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I draw figures for my mathematical lecture notes using Inkscape

542 points by adamnemecek 8y ago

alexmlamb2 8y ago
Is there any way to use inkscape and have it seamlessly integrate with sharelatex? I'd be kind of concerned about using sharelatex with inkscape PDFs, and then forget about or lose the folder with the inkscape source files.
dvt 8y ago
This is awesome! Doing graphics in LaTeX has always had a pretty high barrier to entry (not to mention constant trial and error).
- kccqzy 8y ago
  It's pretty much the same argument as web designers who choose to use a visual design tool versus those who choose to write HTML, CSS and JS to produce their design. Some things are easier when designed visually, others are easier when written in code. Doing LaTeX graphics is the same.
  - jnbiche 8y ago
    As a web developer who tried various visual design tools in the 1990s and finally eschewed them all and went back to using Vim or (later) Sublime Text for coding markup and CSS, I'm curious what things are easier when designed visually for you.
    - kccqzy 8y ago
      No. I started web design using Dreamweaver a long time ago. When I began, I used its visual design features quite a bit. Nowadays I just have an editor (usually Emacs) and a browser window side by side. I, do however, find visual design tools useful for prototyping.
phkahler 8y ago
Is inkscape unique in using standard SVG as its native file format?
- petschge 8y ago
  Note that while inkscape SVGs do conform to the standard, they do contain extra information in their separate namespace to preserve UI information across save/restore cycles. One example would be layers. They are saved as standard complient groups of SVGs features. But not all grouped elements form their own layers. So the groups that should be shown as layers do have extra meta data on them. Any standard complient SVG reader while deal with that group correctly, but might not represent it as a layer in it's GUI.
  - jnbiche 8y ago
    > but might not represent it as a layer in it's GUI. How would you visually represent a layer in a GUI? Layers are logical, not visual, groupings. Edit: I wasn't considering the editor itself a GUI in this scenario, although it clearly is. I was thinking of the GUI (such as a web browser) where the SVG was being used.
    - crazygringo 8y ago
      In the editor, using the layers interface: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Layer_Dialog http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Layer_Dialog While obviously if you open the SVG in a web browser, layer information is ignored.
      - jnbiche 8y ago
        OK, you mean in the editor, not in the GUI that's displaying the SVG. (I use the layers dialog in Inkscape on a weekly basis -- and used to in Illustrator as well).
- jarek-foksa 8y ago
  Boxy SVG (https://boxy-svg.com https://boxy-svg.com) and macSVG (http://macsvg.org http://macsvg.org) use SVG as a native format as well. Since Inkscape is a general purpose design app rather than just an SVG editor, it is adding a lot of metadata to the SVG code it generates in order to preserve editing capabilities.
frabbit 8y ago
Trivial point: `Omit text in pdf and create LaTeX file’ Should be "emit text"!
- jnbiche 8y ago
  No, if you look at what it's doing, I think "Omit" is the word they wanted to use. They're saying, "Omit the (Latex code) text in pdf and create (in addition to the pdf) a Latex file (that has references to placeholders where the Latex code was originally)". I've not used this feature in Inkscape, but that's how it seems to work.
  - frabbit 8y ago
    You are correct. I should have read more carefully and verified instead of assuming.
newrotik 8y ago
I use Ipe [0] for my work. The wiki page [1] gives you an idea of what it looks like. It's also open source and you can compile LaTex directly in the editor to see what it looks like without switching windows. [0] http://ipe.otfried.org/ http://ipe.otfried.org/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipe_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipe_(software)
- rahulmehta95 8y ago
  Ipe is absolutely fantastic! It's my go-to for any figures, and I'll only switch to Inkscape or Illustrator if I need to make a slightly more-involved diagram.
- aesthesia 8y ago
  Ipe is great, although it is a little idiosyncratic. I haven’t found anything better for making structured diagrams.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  Yeah IPE is definitely the best tool for this job. For 3D diagrams I've also used blender, either with its line rendering plugin Freestyle or by tracing over the output in IPE.
- lower 8y ago
  Ipe is great not just for figures, but also presentations. It supports multi-page documents, incremental build-up of slides, presentation style-sheets, and so on. Showcase: https://github.com/otfried/ipe-wiki/wiki/Showcase#presentations https://github.com/otfried/ipe-wiki/wiki/Showcase#presentati...
lousken 8y ago
When I was at school I used markdown and converted to latex using pandoc. However I always drew all figures on a piece of paper with a date and number on it and then matched it with my notes. I couldn't find the right tool for this and I didn't think I'd be fast enough with inscape, but i guess if you really try it's possible. That's awesome but I wish this article released 5 years ago :) I wonder though, are there any alternatives to inscape in which you can draw graphs quickly?
