4 ms·

Please do not use LaTeX. If your textbook is supposed to have special layout needs, you will have a hard time with LaTeX. Tables are a real nuisance in LaTeX as

Please do not use LaTeX. If your textbook is supposed to have special layout needs, you will have a hard time with LaTeX. Tables are a real nuisance in LaTeX as well - normally you have your data in some other tool like Excel or some Jupyter notebook or CSV. Turning the data into a nicely looking and well-placed LaTeX table is not straightforward. Sure, there are specialized LaTeX extension packages for a lot of functionalities, but you will need time to get familiar with them. I would just start with MS Office or LibreOffice - both offer sufficient functionality and if you need more specialized tools, then those tools usually have an import function for DOCX /ODT files.

xevb3k 8y ago
Personally I find it pretty painful creating large documents in Word. Creating documents in Latex helps me focus on the text/structure without worrying about figure/table placement (I can still have them in the markup, but and fix all the formatting issues after I’ve written the text). I think it depends on author mentality somewhat. Word works well for some, Latex for others. It might also be worth considering Markdown or plain HTML. Particularly if an ePub/kindle version is a possibility.