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> Writing by hand is amazingly flexible Once, as an exercise I attempted to transcribe my Statistics notes into LaTeX. I was perfectly capable of inserting the
by cooper12 9y ago
> Writing by hand is amazingly flexible
Once, as an exercise I attempted to transcribe my Statistics notes into LaTeX. I was perfectly capable of inserting the proper math notation, but I never realized how versatile layouts can be so easily made on paper. Things like alternating writing sizes (doable in digital, but usually ends up looking horrible), varying levels of indentation and line height, margin notes, asides, ease of diagrams (again, doable digitally, but time-consuming), notation (crossing things out, circling, arrows, etc), and so many other things. Typesetting for print or digital requires a complete change of layout and even approaches to presentation. You don't realize how much freedom the blank paper gives you until you try translating it to the digital document.
- setr 9y agoTyping on a computer is much easier than by hand Formatting otoh...
- trentmb 9y ago> but I never realized how versatile layouts can be so easily made on paper. Until you need to change them. It's significantly easier to change formatting on a typed document than handwritten.
- Pulcinella 9y agoYes but I feel that changes when you have something like a diagram. For example, drawing Organic Chemistry mechanisms. Yes you can do them on the computer with ChemDraw and if you need to change something you can, but in practice it feels so slow it's just quicker to cross out your mistake on paper and try again.
- WalterBright 9y agoToo bad digital notes don't have coffee rings and chocolate stains on them.
- JoshTriplett 9y agohttp://hanno-rein.de/archives/349 http://hanno-rein.de/archives/349