- bdamm 8y ago
  The scripted diagramming space is very weak. It's strange to me, because I think having an expressive scripting language bound to a UI that can show you the result and maybe help with selecting attachment points, could be a nice and fast way to crank out diagrams.
  - arminiusreturns 8y ago
    I have been really enjoying the blockdiag(3) diagramming packages. I use rackdiag to generate server rack diagrams. seqdiag for diagnosing issues or for flowcharting, and am working on an automated mapper that uses netdiag to generate network maps. Those of you looking for programmatic diagram generation, I'd you aren't talking math heavy, try it out. I'd you want math diagram generation, I think that might generally be best done with r/octave/d3 inside an emacs org file or jupyter notebook.
- ygra 8y ago
  > I wonder though, are there any alternatives to inscape in which you can draw graphs quickly? yEd [0] might be one. There's also an online version with (currently) a tad reduced feature set [1]. [0] https://www.yworks.com/products/yed https://www.yworks.com/products/yed [1] https://www.yworks.com/products/yed-live https://www.yworks.com/products/yed-live There are a number of other applications, though. I still like Graphviz for quickly creating a graph structure, but tweaking its layouts can be cumbersome (Note: yEd Live supports rudimentary Graphviz import as well). There's also dia, draw.io, Gliffy, LucidChart, OpenOffice Draw, Omnigraffle. And PowerPoint works to some extent as well. (Disclaimer: I work for yWorks.)
thomasfedb 8y ago
Very impressive that these figures are drawn at lecture pace. I used to write my maths notes up in LaTeX, but it was always after the fact from my handwriten notes. Even typesetting math takes time.
- lousken 8y ago
  I could do math typesetting at lecture pace with my 90-100wpm. But I can't imagine sketching my figures in inkscape.
  - mkagenius 8y ago
    Just curious, in the exams are you allowed to use Latex too? It is difficult to think that it wouldn't be a hinderance.
    - lousken 8y ago
      Exams were pen and paper only.
cge 8y ago
I initially started writing a response to this thinking the author was referring to preparing lecture notes for lectures they were giving, not taking notes at lectures they were attending. That is entirely different, and I do have to wonder whether it's actually more efficient than, say, using a tablet to draw them, except in cases where the figures involve only use of common, repeated motifs. I do agree with the author that taking lecture notes for math-heavy classes in LaTeX is quite possible, though I haven't done it since I was an undergraduate. While the author makes use of snippets in a particular text editor setup, I instead relied on extensive use of \def. With sufficient experience and intuition as to when to \def something, I could take notes in many classes faster than everyone writing by hand, and often faster and more clearly than the professor could write: I could insert a common but complicated expression with a few keystrokes, rather than writing it out or using something like ~ to refer to it. I would also use a standard set of \def's to make standard LaTeX faster to type: \beq and \eeq for \begin{equation} and \end{equation}, and so on. This also had the advantage of working in any text editor. The disadvantage over snippets (I'm not sure how developed they were at the time) was, of course, that my LaTeX was incomprehensible for anyone else reading it, and my style had to change significantly once I started collaborating on projects rather than just writing notes for myself. I've long used Inkscape for paper and prepared note figures, however, and I've found that many of my colleagues now do as well, after Adobe's transition to a subscription model. In doing so, I am very wary of the pdf+latex export: it doesn't seem as though it can reliably place text exactly, leaving the risk that it looks awkward or has text move when the font; it also makes figures that are not easily reusable in other places (eg, presentations, typesetters making HTML versions of papers, etc). Additionally, the pdf export itself doesn't seem to preserve editing very well. As such, I usually store parallel svg and pdf versions, in the interest of avoiding very non-standard LaTeX packages. However, if I recall correctly, there are packages that allow direct use of Inkscape SVGs in LaTeX.
SourPatch 8y ago
An older, similar program is xfig.
- raister 8y ago
  I use XFig - the learning curve is bad, but the results are great. And it integrates rather easy with LaTeX.
cies 8y ago
I love Inkscape for being a great "learn once run anywhere/anytime" vector drawing tool. No searching/cracking/paying for the few time a year I need a tool like that. Always there so the skill I developed with it can be put to use efficiently. I love open source so much for this.
buiducnha 8y ago
