Mathematics Typesetting (2 Viewers)

[Dumsum]

LaTeX pisses me off to no end. When I tell you to put an image in the middle of page 3, I want in in the middle of page 3 damnit!! Not splitting up paragraphs over on page 7 or some shit.

I still use it because of its superiority though.

 

[buchanan]

The net can be quite brutal. So in preparing a document for the net, the end justifies the means.

So if the final product from Word is crap (and nobody will look at it) and the multi-billion dollar Microsoft monopoly goes the way of the dodo, so be it. So don't use it.

And if you have to learn some code to create a beautiful LaTeX document (that people will actually look at) for free, so be it. So use it.

LaTeX>Word

 

[vafa]

Word (or similar) will never die at the hands of latex, because you'll always need to think a little bit to use latex. Lots of people aren't into that, and will be content with knowing how to insert a table and image into a word processing document.

Puting images by LaTeX is so much easier than word. If you want to put an image in word, it will be anoying, put putting images in LaTeX is so simple and you tell what width and height you want and LaTeX just do it for you. And if you are an everyday LaTeX user, then you do not need to think about it. When I started using it, I had lots of errors in typesetting a simple document but now I have get used to it and I can publish my mathematical pages very quickly.

LaTeX has so many advantages over word:

1- you can type in any form of paper like a4,a5, letter, ,...
2- LaTeX creates the table of contents automatically
3- Latex is the markup language which is the same in any platform
4- you do not have to pay anything for it
5- drwaing mathematical diagrams is super easy by knowing pstricks, xy-pic, MetaFont and Metapost, epix, epic,...
and so many others....

 

[vafa]

LaTeX pisses me off to no end. When I tell you to put an image in the middle of page 3, I want in in the middle of page 3 damnit!! Not splitting up paragraphs over on page 7 or some shit.

I still use it because of its superiority though.

I recommend that you buy the Guide to LaTeX and start learning it seriously. When I started to use LaTeX, I had your problem and many others, but when tried to learn LaTeX more seriously, I could sove those problems. Donald Knuth made TeX because he wrote a textbook and when got that textbook back from the typesetter, he noticed there were too many errors and he was not happy so he decided to make TeX. In my opinion, we should be a bit fair.

 

[darkliight]

I'm not disagreeing with any of you, I'm just saying there will always be word processors like MS Word around.

 

[vafa]

I found something interesting and it is how 20 years ago people used to create output with LaTeX.

You do not even need an editor. You just can simply use notepad to write your LaTeX code. and then save it as name.tex, then open dos and type latex name and it will produce the dvi output and if you want pdf, you can simply type dvipdfm name or directly pdflatex name

This is so good, so I do not have to rely on any editor and I am going to use this method forever. It is so cool.

 

[buchanan]

Textures 2.0 used to be good under MacOS 9, but the new beta version 2.2.0b for MacOS X isn't as good:
http://www.bluesky.com/news/220b.html

Hopefully they will improve it because Textures used to be really good. It's just been difficult to update.

So on the Mac I now use MacTeX instead.

 

[vafa]

Textures 2.0 used to be good under MacOS 9, but the new beta version 2.2.0b for MacOS X isn't as good:
http://www.bluesky.com/news/220b.html

Hopefully they will improve it because Textures used to be really good. It's just been difficult to update.

So on the Mac I now use MacTeX instead.

Whydo not you try TeXLive?

 

[buchanan]

I do use it. MacTeX is OK and the current system contains TeX Live. It also now supports multiple distributions simultaneously (whereas previously this was discouraged). I have TeX Live activated as my default distribution because as you said, tetex has been discontinued. There will be a new TeX Live next year.

I haven't given up on Textures though.

Have you tried the new <a href="http://www.monkeytex.com">MonkeyTeX</a>? It's an online LaTeX editor - one that doesn't require anything to be installed. Too many philistines are using Word. They should stop being philistines and start using LaTeX. If monkeys can do it, so can anyone!<p>

 

[vafa]

I prefer to do it on my computer. But I tried it as soon as you put the link in your post.It is great and thanks for it.

But I like doing it on the system that I have installed on my computer.

I also have a blog in wordpress which allows LaTeX coding. Its syntax is like $latex \displaystyle\int f\left(x\right)\,dx$ and it gives you the same output but on the web.

I am currently learning LaTeX2html, which allowes websites to display mathematical expressions.


I really do not know how could anyone type with word.

In word, you have to worry about design and content and sometimes it is quite annoying but fortunately in LaTeX, you only worry about content and LaTeX does the other.

And by the way, the way word displays mathematical equations is not as beautiful as what LaTeX does. And in addition to that if you make a messy fraction with word, it makes it so small that is not even readable but LaTeX makes it clear and readable.

I think those people who are using word, get used to it and are too lazy to spend a day to learn LaTeX.

I still believe word will disappear in a few years time.

But we have got a good deal for people who are lazy to learn LaTeX. They still can use lyx or anything similar to it which is like word but by the difference that they obtain n times more beautiful output.

 

[buchanan]

I also prefer it on my own system. MonkeyTeX is only a few weeks old so it might take a while to catch on.

 

[vafa]

MiKTeX 2.7 released now and you can get it at www.miktex.org

 

[darkliight]

I just downloaded the latest beta (4 or something?) of that last week, which I hadn't even got around to installing yet ... doh.

Thanks for the update though.

 

[davidbarnes]

Thanks.

 

[vafa]

I found something interesting and it is how 20 years ago people used to create output with LaTeX.

You do not even need an editor. You just can simply use notepad to write your LaTeX code. and then save it as name.tex, then open dos and type latex name and it will produce the dvi output and if you want pdf, you can simply type dvipdfm name or directly pdflatex name

This is so good, so I do not have to rely on any editor and I am going to use this method forever. It is so cool.

I found a very good text editor (script editor) which is called Scite and you can obitain it from http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/apps/SciTE/en/install/

It is excellent and you can write the code of so many other languages like Scheme, python, ruby and ... with it.