8 ms·

Those are just the surface differences. The modes in which you use all of these are very different. Word: explicit WYSIWYG control over typesetting. LaTeX: se

Those are just the surface differences. The modes in which you use all of these are very different. Word: explicit WYSIWYG control over typesetting. LaTeX: semantic level control over typesetting. Additionally provides explicit low level typesetting commands. Markdown: given how basic (trivial even) Markdown is (http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax) I'm not sure why it's even in this list.

tinco 13y ago
It's in the list because it's what I would use for my thesis, if I'd do one now :) It's basic, but it has the semantics for most stuff, and can easily be extended for more. I'd do all formula's/drawings in external tools. Word nowadays has semantic typesetting controls too, I think since they started that ribbon thing that it has become useable. If you stick to using their semantic things I think you can do a pretty good job of properly typesetting in Word.
- jbranchaud 13y ago
  Writing a thesis using only markdown sounds extremely painful. Are you going to create all your figures elsewhere and then include them as images? How are you going to create your list of figures? And your table of contents? How are you going to create, maintain, and organize your list of references? I could go on.
  - ngoldbaum 13y ago
    > Are you going to create all your figures elsewhere and then include them as images? This is what most people do in physics and astronomy. You make the plot in some kind of plotting package and export it to a vector format. In astronomy, the journals only recently started accepting PDF figures in addition to EPS. In my experience doing all of my figures in LaTeX is significantly more painful than using a real plotting package like matplotlib.
    - GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
      I wrote a dissertation, two theses, and a bunch of papers in latex and I never ever ever ever did any graphics that weren't imported as eps or, later, png.
    - matthiasv 13y ago
      I don't know your exact use cases but I am reallyfond of pgfplots which, being based on TikZ, integrates much better than matplotlib. But I also happen to hate matplotlib for sticking with "that" API ...
    - jbranchaud 13y ago
      As long as you can get it in vector format, it doesn't matter. What about tables? Granted they aren't fun to make, but I am not aware of any methods of creating them outside of a latex document.
  - giovannibajo1 13y ago
    None of those features require LaTeX arcane syntax, obscure source code, and multiple compilation steps. reStructuredText is a Markdown-like language containing some of the features you mention, especially with extensions; its syntax is well-defined, and its main implementation is in Python. The point isn't if Markdown has enough features, but rather that LaTeX lets you a pay a price for those features that you shouldn't be paying, just because it's a 40-years-old software.
  - reeses 13y ago
    I actually had a mini panic attack thinking about that. The best thing about markdown is pandoc.
  - jojoo 13y ago
    Writing my thesis with markdown was one of the best decisions i made. I wrote 99% of my master thesis in markdown (50 pages w/o interviews). 1) I didn't have a lot of images so i just wrote FIXME: Image Foo.png where they belonged. 2) I wrote my Citations Plain in there (e.g. Wocken, 1985, 7 ff.), using a special folder for all sources i really used in Mendeley. 3) Writing in markdown i could just c&p perfectly formatted chapters written with simplenote. 4) i also could seperate the chapters in files and keep everything in a git repo. When i was finnished writing i exported the markdown to rtf, 1) selected all the h1's via "select all", set them to be a real (word) h1. vice versa with all other styles i used. 2) Then i put in all the pictures. 3) Then i exported the list from Mendeley. That process - from markdown to perfection - took me less than 4 hours. I have some experience with latex and especially latex + komascript, but i hated that experience because the latex sourcecode doesn't ebrace readability and you're sure to get obscure errors in the last second. besides stuff like running latex twice for a table of contents. Writing \begin{itemize} \item really long line which gets wrangled in my vim terminal, so that i don't see where the second item starts. \item another long line. maybe 200 characters long? \end{itemize} is complicated and you can't read it well. this otoh is very easy to read: * really long line which gets wrangled as well, but is better to read because it starts with a clear sign which is recognized to be a bullet. * next line, which is also very long. Easy readability is crucial, because i needed proof readers. The young proof readers could actually get the markdown code and correct my mistakes there (or write comments, starting with another fixme). really rocked with diff. The older proofreaders could proofread it in the final stage in ms word with the track changes functionality. I put a lot of thought into Design and Typography and i was sure that i could decide better how my document should look, than latex. I agree, that for some people this is not the case.
    - jessah 13y ago
      How do you get pagination with markdown? I would like to switch to markdown instead of using latex, because my needs are simple. But how can I convert markdown into something with support for pagination?
      - jojoo 13y ago
  - AliceWonder32 13y ago
    Plus there are many advances to doing figures in LaTeX - such as the ability to have you math typeset the same way as in non figures.
- ThatOtherPerson 13y ago
  Check out pandoc [1], it will let you write documents in Markdown + LaTeX for equations and then convert it to LaTeX, a PDF, or several other document formats. Also, even though Markdown tends to be fairly easy to write, there are many edge cases where you can't really be sure what the result is unless you try it. [1]: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/
dovel 13y ago
I do not use any of the mathematical elements of LaTeX and the work I do render using it is exclusively words. Just words. So really LaTeX isn't necessary for what I do. But, I write using MultiMarkdown in Scrivener, using Bibtex citekeys for referencing then export the document as LaTeX from scrivener and then compile using Texshop. I guess I don't really have a point. Just that if you are writing essays in the humanities or sociology then markdown can have a place in your workflow

tinco 13y ago

It's in the list because it's what I would use for my thesis, if I'd do one now :) It's basic, but it has the semantics for most stuff, and can easily be extended for more. I'd do all formula's/drawings in external tools. Word nowadays has semantic typesetting controls too, I think since they started that ribbon thing that it has become useable. If you stick to using their semantic things I think you can do a pretty good job of properly typesetting in Word.

