4 ms·

as a physics student I learned latex and became pretty proficient in it. I do write in latex often and the author misses a few major points. The main point it m

as a physics student I learned latex and became pretty proficient in it. I do write in latex often and the author misses a few major points. The main point it misses is the issue of how to write a paper fluently if i have a lot of equations or symbols. Here is the case when just write in word is not sufficient.

ModernMech 8y ago
How so? The equation editor in word is great and even understands LaTeX formatting. I too write scientific papers with lots of equations and find Word more than sufficient.
- gerbilly 8y ago
  >[I] find Word more than sufficient. Ugh, just...no. (de gustibus et coloribus non disputandum)
- wenc 8y ago
  The built-in Equation Editor in Word used to be awful until about Word 2007-2010 when it started interpreting LaTeX-like keywords (it doesn't really support full LaTeX, only a pseudo-LaTeX-like subset) and fixed some aesthetic issues. I would say the latest Equation Editor is pretty decent and suffices for most scientific papers. Even so, it does stumble on more complicated equations (the kind of equations that pure mathematicians write -- the symbol set in LaTeX is just much bigger, and being a typesetting language, it gives the user much more control over element positioning). Equation Editor also doesn't support more esoteric math objects like say Feynman diagrams, but in LaTeX there's usually a package for it. Also, aesthetically, Equation Editor output, though functional, looks a bit off compared to true typeset math. LaTeX-heads are sensitive to aesthetics that way. In my time, those who outgrew Equation Editor moved to third-party software like MathType, which is much closer to LaTeX in functionality. I'm not sure if people still do that.
- srfilipek 8y ago
  > I too write scientific papers With references? The reference management in Word is atrocious and does not scale.
  - chronial 8y ago
    As the author mentioned, you should use Zotero for that.
- mturmon 8y ago
  I'm surprised to hear this claim: about equations being easy in Word. I've written long documents in both, and (1) the math layout in Word is crude/inelegant; (2) there seems to be no easy way to change notation in Word. If you define macros for variables in Latex, you can change notation as needed by changing a couple of macros. This pair of problems has driven me away from writing any but the simplest of mathematics in Word. I've also found the symbol set in Word to be too small, but maybe with the universal adoption of Unicode this has been fixed.
  - ChrisRackauckas 8y ago
    It's not just in Word, it's Unicode in general. Unicode doesn't even have all of the letters available for superscripts and subscripts. I think q is one that doesn't exist as a subscript in Unicode. It's a good system but isn't math-ready.
- chrisfinazzo 8y ago
  Although I suspect it isn't as powerful, Pages will do TeX and MathML these days in its editor. For people coming from Word however, having to port their styles to another app is probably still a challenge.
- Koshkin 8y ago
  Well, there's also this difference concerning free software...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

ModernMech 8y ago

How so? The equation editor in word is great and even understands LaTeX formatting. I too write scientific papers with lots of equations and find Word more than sufficient.

gerbilly 8y ago
>[I] find Word more than sufficient. Ugh, just...no. (de gustibus et coloribus non disputandum)
wenc 8y ago
The built-in Equation Editor in Word used to be awful until about Word 2007-2010 when it started interpreting LaTeX-like keywords (it doesn't really support full LaTeX, only a pseudo-LaTeX-like subset) and fixed some aesthetic issues. I would say the latest Equation Editor is pretty decent and suffices for most scientific papers. Even so, it does stumble on more complicated equations (the kind of equations that pure mathematicians write -- the symbol set in LaTeX is just much bigger, and being a typesetting language, it gives the user much more control over element positioning). Equation Editor also doesn't support more esoteric math objects like say Feynman diagrams, but in LaTeX there's usually a package for it. Also, aesthetically, Equation Editor output, though functional, looks a bit off compared to true typeset math. LaTeX-heads are sensitive to aesthetics that way. In my time, those who outgrew Equation Editor moved to third-party software like MathType, which is much closer to LaTeX in functionality. I'm not sure if people still do that.
srfilipek 8y ago
> I too write scientific papers With references? The reference management in Word is atrocious and does not scale.
- chronial 8y ago
  As the author mentioned, you should use Zotero for that.
mturmon 8y ago
I'm surprised to hear this claim: about equations being easy in Word. I've written long documents in both, and (1) the math layout in Word is crude/inelegant; (2) there seems to be no easy way to change notation in Word. If you define macros for variables in Latex, you can change notation as needed by changing a couple of macros. This pair of problems has driven me away from writing any but the simplest of mathematics in Word. I've also found the symbol set in Word to be too small, but maybe with the universal adoption of Unicode this has been fixed.
- ChrisRackauckas 8y ago
  It's not just in Word, it's Unicode in general. Unicode doesn't even have all of the letters available for superscripts and subscripts. I think q is one that doesn't exist as a subscript in Unicode. It's a good system but isn't math-ready.
chrisfinazzo 8y ago
Although I suspect it isn't as powerful, Pages will do TeX and MathML these days in its editor. For people coming from Word however, having to port their styles to another app is probably still a challenge.
Koshkin 8y ago
Well, there's also this difference concerning free software...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]