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> Latex is a beast, but there are no serious alternatives to typeset formulae. People keep repeating this like it's true, but MS Word has had an excellent form

> Latex is a beast, but there are no serious alternatives to typeset formulae. People keep repeating this like it's true, but MS Word has had an excellent formula editor for a decade now (the one they shipped before Word 2007 was terribly shitty though). It's wysiwyg (which is fantastic if you're editing a big formula), it supports all math notation I've ever needed, and it has surprisingly decent UX. It even supports LaTeX-like input, eg if you type e^2 it gets autocorrected to e². This makes entering formulas as fast, if not faster, than LaTeX and editing formulas an order of magnitude easier because you don't need to re-parse that backslash-curly-mess that you entered a week ago. Just point and click and edit.

lyk 9y ago
It's nowhere near as nice in my, and lots of other people's, opinion. Just because people don't like it doesn't mean they haven't used it. Also, word's actual typesetting can't touch latex. I wouldn't want to use word for anything, let alone something that requires a large equation.
wfo 9y ago
Agreed, there's a great formula editor which is very nice if you want to create math presentations in powerpoint instead of in beamer (and I wouldn't blame you, especially if you're in a hurry). But could you really imagine writing a serious mathematical document (paper, book, thesis) in Word? No Git, no vim/emacs, no plain text? Abandoning the digital lingua franca of mathematical communication? Abandoning the packages written by the sum total of anyone who has worked on anything close to mathematics in recent years? For what?
- skrebbel 9y ago
  > But could you really imagine writing a serious mathematical document (paper, book, thesis) in Word? Yes I could, and I did. My Master's thesis is written in Word and it was pretty heavy on the theory and the formulas. If you're interested it's online on http://e.teeselink.nl/thesis_et.pdf http://e.teeselink.nl/thesis_et.pdf. It's not a particularly stunning thesis in terms of content, but in my humble opinion it's a pretty document, definitely no worse than the average LaTeX-produced thesis. See eg page 58 (the 70th page of the PDF) for some large formulas. It's not arithmetic but Structured Operational Semantics, but I doubt that matters for this argument. (in hindsight I hate that page and the ones like it - the sheer overload of single-character variables makes it totally impossible to understand) By the way you said "no git" but Word files can be version controlled just fine - particularly when you're working solo which I was. I used Subversion (hey, 2007) but ok. I used Word because I noticed in earlier years that LaTeX made my mind drop down into "programmer mode" every time I wanted to accomplish something that was non-trivial. This nerd sniped me and it distracted me from writing the actual content. I ended up with super nice LaTeX themes and definitions and homecooked macros (excuse me for having forgotten the real names these things have in LaTeX, I last used it over 10 years ago), my content sources were super clean, but I spent at least as much time on setting up LaTeX as actually writing. Plus, I found editing large formulas frustrating because I had to find the right place in a fullscreen wall of backslashes and curlies. Word forced me to focus on the content because everything layout-wise I wanted to accomplish was boring and, mostly, easy. The only thing that was cumbersome was getting IEEE-style references (i.e. the ones that Bibtex generates by default) to work. It worked out in the end but wasn't as easy as it should be (I noticed that they fixed that since). Also I had zero problems with that thing where Word just doesn't want to do what you tell it to (indents jump, list items suddenly disappear etc, you know the drill) because I only used Word Styles (a bit like CSS classes) and never custom formatting. As long as you stick to that, Word sucks less.
  - anon20180219 9y ago
    Frankly, this PDF shows that it has been produced with Word. For example: (a) Full justification without hyphenation; (b) Chapter 6 ends at page 69, and the next 32 pages have wrong left header; and (c) Section headers with fake small caps. Using LaTeX would have resulted in a more beautifully typeset paper. Your point that you might have spent more time preparing it is subjectively true, obviously, and it seems that in your case Word proved good enough.
jnxuw 9y ago
LaTeX uses a different strategy where WYSIWYG is no advantage. The markup commands tell the computer about the logical structure of the text. This is not possible in a WYSIWYG system precisely because it displays the final result, and intermixing both is a mess. Word is a glorified typewriter, LaTeX is a diligent professional typesetter. Apart from that: Microsoft Word /seems/ easy to use but this is not really true, by far. To typeset a minimal LaTeX document as for a homework assignment, very little learning and boilerplate is necessary. This can be done /quicker/ than in Word - an intelligent person will need half an afternoon to write a short presentable text in LaTeX, and the learned knowledge works forever. What you are assuming is that people are already used to write high-quality structured documents in Word, and this is, for most people, simply not true, as Words gets heavily in the way of writing in a structured approach. The ribbons UI has not really helped with that - I curse every time I have to search for a section formatting style in that terrible drop-down menu. Now when it comes to writing seriously complex larger text documents, like a large software documentation, a piece of literate programming, or a PhD thesis, MS Word is far far behind. It is simply not up to the task. You also say that Word has been getting better, but having occasionally been forced to work with Microsoft products in the last nine years, I really don't see that. The only thing that changes is the user interface. It is hardly believable that Microsoft will use office programs to try out new paradigms and software metaphors. And to add, I am also pissed by the appearance that Microsoft - not specifically for this comment, but very much in general - seems to follow the strategy to make their commercial products mentioned as much as possible in the context of free and open source software, in forums and in places such as reddit. There may indeed be a few people which use .NET or c# or the Linux subsystem or which give up the power of UNIX shells for an inferior solution, but I just can't get rid of the strong impression that the huge majority of such comments are just product marketing done by some PR company. It is annoying. And completely hollow. As here, somebody who really has medium knowledge on how to use LaTeX will rarely suggest to use Word instead.
- skrebbel 9y ago
  > You also say that Word has been getting better I didn't say that. Like, not even close, where did you get that from? In fact I haven't noticed a single improvement in Word since 2007 except the installer. > And to add, I am also pissed by the appearance that Microsoft - not specifically for this comment, but very much in general - seems to follow the strategy to make their commercial products mentioned as much as possible in the context of free and open source software, I'm seriously bothered that you're accusing me of being a talking head for some multinational corporation. I'm a moderately happy customer, that's all. Our financial relationship is 12 euros a month, from me to them. If you really can't discuss the merits of software alternatives separately from some big "everybody who disagrees with me is on the enemy's payroll" conspiracy theory, the IMO you already lost the argument. > As here, somebody who really has medium knowledge on how to use LaTeX will rarely suggest to use Word instead. I used LaTeX in anger, then noticed that getting comfortably good at it doesn't make it a less shitty experience, and I decided that I preferred Word. Please note that I think that both Word and LaTeX are pieces of shit, I simply think that Word is slightly less shit (or, well, shit in a way that bothers me less and you're free to disagree). I think the fact that you can't imagine anyone knowledgeable could prefer Word over LaTeX shows a severe lack of empathy and imagination on your part.
jnxuw 9y ago
Ah, and to add, if one wants to try re-formatting a Word document in LaTeX: One can import the word format to AbiWord, and export it to LaTeX. It will probably need a bit of clean-up, but it is easier to add things like footnotes, section references, a bibliography, or an index. So, for learning LaTeX, it might be a nice strategy to take a modestly-sized Word homework document and re-format it based on Leslie Lamport's "LaTeX: A document preparation System" (which is in my opinion still one of the best software documentations ever, worth a read alone because of that).

