3 ms·
And for actual publications and the like, latex is indeed awesome and there is a strong argument for superiority. But the ``problem'' is people who insist on u
by CmdrSprinkles 10y ago
And for actual publications and the like, latex is indeed awesome and there is a strong argument for superiority.
But the ``problem'' is people who insist on using it for everything. Have a memo? Better set up a repo. Writing a report for a manger? Latex!
With the simpler things where you won't be cross referencing constantly and any figures that you have you want absolute control over placement, Word is the way to go. And pretty much the moment you are done your dissertation, that is the majority of what you'll write. Even in academia you'll likely spend more time writing grants and memos than papers. And, with at least the former, what matters most is having the figure easily seen and fitting the format requirements (specifically page count).
Use the best tool for any given job.
- sidarape 10y agoI agree. The other day, I had to write a 1-page project proposal for a PhD scholarship and they were giving the font to use and its size, and the margins. I had almost no mathematical symbol to use. One of the professors said that it looks unprofessional to not use Latex. I mean, I could have use Latex and I would have looked like exactly the same given the requirements. I just did it in LibreOffice because that was really the simplest I could have done.
- ssivark 10y agoTo get an idea of what people might mean when they say that LaTeX looks more professional, see this: http://www.zinktypografie.nl/latex.php?lang=en http://www.zinktypografie.nl/latex.php?lang=en Oftentimes, I can (correctly) correlate "weird" looking documents with MS Word or Open/LibreOffice, eg: when reading papers. It's a surprising subconscious estimate and I don't know what throws my sensibilities off! Maybe I'm used to a higher standard of typesetting, or maybe it's just that I'm used to reading LaTeX output. I have heard the same from multiple academics who have spent some years looking at LaTeX output. I wouldn't be surprised if people spent more time looking at beautiful documents, compared to uglier counterparts. Just like any other UX. As always, the document creator has to decide whether it's worth the extra effort.
- chronial 10y agoWord 2010 supports ligatures, old-style and lining numbers, kerning and rare and historical letters and ligatures: http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/435x597ximage167.png.pagespeed.gp+jp+jw+pj+js+rj+rp+rw+ri+cp+md.ic.xq9AyVjPbG.png http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/435x597x...
- petters 10y agoLatex typography looks vastly better than Word or LibreOffice, even when the font, margins and size are fixed.