5 ms·

I don't question the value of Latex but I really don't understand why it should be so huge.

Jtsummers 11y ago
Do you mean why is LaTeX the base tools and library of options so large? Because it supports a number of different document types, languages and formatting options. Do you want a mathematical/scientific journal article? Humanities? Is it a short story that you're submitting for review or do you want it formatted for printing? A poster? A presentation? What language(s) will you need? Different fonts for different effects or preferences. Do you want a modern look? To imitate something from a different time? The bulk of it is stuff you don't need. Most folks probably don't need anything more than the format for the journal they're submitting to or a couple standard formats for books or articles. But your article format and mine might be different, either by aesthetic preference or technical requirement (maybe I'm publishing something on ancient Greek, and you're publishing a paper on some number theory topic). However, by using a common language/environment we get things like CTAN which help to spread the features we added or allow us to discover features we want so we don't have to reinvent the wheel (though it still happens). It's also probably so large because it's been around so long. LaTeX dates to 1984, with TeX being released in 1978. So we have 31 and 37 years of community contributions to these tools.
bdhe 11y ago
When Don Knuth wrote TeX, the engine underlying LaTeX, he made sure that typesetting was a top priority. This includes all sorts of novel spacing, hyphenation, and other algorithms. See some more examples here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX#Typesetting_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX#Typesetting_system For anyone who appreciates Typography, there are few things out there that can produce aesthetic results as pleasing as LaTeX. It does have its downsides though, no question, including a steep learning curve, unintuitive error msgs etc.
- cubix 11y ago
  LaTeX tables drive me crazy. There are tools to help, but for me, it's the least pleasant aspect of using it. Still beats Word masochism, however.
  - singingfish 11y ago
    The only thing I like about word is it's actually quite a good table composition tool. Just so long as you ignore the defaults that is.
    - deerpig 11y ago
      Org-mode has very good support for plain text tables -- which can be converted into multiple formats. Org-mode tables are pretty cool, bordering on being a spreadsheet... It's worth watching a demo, even if you never use it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJVLJd_gz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJVLJd_gz0
      - frankzinger 11y ago
        Agreed, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to put tables with first-row headings and ones with first-column headings in the same file. Any ideas?
      - singingfish 11y ago
        I've had a go at org mode being a die hard user, but never got past the original hump. Maybe I need something that better reflects my workflow, maybe disorg-mode.
jimhefferon 11y ago
The great majority of the space is documentation, source, and fonts; see http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/119763/339 http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/119763/339 . At the 2014 TeX conference one speaker gave out a MacTeX distributions (that's based on TeX Live) on a 8GB USB stick. Personally I wonder whether putting a lot of effort into creating stripped-down versions is worthwhile.
- redacted 11y ago
  Unless things have changed recently, MacTex also provided a minimal distribution which was only a couple hundred MB. I used it for my thesis when I was using a space-constrained SSD. You can use tlmgr (texlive manager) to install packages as needed.

Do you mean why is LaTeX the base tools and library of options so large? Because it supports a number of different document types, languages and formatting options. Do you want a mathematical/scientific journal article? Humanities? Is it a short story that you're submitting for review or do you want it formatted for printing? A poster? A presentation? What language(s) will you need? Different fonts for different effects or preferences. Do you want a modern look? To imitate something from a different time? The bulk of it is stuff you don't need. Most folks probably don't need anything more than the format for the journal they're submitting to or a couple standard formats for books or articles. But your article format and mine might be different, either by aesthetic preference or technical requirement (maybe I'm publishing something on ancient Greek, and you're publishing a paper on some number theory topic). However, by using a common language/environment we get things like CTAN which help to spread the features we added or allow us to discover features we want so we don't have to reinvent the wheel (though it still happens). It's also probably so large because it's been around so long. LaTeX dates to 1984, with TeX being released in 1978. So we have 31 and 37 years of community contributions to these tools.

bdhe 11y ago

When Don Knuth wrote TeX, the engine underlying LaTeX, he made sure that typesetting was a top priority. This includes all sorts of novel spacing, hyphenation, and other algorithms. See some more examples here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX#Typesetting_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX#Typesetting_system For anyone who appreciates Typography, there are few things out there that can produce aesthetic results as pleasing as LaTeX. It does have its downsides though, no question, including a steep learning curve, unintuitive error msgs etc.

cubix 11y ago
LaTeX tables drive me crazy. There are tools to help, but for me, it's the least pleasant aspect of using it. Still beats Word masochism, however.
- singingfish 11y ago
  The only thing I like about word is it's actually quite a good table composition tool. Just so long as you ignore the defaults that is.
  - deerpig 11y ago
    Org-mode has very good support for plain text tables -- which can be converted into multiple formats. Org-mode tables are pretty cool, bordering on being a spreadsheet... It's worth watching a demo, even if you never use it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJVLJd_gz0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJVLJd_gz0
    - frankzinger 11y ago
      Agreed, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to put tables with first-row headings and ones with first-column headings in the same file. Any ideas?
    - singingfish 11y ago
      I've had a go at org mode being a die hard user, but never got past the original hump. Maybe I need something that better reflects my workflow, maybe disorg-mode.

jimhefferon 11y ago

The great majority of the space is documentation, source, and fonts; see http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/119763/339 http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/119763/339 . At the 2014 TeX conference one speaker gave out a MacTeX distributions (that's based on TeX Live) on a 8GB USB stick. Personally I wonder whether putting a lot of effort into creating stripped-down versions is worthwhile.

redacted 11y ago
Unless things have changed recently, MacTex also provided a minimal distribution which was only a couple hundred MB. I used it for my thesis when I was using a space-constrained SSD. You can use tlmgr (texlive manager) to install packages as needed.