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I have been a heavy user of Emacs for six years or so. However, I never really got into org-mode. I use it for some simple notes and lists, but I never export

• BeetleB 10y ago
  > If I want to produce a well-formatted PDF, I directly write LaTeX with the help of some very nice Emacs modes. My experience is quite the opposite. I was a heavy LaTeX user, and stopped pure LaTeX years ago when I learned org mode. For the usual markup, Org mode syntax is much nicer than LaTeX's. And if I want custom LaTeX, Org mode lets me insert it in the document. I never manually write TeX or HTML documents any more. I always author in Org mode and export. >I thought org-mode would be useful for personal task management, but I find it to offer way to many intricate options for that. The restricted feature set of Wunderlist is actually better for me, and having all lists always fully available on any device and the web is extremely useful. The task management is as simple or as intricate as you like. Org mode doesn't force any intricacies on you. If you want a simple flow, you can get it without learning too much Org Mode. However, having it available on any device is a big deal. I'll grant you that.
  • rerx 10y ago
    > My experience is quite the opposite. I was a heavy LaTeX user, and stopped pure LaTeX years ago when I learned org mode. For the usual markup, Org mode syntax is much nicer than LaTeX's. And if I want custom LaTeX, Org mode lets me insert it in the document. That's interesting! I googled a bit and found that people actually write research papers in org-mode. But in my experience (physics) that usually requires a lot of manual LaTeX control. Also these documents are often written in collaboration with other people, who do not use org-mode. Frankly, Auctex with Reftex is so nice, I do not see the advantages of org-mode for my main use cases. Maybe I will give it another try one day for letters and other one-off documents. I could see an advantage in hiding all the LaTeX boilerplate cruft. > The task management is as simple or as intricate as you like. Org mode doesn't force any intricacies on you. If you want a simple flow, you can get it without learning too much Org Mode. This is one case where I find actual value in the choices and pleasant design somebody else has made for me. Of course, now that I have learnt how well Wunderlist works for me, I could try to re-implement it in org-mode. But what would I gain? Mainly nicer text editing capabilities, secondly independence from a cloud service. The text editing is not a big deal, since it is actually beneficial to keep these lists short. For now, the cloud service comes with so many advantages that I accept this dependence. Finally, I have come to the surprising realization that browsing and checking off these lists is actually nicer for me in a mouse-first, keyboard-second interface, at least as long as I get to use a keyboard with a trackpoint.
    • BeetleB 10y ago
      >But in my experience (physics) that usually requires a lot of manual LaTeX control. Also these documents are often written in collaboration with other people, who do not use org-mode. You can pretty much embed any LaTeX code in your document. Org mode is usually smart enough to pick up command (\whatever) without any extra markup (I believe this works even for custom commands you defined yourself). Equations are surrounded by a single or double $. If you have other special stuff, you can explicitly put it in a block by itself and Org mode will pass it to the .tex file unmodified. Yeah, coauthoring could be an issue. >Frankly, Auctex with Reftex is so nice, I do not see the advantages of org-mode for my main use cases. I'll confess that I was not an advanced Auctex user, so I can't compare. The author of org mode is a heavy latex user (astronomy professor), so I'm sure he made it good enough for his needs. One thing I liked was the ability to insert Greek characters with minimal keystrokes (a for alpha, b for beta, etc). You can preview your equations just as you would with auctex. This tutorial shows the capabilities in older versions of org mode. Not sure if there is an updated version: http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-latex-export.html http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-latex-export.html