of 1% (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason that LaTeX doesn't have the market is because its a programmer's way of typesetting, and Word is 'easier', even if the results are poorer, take more memory and storage and are harder to make changes.
Doing my thesis in LaTeX made the process much easier, but doing things like APA formatting of the bibliography using the classes was more trouble than it should be.
If a replacement does come out, I imagine it will come from the open source side, as, like you said, the market isn't big. Its also the highly technical people both that would be able to write it and would need it, so the encouragement is there.
Also, I agree on the Knuth comment, his contribution was huge and has helped many fields. However TeX, and LaTeX, are stuck in a decade very different to ours when it comes to typesetting.
Re:Top 1% of 1% (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad truth of the matter is that the servicing of highly technical writers just isn't a very big market
I know bupkis about TeX, but I do know a little about the business of software, and I can think of three things that make it even worse than the market size would indicate.
First, the high end of anything is likely to have a lot of divergence of needs. McDonald's can serve 80% of America with the same products, but you'd never be able to satisfy the top 1%, let alone the top 1% of that, with a single restaurant.
Second, all of those people, given that they are dedicated professionals and masters of their domains, will be very fussy, wanting any program they use to be well tailored to their needs. Look at programmers and the great variety of tools we use, even though the tasks are are pretty similar. So even for the same set of needs, you'd have a hard time making a product that a sufficient chunk of people liked.
And third, since everybody is used to TeX, you need to support a big swathe of what people are used to there to make people happy. Putting a modern face on that isn't easy, or somebody already would have done it.
And a bonus fourth reason: there's no money in it. It's not like most of the people writing science papers are swimming in dough, and they're used to getting TeX for free. Most of the market just wouldn't pay much for a replacement, even a better one.
So yeah, I agree; I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a good commercial solution, not until it's a cheap mod of some existing technology.
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.
Re:LaTeX does what I need it to do (Score:5, Informative)
Read the original post, he states exactly what his problems are, though I have other issues. My problems with LaTeX include:
Multi-page tables (Using longtables) is buggy. If a specific table cell is higher than the others, it can overflow into the document footer instead of getting moved to the next page.
Inconsistent rendering issues. When setting the background color of table cells, they sometimes change size. Float positioning is usually very good, but when it bugs out and does something stupid, it's nearly impossible to fix.
If you're using BibTex, making lots of references, etc, you need to run TeX four or five times, making it bog slow.
Any non-trivial coding is a pain. I was writing a custom document style, and it had to check if the number of figures was larger than a given number, and if so, insert a list of figures. Shouldn't be so hard, right? Wrong. You need to specify a piece of code to be evaluated at a later time, turns out that doing so is a gargantuan pain in the butt.
Another example: I wanted to write a simple function that took a piece of TeX code and displayed it verbatim, and showed the rendered result as well, side by side. No can do, because TeX has all sorts of weird issues with verbatim environemnts.
There are lots of character set issues. I have still not figured out how to use non-ascii characters in the pdf summary fields for PDFTeX and get them to consistently work.
The language for creating new BibTex styles is so retarded it's not even funny. Basically, you can't do it.
Specifying non-standard fonts is a pain.
Re:LaTeX does what I need it to do (Score:5, Informative)
Having written all my letters, thesis and pretty much everything that I needed to print in LaTeX over the last 8 years I can at least tell you what *my* problems with it are:
Well, despite all these annoyances I'm still using LaTeX. Not because I like it so much but rather because I haven't found an alternative that produces equally excellent output.
On a side-note: I strongly disagree with the people who said that there wouldn't be a market for a "modern LaTeX". I know quite a few people that would immediately jump onto a solution that "just works" (i.e.: one program to install) and uses a sane template language.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Re:Misunderrtanding the problem set (Score:4, Insightful)
* Emphasis mine.
One of the biggest problems here is that, for such a system to exist, it would have to be created by a hypergenius. 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). Now, there's certainly room for more friendly programs built around this incredibly solid core, but I think a full ditch-and-rewrite is pretty much off the books.
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.
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.
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.
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.
there is nothing as good as tex / latex (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:there is nothing as good as tex / latex (Score:5, Informative)
Except that in this case, you can bring out a magnifying glass and see the differences yourself. Kerning and layout is an art that has been perfected for centuries. For example, the visual weights of the letters must be accounted for. You can't just put letters on a line one after another and expect the results to be nice or even readable. TeX/LaTeX was designed to reproduce the implicit and explicit rules of text layout and kerning. It has a separate font rendering library called Metafont. The results are very good, so good in fact that many have been content to write front-ends that call TeX or LaTeX for typesetting.
MS Word was designed by engineers to dump letters in sequence on paper. Early versions were unable to kern at less than screen resolution (some 75dpi). Later versions shipped with TrueType fonts lacking proper kerning information. The results are not good. So bad, in fact, that people turn to other alternatives. Reading documents "typeset" by Word in Times New Roman hurts your eyes, just like listening to 96 kbps MP3:s hurts your ears.
