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In LaTeX it's difficult to get it right first time (to me not true if you know it), but when you do it's there, you can add 1000 pages and it didn't mess the po

In LaTeX it's difficult to get it right first time (to me not true if you know it), but when you do it's there, you can add 1000 pages and it didn't mess the positioning of you images, like in Word where you add one word and you have to start all over again. Also when placing and deciding sizes of images to me it's easier a declarative language than sizing things with the mouse, where it's very difficult to get them right.

tiahura 5y ago
“in Word where you add one word and you have to start all over again.” Not necessarily, it depends on how it’s formatted.
- p_l 5y ago
  The problem with Word is that it defaults to an interface that makes it harder than it should be and discourages the proper use of semantic styling. A price to pay for emulating advanced typewriter as default UI setting :(
  - alerighi 5y ago
    Are there even other UIs for Word? Interesting, I didn't know that. But I think that we still are talking about another "point and click" interface. The difference between Word and LaTeX is that the first one is a graphical WYSIWYG editor, while the second one is a markup language. To me they are not even comparable, It's like comparing Wordpress with HTML.
    - p_l 5y ago
      You can switch to logical view (I don't remember the exact name, "conspect"?) which doesn't apply 95% of styling and reflects hierarchy of the document + makes it easier to apply semantic styles en masse. A big problem is that it's simply easier most of the time to hit Ctrl-B rather than select a style named "emphasis" and so on :(
- Shared404 5y ago
  How about "In word, unless you know the one true way instead of the 50 apparent ways, you can add one word and have to start all over again".
  - Spivak 5y ago
    So wait the argument is that Word isn’t intuitive enough about how to get formatting right and your example of a better system is Latex? — the system that makes npm jealous with dependency counts?
    - Shared404 5y ago
      No - it's that once you get it right in Latex it stays right, while word makes it easy to do the wrong way. Latex is hard to do at all but comes out right. Word is easy to do wrong.
    - alerighi 5y ago
      I mean the dependency argument is not that great, just install `texlive-full` and waste 4Gb of disk space (that are probably the same that an Office installation takes) and you don't think about it.

tiahura 5y ago

“in Word where you add one word and you have to start all over again.” Not necessarily, it depends on how it’s formatted.

p_l 5y ago
The problem with Word is that it defaults to an interface that makes it harder than it should be and discourages the proper use of semantic styling. A price to pay for emulating advanced typewriter as default UI setting :(
- alerighi 5y ago
  Are there even other UIs for Word? Interesting, I didn't know that. But I think that we still are talking about another "point and click" interface. The difference between Word and LaTeX is that the first one is a graphical WYSIWYG editor, while the second one is a markup language. To me they are not even comparable, It's like comparing Wordpress with HTML.
  - p_l 5y ago
    You can switch to logical view (I don't remember the exact name, "conspect"?) which doesn't apply 95% of styling and reflects hierarchy of the document + makes it easier to apply semantic styles en masse. A big problem is that it's simply easier most of the time to hit Ctrl-B rather than select a style named "emphasis" and so on :(
Shared404 5y ago
How about "In word, unless you know the one true way instead of the 50 apparent ways, you can add one word and have to start all over again".
- Spivak 5y ago
  So wait the argument is that Word isn’t intuitive enough about how to get formatting right and your example of a better system is Latex? — the system that makes npm jealous with dependency counts?
  - Shared404 5y ago
    No - it's that once you get it right in Latex it stays right, while word makes it easy to do the wrong way. Latex is hard to do at all but comes out right. Word is easy to do wrong.
  - alerighi 5y ago
    I mean the dependency argument is not that great, just install `texlive-full` and waste 4Gb of disk space (that are probably the same that an Office installation takes) and you don't think about it.