lyk 9y ago

It's nowhere near as nice in my, and lots of other people's, opinion. Just because people don't like it doesn't mean they haven't used it. Also, word's actual typesetting can't touch latex. I wouldn't want to use word for anything, let alone something that requires a large equation.

wfo 9y ago

Agreed, there's a great formula editor which is very nice if you want to create math presentations in powerpoint instead of in beamer (and I wouldn't blame you, especially if you're in a hurry). But could you really imagine writing a serious mathematical document (paper, book, thesis) in Word? No Git, no vim/emacs, no plain text? Abandoning the digital lingua franca of mathematical communication? Abandoning the packages written by the sum total of anyone who has worked on anything close to mathematics in recent years? For what?

skrebbel 9y ago
> But could you really imagine writing a serious mathematical document (paper, book, thesis) in Word? Yes I could, and I did. My Master's thesis is written in Word and it was pretty heavy on the theory and the formulas. If you're interested it's online on http://e.teeselink.nl/thesis_et.pdf http://e.teeselink.nl/thesis_et.pdf. It's not a particularly stunning thesis in terms of content, but in my humble opinion it's a pretty document, definitely no worse than the average LaTeX-produced thesis. See eg page 58 (the 70th page of the PDF) for some large formulas. It's not arithmetic but Structured Operational Semantics, but I doubt that matters for this argument. (in hindsight I hate that page and the ones like it - the sheer overload of single-character variables makes it totally impossible to understand) By the way you said "no git" but Word files can be version controlled just fine - particularly when you're working solo which I was. I used Subversion (hey, 2007) but ok. I used Word because I noticed in earlier years that LaTeX made my mind drop down into "programmer mode" every time I wanted to accomplish something that was non-trivial. This nerd sniped me and it distracted me from writing the actual content. I ended up with super nice LaTeX themes and definitions and homecooked macros (excuse me for having forgotten the real names these things have in LaTeX, I last used it over 10 years ago), my content sources were super clean, but I spent at least as much time on setting up LaTeX as actually writing. Plus, I found editing large formulas frustrating because I had to find the right place in a fullscreen wall of backslashes and curlies. Word forced me to focus on the content because everything layout-wise I wanted to accomplish was boring and, mostly, easy. The only thing that was cumbersome was getting IEEE-style references (i.e. the ones that Bibtex generates by default) to work. It worked out in the end but wasn't as easy as it should be (I noticed that they fixed that since). Also I had zero problems with that thing where Word just doesn't want to do what you tell it to (indents jump, list items suddenly disappear etc, you know the drill) because I only used Word Styles (a bit like CSS classes) and never custom formatting. As long as you stick to that, Word sucks less.
- anon20180219 9y ago
  Frankly, this PDF shows that it has been produced with Word. For example: (a) Full justification without hyphenation; (b) Chapter 6 ends at page 69, and the next 32 pages have wrong left header; and (c) Section headers with fake small caps. Using LaTeX would have resulted in a more beautifully typeset paper. Your point that you might have spent more time preparing it is subjectively true, obviously, and it seems that in your case Word proved good enough.