Some reading, if you don't believe:
http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex [nitens.org]
http://robgoodlatte.com/2007/07/24/3-examples-of-bad-microsoft-word-typography/ [robgoodlatte.com]
--Bud
Really Old School Solution (Score:4, Funny)
I don't know if anyone's mentioned Wyneken... (Score:5, Informative)
The Beast That Is Framemaker (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
A stupid question, but I need to ask... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A stupid question, but I need to ask... (Score:4, Informative)
The short answer is no.
The big difference between document processing and word processing is that with something like Word you are constantly having to play with layout, fonts etc.
There is some rudimentary stuff to set styles, but when you push it (and not even hard) it breaks, and then you are back to trying to reformat your own document, and as you make changes to the malformed part, other parts of the document change.
With a document processor, you specify a document format and then just throw test at it, with directives to sat what part of the format to apply. There is a HUGE amount of complex logic which applies various rulesets to format each part of the document very nicely, and do so within the context of the document.
Word was designed initially to work with things like daisy wheel printers etc. FrameMaker Tex etc. were designed to work with typesetters which have much more flexibility (and thus require much more logic to drive them).
The end result is that the same paper prepared with word and LaTex is night and day - even on the same output device.
And despite what the original poster has to say about using LaTex, once its set up you concentrate on the content, not on the formatting. If set up correctly it behaves somewhat like CSS in that you can go and play with the document formatting and output a paper in a completely different style, never having to go touch the content at all.
Re:A stupid question, but I need to ask... (Score:5, Interesting)
The main thing I have used LaTeX for is generating conference papers (and a few journal papers and a thesis).
99% of grad student time wasted in LaTeX is spent trying to squeeze more content into a set page limit. I can't tell you how long I have spent trying to reformat tables to appear in a more compact format and still be readable, rephrasing sentences to eliminate dangling words in paragraphs, tweaking line spacing just enough to get your last 100 words to fit on the last page (while not being noticeable to reviewers), turning first names into initials in the bibtex file to shrink the references section, and when pressed hand-editing the postscript in figures to make things look better or more compact...
If you are writing text which doesn't have to meet tight formatting or page-count restraints, LaTeX can be a real joy to use. It always makes things look great. (Heck, I helped edit a non-math published book using LaTeX, and our printers were overjoyed at how easy it was to deal with our postscript.) But if you give in to the temptation to try and tell LaTeX to do something different than it wants to do, then you are in for a world of pain.
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.
Re:A stupid question, but I need to ask... (Score:5, Informative)
All of the above is true. And solid reasons for using TeX. But there are more great features as well.
The mathematical typesetting language has an admittedly high learning curve. It's got a lot of complicated function names and arcane naming rules for some symbols. But it produces beautifully-typeset mathematical formulas (see an earlier response to your query), and once you've memorized the fifty or so symbols that are relevant to the equations in your particular field, you can write your formulas ridiculously fast.
Take for example, the quadratic formula:
$x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}$
I imagine that at first glance, this looks like gibberish to the non-LaTeXperts in the room. But if you squint, you can decode what it means. The only obscure symbol in there is the \pm for the plus-over-minus character. Commands like \frac{..}{..} and \sqrt{..} create nice variable-sized objects that grow to fit over, under, or around their arguments. And if there's a symbol in Greek, Hebrew, or any more arcane set of mathematical algebras that is necessary for your equation, Tex /probably/ has it covered somewhere (though you may have to dig to find it). In general, though, typing in equations using your "familiar" fifty or so characters winds up being far, far faster than using some WYSIWYG equation-editor. If you've got several hundred equations to typeset, you'd never get past the first chapter without it. After you adjust to getting superscripts by writing "x^2" and subscripts with "x_i," you'll never look back.
Did I also mention you can grep it?
stability (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Some front ends are better than others (Score:4, Interesting)
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
Re:XSL-FO? (Score:5, Informative)
Is there a free implementation for rendering XSL-FO? Using "optimal" formatting (e.g. Knuth-Plass)?
Yes (Apache fop), and... maybe? I can't find a definitive answer, but there is this:
http://wiki.apache.org/xmlgraphics-fop/KnuthsModel [apache.org]
How long is "Hello World"? B/c IIRC XSL-FO is very verbose (not just because of XML, but the language design).
You have to write a "master" for each page type, but it's not that bad:
http://www.renderx.com/tutorial.html#Hello_World [renderx.com]
Non-trivial documents do get big fast, though.
How much boiler plate do I have to put up to write a document conforming to ACM article standards? Bibliography management? Etc?
Two Imperial Assloads. I'm guessing. But I really don't know for certain.
I was having a lot of trouble coaxing plain TeX to do what I wanted, and Unicode was the straw that broke the camel's back in that case. Ease of installation of the document processing system was something to be considered, and Apache FOP is a trivial install.
What I have now is a XML processor written in Python (it used to be XSLT, but I'd had enough of that after a while) that munges my XML code into XSL-FO, and then fop produces PS and PDFs. All the contents and index are generated by the Python processor. (fop doesn't support the XSL-FO 1.1 indexing stuff--at least it didn't the last time I looked--so options are limited and nasty for eliminating duplicate page numbers in the index.)
However, for my needs, it works just fine. (I want to quickly produce A4/US Letter 1-/2-sided from a single source document.) But my typesetting needs are simplistic compared to those of math- and layout-heavy users.