I've also read previous article about how the author manage to take lecture note using Vim+Latex (also posted on HN), and that's amazing how author managed to do that. But I'm thinking for people who does not know how to use Vim (arguingly high learning curve) and Latex to take note, what options do they have to take note quickly (with Math symbols/layouts)? You can try out Mathcha[1] which is built to help people without knowing of Latex can easily write down Note (with rich Mathematics symbols/layouts) and it also provide basic Drawing and basic Function Plotting (The Drawing Part no way compare to Inkscape, but hey! you can type Math on Drawing on Mathcha) in single Editor. Please note that I don't want to tout and advertise Mathcha here, the point is to provide another option for people to try out (I will not say it will provide faster or more powerful than Vim+Latex) [1] Mathcha website: https://www.mathcha.io/ https://www.mathcha.io/ Disclaimer: I'm creator of Mathcha.
- harlanji 8y ago
  I am messing with Replete 2.0 for EDN expressions, but I am a fast and articulate English typer so Markdown-like Notes are my first step.
- tomrod 8y ago
  I tended to introduce LaTeX to new folks through LyX. Haven't used it for several years though, so no idea if the WSYIWYG is still up and running.
  - buiducnha 8y ago
    I've just checked LyX, actually it's quite good and similar to Mathcha, but actually it serves different goals/features than Mathcha. - LyX: full Latex compiled, and Mix between WYSIWYG and Latex Script. Mainly use to create Latex Document - Mathcha: can export some parts to Latex (mostly Math mode) but does not guarantee to compile, a full WYSIWYG editor. The goal to just create Document without constraints to Latex format
    - harlanji 8y ago
      I love Lyx but wish there were a less involved setup. Takes a very long time to install over LTE, and TeX distro feels 50/50 dice roll. If it’s slow on LTE in Silicon Valley, it’s slow in Africa. Hard to recommend.
quangio 8y ago
If drawing some complicated geometry or high precision is not required, GNU Texmacs is also a good choice. You can do everything in the editor and see the immediate result, WYSIWYG style.
skilled 8y ago
As far as Inksccape goes, the MacOS experience is one of the worst I have ever had to deal with. Luckily, I only use it to extract individual photos from EPS/PDF files. Unfortunately, all the good editing apps like Sketch and Affinity Designer cost a fortune when you factor in the actual use case. Figma is alright, but the desktop app feels like I am working with a piece of origami.
- wst_ 8y ago
  Exactly. Does anyone know what are the difficulties to provide a pleasant experience for Inkscape on Mac? Gimp looks decent. With Inkscape I wouldn't need anything else, really. Both are amazing.
  - chapium 8y ago
    GIMP and Inkscape are very different. GIMP has nearly no vector graphics editing support, although you can open svg files with it. Inkscape on the other hand is a vector graphics editor.
    - pcr910303 8y ago
      Looks like that's why Inkscape is needed in macOS! :-)
  - purerandomness 8y ago
    > Does anyone know what are the difficulties to provide a pleasant experience for Inkscape on Mac GIMP doesn't use the XQuartz X11 compatibility layer that Inkscape uses. Work is ongoing according to the Inkscape GitLab [1]. [1] https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues/84 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues/84
  - jordache 8y ago
    don't loose sleep over inkscape Just buy affinity designer.
    - 8y ago
ThePhysicist 8y ago
I did most of the illustrations in my PhD thesis using PowerPoint (export via PDF and include in Latex), which I found more practical than Inkscape. Of course it’s not designed for scientific diagrams but you can actually produce some pretty decent looking illustrations with it.
- rubidium 8y ago
  Was this due to already knowing PowerPoint and not knowing Inkscape? I can think of exactly 0 ways in which PowerPoint is better :) Can you link to your thesis?
  - ThePhysicist 8y ago
    Thesis is here: https://github.com/adewes/phd-thesis-physics https://github.com/adewes/phd-thesis-physics Inkscape was very difficult to use at the time (IMHO) and had lots of bugs, maybe this improved in the meantime as almost 10 years have passed.
mettamage 8y ago
cached page: https://web.archive.org/web20190428003002/http://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-2/ https://web.archive.org/web20190428003002/http://castel.dev/...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lottin 8y ago
I really like Tikz but I find drawing anything with it extremely time consuming. At some point you have to ask yourself whether it's worth it. Personally, I think I'm done with Tikz. Next time I'm gonna try something else. Inkscape in particular looks like it could be a good alternative.
- NowThenGoodBad 8y ago
  It's pretty great! I used it to build my business's logo and really enjoyed working with such a comprehensive suite of tools, probably using a fraction of a percent of its capability and doing so in a brutish fashion. However, my biggest challenge with it, and I've experienced this with other similar software, is how it handles text along a path. After struggling with this for some time I just took a somewhat brute force approach and made hidden arcs that achieved the target text curvature, despite that arc not being part of the circle.
Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