jnxuw 9y ago

LaTeX uses a different strategy where WYSIWYG is no advantage. The markup commands tell the computer about the logical structure of the text. This is not possible in a WYSIWYG system precisely because it displays the final result, and intermixing both is a mess. Word is a glorified typewriter, LaTeX is a diligent professional typesetter. Apart from that: Microsoft Word /seems/ easy to use but this is not really true, by far. To typeset a minimal LaTeX document as for a homework assignment, very little learning and boilerplate is necessary. This can be done /quicker/ than in Word - an intelligent person will need half an afternoon to write a short presentable text in LaTeX, and the learned knowledge works forever. What you are assuming is that people are already used to write high-quality structured documents in Word, and this is, for most people, simply not true, as Words gets heavily in the way of writing in a structured approach. The ribbons UI has not really helped with that - I curse every time I have to search for a section formatting style in that terrible drop-down menu. Now when it comes to writing seriously complex larger text documents, like a large software documentation, a piece of literate programming, or a PhD thesis, MS Word is far far behind. It is simply not up to the task. You also say that Word has been getting better, but having occasionally been forced to work with Microsoft products in the last nine years, I really don't see that. The only thing that changes is the user interface. It is hardly believable that Microsoft will use office programs to try out new paradigms and software metaphors. And to add, I am also pissed by the appearance that Microsoft - not specifically for this comment, but very much in general - seems to follow the strategy to make their commercial products mentioned as much as possible in the context of free and open source software, in forums and in places such as reddit. There may indeed be a few people which use .NET or c# or the Linux subsystem or which give up the power of UNIX shells for an inferior solution, but I just can't get rid of the strong impression that the huge majority of such comments are just product marketing done by some PR company. It is annoying. And completely hollow. As here, somebody who really has medium knowledge on how to use LaTeX will rarely suggest to use Word instead.

skrebbel 9y ago
> You also say that Word has been getting better I didn't say that. Like, not even close, where did you get that from? In fact I haven't noticed a single improvement in Word since 2007 except the installer. > And to add, I am also pissed by the appearance that Microsoft - not specifically for this comment, but very much in general - seems to follow the strategy to make their commercial products mentioned as much as possible in the context of free and open source software, I'm seriously bothered that you're accusing me of being a talking head for some multinational corporation. I'm a moderately happy customer, that's all. Our financial relationship is 12 euros a month, from me to them. If you really can't discuss the merits of software alternatives separately from some big "everybody who disagrees with me is on the enemy's payroll" conspiracy theory, the IMO you already lost the argument. > As here, somebody who really has medium knowledge on how to use LaTeX will rarely suggest to use Word instead. I used LaTeX in anger, then noticed that getting comfortably good at it doesn't make it a less shitty experience, and I decided that I preferred Word. Please note that I think that both Word and LaTeX are pieces of shit, I simply think that Word is slightly less shit (or, well, shit in a way that bothers me less and you're free to disagree). I think the fact that you can't imagine anyone knowledgeable could prefer Word over LaTeX shows a severe lack of empathy and imagination on your part.

jnxuw 9y ago

Ah, and to add, if one wants to try re-formatting a Word document in LaTeX: One can import the word format to AbiWord, and export it to LaTeX. It will probably need a bit of clean-up, but it is easier to add things like footnotes, section references, a bibliography, or an index. So, for learning LaTeX, it might be a nice strategy to take a modestly-sized Word homework document and re-format it based on Leslie Lamport's "LaTeX: A document preparation System" (which is in my opinion still one of the best software documentations ever, worth a read alone because of that).