Our professors seem to favour MathType (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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.
lout (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is some info from the FAQ [sourceforge.net]:
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.
ConTeXt? (Score:5, Informative)
ConTeXt [pragma-ade.com]? Like LaTeX, but perhaps better in many aspects?
Sorry, no help here.
Oh, somebody cruel has forbidden you to use XeTeX [sil.org], write in UTF-8 and use OpenType fonts directly from your system? Shame on them!
Re:Knuth is rolling in his grave !! (Score:5, Funny)
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?
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.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Funny)
You know, this is actually a good analogy to the original problem presented.
Mod him down! ;P
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:4, Informative)
Speaking of markup languages, what about Docbook? Would that do what he wants?
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Funny)
WISSYWIG - What You See Say You What I Get
Duh!!
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Informative)
And the good thing is, you can get LaTeX formulas even in OpenOffice: http://ooolatex.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Use GNU TeXmacs instead, was: Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Informative)
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/ [texmacs.org]
Re:Use GNU TeXmacs instead, was: Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Obligatory missing.... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Obligatory missing.... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, because silicone is what goes INSIDE, latex is what goes OUTSIDE, duh.
Re:Obligatory missing.... (Score:5, Funny)
Silicone and LaTeX compliment each other and I think LaTeX only truly shines when brought together with Silicone. But one can't replace the other.
If you want a LaTeX replacement I'd suggest you look at PVC. It's nowhere near as flexible, but it doesn't need Silicone to shine and it's less of a hassle to work with. Then there's Rubber, which is essentially a more hardy variant of LaTeX; you retain most of the flexibility and lose some of the hassle but on the other hand you're going to have a hard time getting it to look as polished as LaTeX.
Also, all of the above technologies are incompatible with the Perspiration standard. If you want to combine LaTeX, PVC or Rubber with properly working Perspiration you will by definition end up with only partial coverage and your equipment might still run into cooling issues.
Of course there's still Leather, but that isn't flexible at all and lacks the level of polish of the above technologies. However, it goes slightly better with Perspiration and is not much of a hassle to work with. The real downside lies in the maintenance costs, however. Keeping Leather clean and in working order can be hideously expensive; especially disaster recovery usually means paying top dollar for a DryClean certified recovery service.
It's understandable that many casual users rely on a vanilla Fabric installation for day-to-day work. It works, it's simple and it's reliable. Just don't expect it to be too sexy.
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.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Informative)
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.)
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?
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:4, Funny)
But who gives a shit anyway?
After the Grammar Nazi, enter the Case Nazi.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Funny)
No it's not, proper casing is proper casing. That's right, I'm the Semantics Nazi.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Funny)
NO SOUP FOR YOU!!
That's right, I'm the... well, you get it.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Funny)
But I thought the Nazis were anti-semantic.
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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.
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?
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?
Re: karma whore much? (Score:5, Funny)
at least 3...
Re: karma whore much? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OpenOffice.org (Score:5, Informative)
European Languages? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Funny)
> LaTeX is hard
You're probably applying it in layers that are too thick.
\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...
Re:\LaTeX is not complex (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it was the exact same thing for me. I did my masters in MS-Word in 98 and i hated it (open the document and all images shifted position.. .*ARGH*).
When I started on my PhD, a colegue told me about LaTeX and gave me the 'Not so short guide' and I started writing using a simple template as starting point. It worked like a charm. Sure I have had my times where I had to fight a bit to get what i wanted (especially when I had to install the institute style class in order to finish my thesis).
Also I have done papers in MS-word and LaTeX, and anyday I would choose Latex for an article, as getting the margins etc right for a MS-word publication is REALLY a pain whereas the journals supporting LaTeX have done it extremely simple by publishing style-classes. This makes submitting articles for review (where the layout must be different than the finished articel, e.g double linespacing etc.) MUCH less of a hasle than in Word/OO-Writer.
So if you are serious about using a typesetting program, use LaTeX!
Yours Yazeran
Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.
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.
Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Informative)
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 [necula.org]. 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).
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.
Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:5, Insightful)
> 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.
How to transcend: (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why latex at all ? (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
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.
LaTeX makes nice looking documents (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Your lack of faith is disturbing (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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]
Re:Nope. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit. This is bizarre to me:
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
LaTeX is the pinnacle of "what you did 10 years ago will work beautifully today". If you are installing new packages willy-nilly, something is horribly wrong.
I have assignments I wrote for a group theory class in 1993 that render exactly the same today as they did then. That is, in fact, the reason that Metafont uses e (2.718...) and TeX uses pi (3.1415...) as their version numbers. There are no changes in functionality these days; they only correct true bugs.
Indeed, Knuth has said the reason for that is so that documents written today will render the same in 20 or 100 years. New versions are legally not allowed to change the behavior or typesetting of the program without changing the name to something other than TeX. And as a user, that's completely true. If you learned it in 1995, you know it now.
The story is really, truly bizarre to me. Given that it's railing against a central tenet of TeX, I would expect some explanation other than "truth by assertion".
Re:Journals (Score:5, Funny)
> 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.