I am a person with a predominantly symbolic/linguistic way of thinking, and I'm aware that I tend to be bad at anything resembling graphic design, drawing, understanding of diagrams, etc... but this puts into perspective how much I really suck at that. Out of the example figures in this post, some of them I would outright not know how to draw. Others I would be able to draw, but I think each of them would take me at least about an hour, maybe more. And this is not out of lack of familiarity with the tool: Inkscape is my go-to tool for vector drawing and what I use most for scientific paper figures, presentation slides, posters, lecture slides, etc. so I have lots of hours of practice with it. Who is more of an outlier, the author or I? Is it really within the reach of most people to be able to whip up figures like that in a few minutes?
- timClicks 8y ago
  The author strikes me as someone who is ridiculously talented. Look at most people's presentation slides - figures are generally terrible. One thing that seems to be missing from these posts though is that this kind of uber-productivity with tools and shortcuts takes serious practice. Even ridiculously talented individuals still need to commit those shortcuts to memory such that they can recall them when needed.
  - allenu 8y ago
    This is so true. I've been using Inkscape for years and it took me a long time to get used to the keystrokes and tools it provides. I recently gave a git talk at work and ended up drawing many, many diagrams for it using Inkscape. Even though I was well-versed in the tool, it still took a long time. So, it's a combination of dedication in time to practice but also dedication in time to create the illustrations. On top of that, there's the learning of aesthetics along the way: what colors to use, what proportions to use, how much margin to set for better-looking illustrations, and so on. This takes serious practice.
    - timClicks 8y ago
      This is the thing that blocks me from, for example, emacs. I really want to use it, but I really don't want to spend a few weeks learning how to use it.
kacamak 8y ago
This is exactly what i needed all these years i was typing in TiKz or using corel draw without latex support.
ttd 8y ago
Native LaTeX equation editing for technical diagrams was probably the biggest itch I wanted to scratch with the diagramming application I wrote (https://vexlio.com https://vexlio.com). Unfortunately I haven't had much time to devote to development recently, but it's still out there and hopefully still useful to people.
posterboy 8y ago
This looks really impressive, but I don't think that figure drawing should be required in lectures. It's a huge distraction, lecturers should prepare scripts instead, in this day and age. Redrawing the figure might help some understanding, if construction is proof, but often it only serves to depict labels on a graph, not to solve a geometric puzzle.
- snazz 8y ago
  It looks more to me like this just happens to be the technique that the OP prefers to use to take notes. I imagine most students use paper or a tablet.
emgee_1 8y ago
Yes I think serious practice is needed. There is something else that is a disadvantage: you need anyway to review your lecture notes; but since they are so beautiful you do not easily see mistakes; one way to avoid overly beautiful notes is to use a kind of draft font that deliberately looks a bit off. The drawings (with the keyholes ) are of path integrals with holomorphic functions (something I did around 1982) But the whole idea and execution are phenomenal. My feeling is that using emacs it could be possibly easier but I will not try to convert a vimmer
JohnStrangeII 8y ago
It's such a pity that LatexDraw is not developed more. It would be the ideal solution if it had a few more features. I currently use Dia for the same purpose as the author uses, but I have to admit that the graphics in this article look pretty good. I'll give Inkscape a try.
stared 8y ago
Even Chris Olah uses Inkscape. (Personally, I prefer TikZ, do to the easiness to change styles in a more semantic way.) Vide "Simple diagrams of convoluted neural networks" https://medium.com/inbrowserai/simple-diagrams-of-convoluted-neural-networks-39c097d2925b https://medium.com/inbrowserai/simple-diagrams-of-convoluted... with an overview of tools for drawing diagrams for deep learning.
lame88 8y ago
When I see stuff like this and the author's previous artile, it reminds me of the overwhelming potential of scriptable systems and customizable open source software. But at the same time, trying to pursue these things has always been a net negative for me in terms of productivity, for several reasons: there is often such a high learning curve, there are so many different choices of programs that people use (with the resulting community fragmentation), and there is so little investment in UX. So I get all caught up in learning the systems themselves instead of dealing with the limitations of the systems I know and getting to the actual work. So on one hand I know I'm stuck in local maxima, but on the other hand it remains such a long and risky investment to try to seek other more optimal solutions.
sAbakumoff 8y ago
>> but once you’ve got the basics down, it’s hard to get back to an editor without Vim keybindings. Right..because it's hardly possible to quit fucking vim :(

