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dolby

Member

From: 1992

Registered: 2006-08-08

Posts: 1,581

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

arooaroo: your Getting to grips with LaTeX article seems great. thx for posting about it

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There shouldn't be any reason to learn more editor types than emacs or vi -- mg (1)
[You learn that sarcasm does not often work well in international forums.  That is why we avoid it. -- ewaller (arch linux forum moderator)

sash

Member

Registered: 2005-10-16

Posts: 155

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

I have found the LaTeX cheat sheet quite helpful:
http://www.stdout.org/~winston/latex/

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

eyolf,

First off, thanks for the excellent article. I believe that you made a clear distinction in the qualitative differences between Word, Writer, and Latex.

You mentioned in the 'Responses' section that a good option is to use Writer to build a piece and then Latex to refine it to print quality. If the author uses the tools provided in Writer along with good fonts, how much work will there be in order to produce high quality output when exported to Latex?

eyolf

Member

From: Copenhagen

Registered: 2005-11-29

Posts: 339

Website

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

Depends. The current version of OpenOffice comes with a LaTeX export filter, so if you just want the niceties of LaTeX but don't really care what the code looks like, it's a one-click job. However, by default, the filter will preserve as much of the formatting as possible, which means that it creates a whole lot of style environments -- not as badly as the ghastly Word > html conversion, but still, there may be some cleaning up to do.
What I do is to run the standalone version of the filter, with my own config file which is set to disregard as much as possible of formatting but otherwise is crafted to go along with my own default OOo styles (I have a huge default template with styles for every conceivable text type) and make LaTeX tags which correspond with the ones defined in my default .sty file. Setting up all this has of course taken some time, but it's a one-time job (with constant tinkering along the way).
So the answer is: it depends on how you define "high-quality output".

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

Thanks for answering such a generic question. I have a few more before I jump in.

When you say "if you just want the niceties of LaTeX but don't really care what the code looks like, it's a one-click job", does that mean that OO is going to 'hard code' everything it perceives as formatting? Which is to say, if the hyphenation was sub-par, will that show up in the Latex document? If so, is that the kind of stuff that your scripts filter out?

eyolf

Member

From: Copenhagen

Registered: 2005-11-29

Posts: 339

Website

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

Thanks for answering such a generic question. I have a few more before I jump in.

When you say "if you just want the niceties of LaTeX but don't really care what the code looks like, it's a one-click job", does that mean that OO is going to 'hard code' everything it perceives as formatting? Which is to say, if the hyphenation was sub-par, will that show up in the Latex document? If so, is that the kind of stuff that your scripts filter out?

Not at all -- that's the kind of things that will be LaTeX standard. I'm more thinking of things like if you have manual formatting, the converter will make a new style (a \newcommand) for that. Such as

\newcommand\textstyleFootnoteSymbol[1]{\textsuperscript{#1}}

in the preamble and

\textstyleFootnoteSymbol{\footnotemark{}}\footnotetext{\ A.
Schoenberg, \foreignlanguage{english}{`}Compostition with Twelve Tones

in the text, where \footnote{Compostition with Twelve Tones} would be ... let's say much easier...

If you have many things like that, you'll get a rather messy code. Also, Writer doesn't always do a good job of noting changes between italics and normal text internally, or other kinds of leftovers in the formatting -- things that don't show in the document, and don't really "exist", so you might get something like

R}\foreignlanguage{english}{\textcolor{black}{ather than
being regarded as something ... }}

where ALL the code is unnecessary junk.

But the output will be fine.
The script that runs in OOo is writer2latex which you can find documentation for here:
http://www.hj-gym.dk/~hj/writer2latex/

So just go ahead and take the plunge -- trying it out is painless

Xilon

Member

Registered: 2007-01-01

Posts: 243

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

It's probably better to save yourself the trouble and just spend that couple of extra seconds writing up the preamble. After doing one document you can just copy an paste anyway

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

It's probably better to save yourself the trouble and just spend that couple of extra seconds writing up the preamble. After doing one document you can just copy an paste anyway

I agree, and it's the reason why I was asking my questions. The output from Latex is truly beautiful, but I don't see any reason to write in it.

Last edited by skottish (2007-11-23 17:05:16)

eyolf

Member

From: Copenhagen

Registered: 2005-11-29

Posts: 339

Website

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

True -- the whole point of going though the extra steps in the configuration stage, is to do as little as possible  with the generated files. Say, e.g., that you have an OOo style for a paragraph with a drop-cap. You'd want that to translate into the LaTeX style you have defined for drop-caps, using the Lettrine package. Once that's set up, you'll never have to worry about that anymore -- just change one line in the preamble (to include your own style defintions, e.g.), and you're set.
I should also say that my setup may sound complicated (and it is) because I work under fairly strict constraints. I copy-edit books for a publisher which has a very carefully defined layout. I get word files (usually) from authors, and the work flow is: Word (to remove direct formatting and replace it with defined styles; Word is still superior to Writer in this respect) > Writer > writer2latex > LaTeX, with my own .sty file applied. Virtually painless, once the configuration is in place

eyolf

Member

From: Copenhagen

Registered: 2005-11-29

Posts: 339

Website

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

The output from Latex is truly beautiful, but I don't see any reason to write in it.