jbranchaud 13y ago
Writing a thesis using only markdown sounds extremely painful. Are you going to create all your figures elsewhere and then include them as images? How are you going to create your list of figures? And your table of contents? How are you going to create, maintain, and organize your list of references? I could go on.
- ngoldbaum 13y ago
  > Are you going to create all your figures elsewhere and then include them as images? This is what most people do in physics and astronomy. You make the plot in some kind of plotting package and export it to a vector format. In astronomy, the journals only recently started accepting PDF figures in addition to EPS. In my experience doing all of my figures in LaTeX is significantly more painful than using a real plotting package like matplotlib.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
    I wrote a dissertation, two theses, and a bunch of papers in latex and I never ever ever ever did any graphics that weren't imported as eps or, later, png.
  - matthiasv 13y ago
    I don't know your exact use cases but I am reallyfond of pgfplots which, being based on TikZ, integrates much better than matplotlib. But I also happen to hate matplotlib for sticking with "that" API ...
  - jbranchaud 13y ago
    As long as you can get it in vector format, it doesn't matter. What about tables? Granted they aren't fun to make, but I am not aware of any methods of creating them outside of a latex document.
- giovannibajo1 13y ago
  None of those features require LaTeX arcane syntax, obscure source code, and multiple compilation steps. reStructuredText is a Markdown-like language containing some of the features you mention, especially with extensions; its syntax is well-defined, and its main implementation is in Python. The point isn't if Markdown has enough features, but rather that LaTeX lets you a pay a price for those features that you shouldn't be paying, just because it's a 40-years-old software.
- reeses 13y ago
  I actually had a mini panic attack thinking about that. The best thing about markdown is pandoc.
- jojoo 13y ago
  Writing my thesis with markdown was one of the best decisions i made. I wrote 99% of my master thesis in markdown (50 pages w/o interviews). 1) I didn't have a lot of images so i just wrote FIXME: Image Foo.png where they belonged. 2) I wrote my Citations Plain in there (e.g. Wocken, 1985, 7 ff.), using a special folder for all sources i really used in Mendeley. 3) Writing in markdown i could just c&p perfectly formatted chapters written with simplenote. 4) i also could seperate the chapters in files and keep everything in a git repo. When i was finnished writing i exported the markdown to rtf, 1) selected all the h1's via "select all", set them to be a real (word) h1. vice versa with all other styles i used. 2) Then i put in all the pictures. 3) Then i exported the list from Mendeley. That process - from markdown to perfection - took me less than 4 hours. I have some experience with latex and especially latex + komascript, but i hated that experience because the latex sourcecode doesn't ebrace readability and you're sure to get obscure errors in the last second. besides stuff like running latex twice for a table of contents. Writing \begin{itemize} \item really long line which gets wrangled in my vim terminal, so that i don't see where the second item starts. \item another long line. maybe 200 characters long? \end{itemize} is complicated and you can't read it well. this otoh is very easy to read: * really long line which gets wrangled as well, but is better to read because it starts with a clear sign which is recognized to be a bullet. * next line, which is also very long. Easy readability is crucial, because i needed proof readers. The young proof readers could actually get the markdown code and correct my mistakes there (or write comments, starting with another fixme). really rocked with diff. The older proofreaders could proofread it in the final stage in ms word with the track changes functionality. I put a lot of thought into Design and Typography and i was sure that i could decide better how my document should look, than latex. I agree, that for some people this is not the case.
  - jessah 13y ago
    How do you get pagination with markdown? I would like to switch to markdown instead of using latex, because my needs are simple. But how can I convert markdown into something with support for pagination?
    - jojoo 13y ago
- AliceWonder32 13y ago
  Plus there are many advances to doing figures in LaTeX - such as the ability to have you math typeset the same way as in non figures.
ThatOtherPerson 13y ago
Check out pandoc [1], it will let you write documents in Markdown + LaTeX for equations and then convert it to LaTeX, a PDF, or several other document formats. Also, even though Markdown tends to be fairly easy to write, there are many edge cases where you can't really be sure what the result is unless you try it. [1]: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/

dovel 13y ago

I do not use any of the mathematical elements of LaTeX and the work I do render using it is exclusively words. Just words. So really LaTeX isn't necessary for what I do. But, I write using MultiMarkdown in Scrivener, using Bibtex citekeys for referencing then export the document as LaTeX from scrivener and then compile using Texshop. I guess I don't really have a point. Just that if you are writing essays in the humanities or sociology then markdown can have a place in your workflow