542 points by adamnemecek 8y ago

Is there any way to use inkscape and have it seamlessly integrate with sharelatex? I'd be kind of concerned about using sharelatex with inkscape PDFs, and then forget about or lose the folder with the inkscape source files.

dvt 8y ago

This is awesome! Doing graphics in LaTeX has always had a pretty high barrier to entry (not to mention constant trial and error).

kccqzy 8y ago
It's pretty much the same argument as web designers who choose to use a visual design tool versus those who choose to write HTML, CSS and JS to produce their design. Some things are easier when designed visually, others are easier when written in code. Doing LaTeX graphics is the same.
- jnbiche 8y ago
  As a web developer who tried various visual design tools in the 1990s and finally eschewed them all and went back to using Vim or (later) Sublime Text for coding markup and CSS, I'm curious what things are easier when designed visually for you.
  - kccqzy 8y ago
    No. I started web design using Dreamweaver a long time ago. When I began, I used its visual design features quite a bit. Nowadays I just have an editor (usually Emacs) and a browser window side by side. I, do however, find visual design tools useful for prototyping.

phkahler 8y ago

Is inkscape unique in using standard SVG as its native file format?

petschge 8y ago
Note that while inkscape SVGs do conform to the standard, they do contain extra information in their separate namespace to preserve UI information across save/restore cycles. One example would be layers. They are saved as standard complient groups of SVGs features. But not all grouped elements form their own layers. So the groups that should be shown as layers do have extra meta data on them. Any standard complient SVG reader while deal with that group correctly, but might not represent it as a layer in it's GUI.
- jnbiche 8y ago
  > but might not represent it as a layer in it's GUI. How would you visually represent a layer in a GUI? Layers are logical, not visual, groupings. Edit: I wasn't considering the editor itself a GUI in this scenario, although it clearly is. I was thinking of the GUI (such as a web browser) where the SVG was being used.
  - crazygringo 8y ago
    In the editor, using the layers interface: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Layer_Dialog http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Layer_Dialog While obviously if you open the SVG in a web browser, layer information is ignored.
    - jnbiche 8y ago
      OK, you mean in the editor, not in the GUI that's displaying the SVG. (I use the layers dialog in Inkscape on a weekly basis -- and used to in Illustrator as well).
jarek-foksa 8y ago
Boxy SVG (https://boxy-svg.com https://boxy-svg.com) and macSVG (http://macsvg.org http://macsvg.org) use SVG as a native format as well. Since Inkscape is a general purpose design app rather than just an SVG editor, it is adding a lot of metadata to the SVG code it generates in order to preserve editing capabilities.

frabbit 8y ago

Trivial point: `Omit text in pdf and create LaTeX file’ Should be "emit text"!

jnbiche 8y ago
No, if you look at what it's doing, I think "Omit" is the word they wanted to use. They're saying, "Omit the (Latex code) text in pdf and create (in addition to the pdf) a Latex file (that has references to placeholders where the Latex code was originally)". I've not used this feature in Inkscape, but that's how it seems to work.
- frabbit 8y ago
  You are correct. I should have read more carefully and verified instead of assuming.

newrotik 8y ago

I use Ipe [0] for my work. The wiki page [1] gives you an idea of what it looks like. It's also open source and you can compile LaTex directly in the editor to see what it looks like without switching windows. [0] http://ipe.otfried.org/ http://ipe.otfried.org/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipe_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipe_(software)

rahulmehta95 8y ago
Ipe is absolutely fantastic! It's my go-to for any figures, and I'll only switch to Inkscape or Illustrator if I need to make a slightly more-involved diagram.
aesthesia 8y ago
Ipe is great, although it is a little idiosyncratic. I haven’t found anything better for making structured diagrams.
IshKebab 8y ago
Yeah IPE is definitely the best tool for this job. For 3D diagrams I've also used blender, either with its line rendering plugin Freestyle or by tracing over the output in IPE.
lower 8y ago
Ipe is great not just for figures, but also presentations. It supports multi-page documents, incremental build-up of slides, presentation style-sheets, and so on. Showcase: https://github.com/otfried/ipe-wiki/wiki/Showcase#presentations https://github.com/otfried/ipe-wiki/wiki/Showcase#presentati...

lousken 8y ago

When I was at school I used markdown and converted to latex using pandoc. However I always drew all figures on a piece of paper with a date and number on it and then matched it with my notes. I couldn't find the right tool for this and I didn't think I'd be fast enough with inscape, but i guess if you really try it's possible. That's awesome but I wish this article released 5 years ago :) I wonder though, are there any alternatives to inscape in which you can draw graphs quickly?

