Regarding 1), I use org-mode with inline LaTeX to write first couple of drafts, which has a nice visual table layout. It also has a Markdown-like syntax for mar

Regarding 1), I use org-mode with inline LaTeX to write first couple of drafts, which has a nice visual table layout. It also has a Markdown-like syntax for markup. I export to LaTeX after I'm fairly satisfied with the result. For math-heavy documents, I start from LaTeX. In my opinion, that's where it really shines. Regarding 2), there are many document classes that don't look like scientific papers although LaTeX ships a limited number of document classes (book, article, report, and letter). Here are two third-party classes that come to my mind: - https://ctan.org/pkg/hitec https://ctan.org/pkg/hitec is a nice class that is - https://www.ctan.org/pkg/tufte-latex https://www.ctan.org/pkg/tufte-latex is inspired by Edward Tufte's books and provides a similar-looking handout/book style. And here is a list of some other classes: http://texcatalogue.ctan.org/bytopic.html#classes http://texcatalogue.ctan.org/bytopic.html#classes