I see three: 1. I wouldn't dare to use Word or Writer for big documents with some complex structural elements such as index, ToC etc. Working with LaTeX is a dream in this respect. Quicker too.
2. I can use a proper EDITOR, such as vim, instead of the cursor-moving facilities they call word processors.
3. I have full control of what is going on. Invaluable for big documents, but nice for smaller ones too.

If you want LaTeX output but don't want to get your feet wet with code, I can strongly recommend LyX. No reason to take the detour through Writer, really.

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

If you want LaTeX output but don't want to get your feet wet with code, I can strongly recommend LyX. No reason to take the detour through Writer, really.

I'm convinced:

[skottish@localhost ~]$ pacman -Q lyx
lyx 1.5.2-1

Xilon

Member

Registered: 2007-01-01

Posts: 243

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

The output from Latex is truly beautiful, but I don't see any reason to write in it.

I see three: 1. I wouldn't dare to use Word or Writer for big documents with some complex structural elements such as index, ToC etc. Working with LaTeX is a dream in this respect. Quicker too.
2. I can use a proper EDITOR, such as vim, instead of the cursor-moving facilities they call word processors.
3. I have full control of what is going on. Invaluable for big documents, but nice for smaller ones too.

If you want LaTeX output but don't want to get your feet wet with code, I can strongly recommend LyX. No reason to take the detour through Writer, really.

100% Agreed. I much prefer being able to use vim to write up such beautiful documents than use crappy, slow word processors that never do exactly what I want. It's much easier to edit as well. I can't count the number of times I've been at the point of wanting to throw my monitor at the wall because I was trying to prepend something which had a formatting, but I didn't want the formatting, or something like that. With LaTeX I know exactly where the formatting starts, where it finishes and have full control over that. It doesn't try to outsmart me. The only minor annoyance I have is when you use a lot of markup and the text starts getting ugly and hard to read. Also due to the lack of actual formatting on the plain text (bold, larger font, etc) it's hard to quickly scan through the code and find what you need, but you can always use comments to emphasize headings or use vim's markers. Compiling the tex file each time you want to see how it came out can also be annoying, but I'm a programmer so I'm used to that, and I always have a Makefile and F6 mapped to :make, and F9 mapped to launching my PDF viewer with the document, so I just F6, F9, view, close, keep writing .

eyolf

Member

From: Copenhagen

Registered: 2005-11-29

Posts: 339

Website

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

The only minor annoyance I have is when you use a lot of markup and the text starts getting ugly and hard to read. Also due to the lack of actual formatting on the plain text (bold, larger font, etc) it's hard to quickly scan through the code and find what you need, but you can always use comments to emphasize headings or use vim's markers.

I find the syntax file that comes with latex-suite for vim quite excellent, especially after I added my own much-used tags (highlighting the whole footnote text and not just the tag in \footnote{} blocks, and similarly for \label, \ref, and a few  others). This also makes it possible to get bold or italics text in bold and italics. There is nothing to do with font size, of course, but that's a minor point, fully outweighed by the other advantages (folding, for one: no need for large headings if you can find them easily anyway).

sm4tik

Member

From: Finland, Jyväskylä

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 248

Website

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

Nice to see people taking time to make things look as they want them to, in a way they want to do it. I can pretty much agree with every "throw your monitor out the window" feeling and also those "AAGHH, this text isn't even readable" one's. And yes, there aren't too many ways you can point you finger at when trying to figure out why.. I've heard of LaTex before, but not until now did I really know what it is, so thank's once again eyolf, and of course others aswell for the links and comments!
While reading through these posts I had a  thought about formatting a text. Atleast what I do when writing almost anything from short to long text, is that I first write it and then do the formatting. Before printing I'm going to read it a few times anyway, so that give's me good time to make my formatting. And if you know what you want, you shouldn't have to print every page for a "preview" but only a page with all the formatting examples printed on it. And the just apply those settings to where ever needed. You don't print the whole text out many times just to decide which font you'd like to use, would you? So, in this way I can't see any reason why _not_ to write in LaTeX

Waiting to get home so I can get my hands dirty in a yet another not-necessary-to-survive-but-still-can't-live-without-it sort of a thing you guys introduced me, so thank's a lot again. Once you know something, you really can't un-know it again so I guess there's no way back to writer for me

smurnjiff

Member

Registered: 2007-06-25

Posts: 211

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

LaTex is truly a great utility for writing documents.  I loved the shock of my peers when I managed to correctly display vector symbols by using esvect package.  They were getting images of arrows and superimposing them above the variables!

Xilon

Member

Registered: 2007-01-01

Posts: 243

Re: LaTeX vs Writer vs Word

And if you know what you want, you shouldn't have to print every page for a "preview" but only a page with all the formatting examples printed on it. And the just apply those settings to where ever needed. You don't print the whole text out many times just to decide which font you'd like to use, would you? So, in this way I can't see any reason why _not_ to write in LaTeX

That's true, I guess I don't need to compile it so often now. When I was starting out I wrote a bit, compiled and got errors, not really knowing how to fix them, so I compiled often, especially in texts where I used a lot of markup (relational algebra or maths). Now I pretty much know that it'll compile correctly and I can just type what I want an get it, which is the whole point of TeX.

The formatting is more of a side effect really, if you want a section you type \section{My Section}, and bam! It's formetted nicely The only other formatting I do is \emph{} and possibly underlining where it's necessary, LaTeX does the rest.