bdamm 8y ago
The scripted diagramming space is very weak. It's strange to me, because I think having an expressive scripting language bound to a UI that can show you the result and maybe help with selecting attachment points, could be a nice and fast way to crank out diagrams.
- arminiusreturns 8y ago
  I have been really enjoying the blockdiag(3) diagramming packages. I use rackdiag to generate server rack diagrams. seqdiag for diagnosing issues or for flowcharting, and am working on an automated mapper that uses netdiag to generate network maps. Those of you looking for programmatic diagram generation, I'd you aren't talking math heavy, try it out. I'd you want math diagram generation, I think that might generally be best done with r/octave/d3 inside an emacs org file or jupyter notebook.
ygra 8y ago
> I wonder though, are there any alternatives to inscape in which you can draw graphs quickly? yEd [0] might be one. There's also an online version with (currently) a tad reduced feature set [1]. [0] https://www.yworks.com/products/yed https://www.yworks.com/products/yed [1] https://www.yworks.com/products/yed-live https://www.yworks.com/products/yed-live There are a number of other applications, though. I still like Graphviz for quickly creating a graph structure, but tweaking its layouts can be cumbersome (Note: yEd Live supports rudimentary Graphviz import as well). There's also dia, draw.io, Gliffy, LucidChart, OpenOffice Draw, Omnigraffle. And PowerPoint works to some extent as well. (Disclaimer: I work for yWorks.)

thomasfedb 8y ago

Very impressive that these figures are drawn at lecture pace. I used to write my maths notes up in LaTeX, but it was always after the fact from my handwriten notes. Even typesetting math takes time.

lousken 8y ago
I could do math typesetting at lecture pace with my 90-100wpm. But I can't imagine sketching my figures in inkscape.
- mkagenius 8y ago
  Just curious, in the exams are you allowed to use Latex too? It is difficult to think that it wouldn't be a hinderance.
  - lousken 8y ago
    Exams were pen and paper only.

cge 8y ago

I initially started writing a response to this thinking the author was referring to preparing lecture notes for lectures they were giving, not taking notes at lectures they were attending. That is entirely different, and I do have to wonder whether it's actually more efficient than, say, using a tablet to draw them, except in cases where the figures involve only use of common, repeated motifs. I do agree with the author that taking lecture notes for math-heavy classes in LaTeX is quite possible, though I haven't done it since I was an undergraduate. While the author makes use of snippets in a particular text editor setup, I instead relied on extensive use of \def. With sufficient experience and intuition as to when to \def something, I could take notes in many classes faster than everyone writing by hand, and often faster and more clearly than the professor could write: I could insert a common but complicated expression with a few keystrokes, rather than writing it out or using something like ~ to refer to it. I would also use a standard set of \def's to make standard LaTeX faster to type: \beq and \eeq for \begin{equation} and \end{equation}, and so on. This also had the advantage of working in any text editor. The disadvantage over snippets (I'm not sure how developed they were at the time) was, of course, that my LaTeX was incomprehensible for anyone else reading it, and my style had to change significantly once I started collaborating on projects rather than just writing notes for myself. I've long used Inkscape for paper and prepared note figures, however, and I've found that many of my colleagues now do as well, after Adobe's transition to a subscription model. In doing so, I am very wary of the pdf+latex export: it doesn't seem as though it can reliably place text exactly, leaving the risk that it looks awkward or has text move when the font; it also makes figures that are not easily reusable in other places (eg, presentations, typesetters making HTML versions of papers, etc). Additionally, the pdf export itself doesn't seem to preserve editing very well. As such, I usually store parallel svg and pdf versions, in the interest of avoiding very non-standard LaTeX packages. However, if I recall correctly, there are packages that allow direct use of Inkscape SVGs in LaTeX.

SourPatch 8y ago

An older, similar program is xfig.

raister 8y ago
I use XFig - the learning curve is bad, but the results are great. And it integrates rather easy with LaTeX.

cies 8y ago

I love Inkscape for being a great "learn once run anywhere/anytime" vector drawing tool. No searching/cracking/paying for the few time a year I need a tool like that. Always there so the skill I developed with it can be put to use efficiently. I love open source so much for this.

buiducnha 8y ago

I've also read previous article about how the author manage to take lecture note using Vim+Latex (also posted on HN), and that's amazing how author managed to do that. But I'm thinking for people who does not know how to use Vim (arguingly high learning curve) and Latex to take note, what options do they have to take note quickly (with Math symbols/layouts)? You can try out Mathcha[1] which is built to help people without knowing of Latex can easily write down Note (with rich Mathematics symbols/layouts) and it also provide basic Drawing and basic Function Plotting (The Drawing Part no way compare to Inkscape, but hey! you can type Math on Drawing on Mathcha) in single Editor. Please note that I don't want to tout and advertise Mathcha here, the point is to provide another option for people to try out (I will not say it will provide faster or more powerful than Vim+Latex) [1] Mathcha website: https://www.mathcha.io/ https://www.mathcha.io/ Disclaimer: I'm creator of Mathcha.

harlanji 8y ago
I am messing with Replete 2.0 for EDN expressions, but I am a fast and articulate English typer so Markdown-like Notes are my first step.
tomrod 8y ago
I tended to introduce LaTeX to new folks through LyX. Haven't used it for several years though, so no idea if the WSYIWYG is still up and running.
- buiducnha 8y ago
  I've just checked LyX, actually it's quite good and similar to Mathcha, but actually it serves different goals/features than Mathcha. - LyX: full Latex compiled, and Mix between WYSIWYG and Latex Script. Mainly use to create Latex Document - Mathcha: can export some parts to Latex (mostly Math mode) but does not guarantee to compile, a full WYSIWYG editor. The goal to just create Document without constraints to Latex format
  - harlanji 8y ago
    I love Lyx but wish there were a less involved setup. Takes a very long time to install over LTE, and TeX distro feels 50/50 dice roll. If it’s slow on LTE in Silicon Valley, it’s slow in Africa. Hard to recommend.

quangio 8y ago

If drawing some complicated geometry or high precision is not required, GNU Texmacs is also a good choice. You can do everything in the editor and see the immediate result, WYSIWYG style.

skilled 8y ago

As far as Inksccape goes, the MacOS experience is one of the worst I have ever had to deal with. Luckily, I only use it to extract individual photos from EPS/PDF files. Unfortunately, all the good editing apps like Sketch and Affinity Designer cost a fortune when you factor in the actual use case. Figma is alright, but the desktop app feels like I am working with a piece of origami.

wst_ 8y ago
Exactly. Does anyone know what are the difficulties to provide a pleasant experience for Inkscape on Mac? Gimp looks decent. With Inkscape I wouldn't need anything else, really. Both are amazing.
- chapium 8y ago
  GIMP and Inkscape are very different. GIMP has nearly no vector graphics editing support, although you can open svg files with it. Inkscape on the other hand is a vector graphics editor.
  - pcr910303 8y ago
    Looks like that's why Inkscape is needed in macOS! :-)
- purerandomness 8y ago
  > Does anyone know what are the difficulties to provide a pleasant experience for Inkscape on Mac GIMP doesn't use the XQuartz X11 compatibility layer that Inkscape uses. Work is ongoing according to the Inkscape GitLab [1]. [1] https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues/84 https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues/84
- jordache 8y ago
  don't loose sleep over inkscape Just buy affinity designer.
  - 8y ago

ThePhysicist 8y ago

I did most of the illustrations in my PhD thesis using PowerPoint (export via PDF and include in Latex), which I found more practical than Inkscape. Of course it’s not designed for scientific diagrams but you can actually produce some pretty decent looking illustrations with it.

rubidium 8y ago
Was this due to already knowing PowerPoint and not knowing Inkscape? I can think of exactly 0 ways in which PowerPoint is better :) Can you link to your thesis?
- ThePhysicist 8y ago
  Thesis is here: https://github.com/adewes/phd-thesis-physics https://github.com/adewes/phd-thesis-physics Inkscape was very difficult to use at the time (IMHO) and had lots of bugs, maybe this improved in the meantime as almost 10 years have passed.

mettamage 8y ago

cached page: https://web.archive.org/web20190428003002/http://castel.dev/post/lecture-notes-2/ https://web.archive.org/web20190428003002/http://castel.dev/...

deleted 8y ago

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lottin 8y ago

I really like Tikz but I find drawing anything with it extremely time consuming. At some point you have to ask yourself whether it's worth it. Personally, I think I'm done with Tikz. Next time I'm gonna try something else. Inkscape in particular looks like it could be a good alternative.

NowThenGoodBad 8y ago
It's pretty great! I used it to build my business's logo and really enjoyed working with such a comprehensive suite of tools, probably using a fraction of a percent of its capability and doing so in a brutish fashion. However, my biggest challenge with it, and I've experienced this with other similar software, is how it handles text along a path. After struggling with this for some time I just took a somewhat brute force approach and made hidden arcs that achieved the target text curvature, despite that arc not being part of the circle.

Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago

I am a person with a predominantly symbolic/linguistic way of thinking, and I'm aware that I tend to be bad at anything resembling graphic design, drawing, understanding of diagrams, etc... but this puts into perspective how much I really suck at that. Out of the example figures in this post, some of them I would outright not know how to draw. Others I would be able to draw, but I think each of them would take me at least about an hour, maybe more. And this is not out of lack of familiarity with the tool: Inkscape is my go-to tool for vector drawing and what I use most for scientific paper figures, presentation slides, posters, lecture slides, etc. so I have lots of hours of practice with it. Who is more of an outlier, the author or I? Is it really within the reach of most people to be able to whip up figures like that in a few minutes?

timClicks 8y ago
The author strikes me as someone who is ridiculously talented. Look at most people's presentation slides - figures are generally terrible. One thing that seems to be missing from these posts though is that this kind of uber-productivity with tools and shortcuts takes serious practice. Even ridiculously talented individuals still need to commit those shortcuts to memory such that they can recall them when needed.
- allenu 8y ago
  This is so true. I've been using Inkscape for years and it took me a long time to get used to the keystrokes and tools it provides. I recently gave a git talk at work and ended up drawing many, many diagrams for it using Inkscape. Even though I was well-versed in the tool, it still took a long time. So, it's a combination of dedication in time to practice but also dedication in time to create the illustrations. On top of that, there's the learning of aesthetics along the way: what colors to use, what proportions to use, how much margin to set for better-looking illustrations, and so on. This takes serious practice.
  - timClicks 8y ago
    This is the thing that blocks me from, for example, emacs. I really want to use it, but I really don't want to spend a few weeks learning how to use it.

kacamak 8y ago

This is exactly what i needed all these years i was typing in TiKz or using corel draw without latex support.

ttd 8y ago

Native LaTeX equation editing for technical diagrams was probably the biggest itch I wanted to scratch with the diagramming application I wrote (https://vexlio.com https://vexlio.com). Unfortunately I haven't had much time to devote to development recently, but it's still out there and hopefully still useful to people.

posterboy 8y ago

This looks really impressive, but I don't think that figure drawing should be required in lectures. It's a huge distraction, lecturers should prepare scripts instead, in this day and age. Redrawing the figure might help some understanding, if construction is proof, but often it only serves to depict labels on a graph, not to solve a geometric puzzle.

snazz 8y ago
It looks more to me like this just happens to be the technique that the OP prefers to use to take notes. I imagine most students use paper or a tablet.

emgee_1 8y ago

Yes I think serious practice is needed. There is something else that is a disadvantage: you need anyway to review your lecture notes; but since they are so beautiful you do not easily see mistakes; one way to avoid overly beautiful notes is to use a kind of draft font that deliberately looks a bit off. The drawings (with the keyholes ) are of path integrals with holomorphic functions (something I did around 1982) But the whole idea and execution are phenomenal. My feeling is that using emacs it could be possibly easier but I will not try to convert a vimmer

JohnStrangeII 8y ago

It's such a pity that LatexDraw is not developed more. It would be the ideal solution if it had a few more features. I currently use Dia for the same purpose as the author uses, but I have to admit that the graphics in this article look pretty good. I'll give Inkscape a try.

stared 8y ago

Even Chris Olah uses Inkscape. (Personally, I prefer TikZ, do to the easiness to change styles in a more semantic way.) Vide "Simple diagrams of convoluted neural networks" https://medium.com/inbrowserai/simple-diagrams-of-convoluted-neural-networks-39c097d2925b https://medium.com/inbrowserai/simple-diagrams-of-convoluted... with an overview of tools for drawing diagrams for deep learning.

lame88 8y ago

When I see stuff like this and the author's previous artile, it reminds me of the overwhelming potential of scriptable systems and customizable open source software. But at the same time, trying to pursue these things has always been a net negative for me in terms of productivity, for several reasons: there is often such a high learning curve, there are so many different choices of programs that people use (with the resulting community fragmentation), and there is so little investment in UX. So I get all caught up in learning the systems themselves instead of dealing with the limitations of the systems I know and getting to the actual work. So on one hand I know I'm stuck in local maxima, but on the other hand it remains such a long and risky investment to try to seek other more optimal solutions.

sAbakumoff 8y ago

>> but once you’ve got the basics down, it’s hard to get back to an editor without Vim keybindings. Right..because it's hardly possible to quit fucking vim :(