EMACS for word processing?

Gullible Jones · 2010-10-28 18:53:57

I've heard some stuff about EMACS being usable for word processing... How usable is it? Can it be made to do WYSIWYG editing of documents with headers, footers, and/or double-spaced text, in a format that MS Office will be able to read?

(If you must know, I have to deal with MLA format in an academic setting, and am not a huge fan of Abiword or OOo when it comes to actually writing stuff...)

drcouzelis · 2010-10-28 19:23:07

On a semi-relevant note, have you tried writing LaTeX and, when done, converting it to PDF? Would that fit your needs? EMACS has plugins for LaTeX.

Gullible Jones · 2010-10-28 19:24:46

Haven't tried LaTeX. Something other than PDF (i.e. editable in MS Office) would be hugely preferable to convert to.

Edit: basically the need is to write stuff in MLA format, send it to a professor, and have the professor edit it with comments and send it back without any trouble on his or her end. I hate to invoke stereotypes, but most liberal arts profs don't know a lot about computers.

Last edited by Gullible Jones (2010-10-28 19:26:19)

frabjous · 2010-10-28 19:29:00

[Edit: posted too slow, but some stuff near the end may be of interest...]

You could use emacs to create LaTeX source files. (See texlive for LaTeX packages for Arch.) Emacs has a number of extensions to aid with LaTeX document composition, the best known being AUCTeX. While it does have some preview features, AUCTeX by itself is not exactly WYSIWYG, though these days most LaTeX users generate PDF documents which shows them exactly what the output will be before printing.

The quality of LaTeX typesetting is much better than what you get by default with MS Office or Open Office or AbiWord. Once you have a LaTeX document, converting it to one of those formats feels like a downgrade. But if you needed to generate something that they can handle for the purposes of collaborating with a colleague, you could use tex4ht, which has scripts for converting to ODT or HTML. There are other conversion methods too.

I use vim for LaTeX composition personally, and almost never need to use a Word Processor.

I hate to invoke stereotypes, but most liberal arts profs don't know a lot about computers.

Well, I am a liberal arts (philosophy) prof... so infer from that what you will.

Last edited by frabjous (2010-10-28 19:31:14)

Gullible Jones · 2010-10-28 19:35:06

Hmm, I guess I could have been more specific... Most liberal arts profs at my university.

Thanks though.

Edit: holy wowza LaTeX is huge!

Edit again: hmm. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manua … atted-Text Maybe this would work? It looks like it can in fact handle doc files.

Last edited by Gullible Jones (2010-10-28 19:40:04)

skanky · 2010-10-28 19:42:00

You don't need to install all of it, but yes, there's quite a bit.
I think texmacs is a Latex and vaguely WYSIWYG application based on emacs. Might be worth a look.

Last edited by skanky (2010-10-28 19:42:27)

drcouzelis · 2010-10-28 19:49:28

What file format are you interested in using? EMACS is for plain text editing. Do you want to use RTF or something similar? Are you wondering if there is a way to load and save Microsoft Word documents in EMACS?

Cyrusm · 2010-10-28 19:52:49

+1 for LaTeX, I use it for all of my academic papers. take a look at bibTeX too, I believe that it can be used to automate some of the MLA style referencing. (you can still do it the old fashioned way too, I do.) as for creating documents that are editable in MS Word, not sure what to tell you.
although you can add notes to PDF's in adobe acrobat (which should be easily available to a college prof.)

jt512 · 2010-10-28 20:01:24

@Gullible: There is a package for Latex that produces MLA-formatted papers, but the output will still be a pdf file, which will be impractical to edit; and your professor won't want to deal with the latex source file, which will be unformatted and contain mark-up language. So, I think you're being thrown a red herring with the Latex idea.

That's not to say that you can't use Emacs, which is a much more powerful text editor than MS Word. You can always do your writing and editing in Emacs, and import the file into Word and format it there.

Jay

Last edited by jt512 (2010-10-28 20:02:14)

frabjous · 2010-10-28 20:03:05

BibLaTeX is probably better for MLA than regular BibTeX; see, e.g., biblatex-mla. BibLaTeX is relatively new, however, and not as widely used as BibTeX. Another route would be to use natbib with the mla-good style found here.

There is also an MLA document class here, but it looks kinda fishy.

Your professor shouldn't be editing your file... just giving comments, and I don't see why that couldn't be done in Acrobat (or something like PDF X-ChangeViewer or Mendeley).

I'm just trying to get more people hooked on LaTeX, which is the epitome of awesomeness in open source.

Last edited by frabjous (2010-10-28 20:05:51)

techne · 2011-05-13 17:47:45

Here are what seemed like two apposite links wherein academics advocate the use of text editors + LaTeX for word processing:

http://www.charlietanksley.net/philtex/

http://www.charlietanksley.net/latex/ (more for Vim users)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-10-28 18:53:57

EMACS for word processing?

#2 2010-10-28 19:23:07

Re: EMACS for word processing?

#3 2010-10-28 19:24:46

Re: EMACS for word processing?

#4 2010-10-28 19:29:00

Re: EMACS for word processing?

#5 2010-10-28 19:35:06

Re: EMACS for word processing?

#6 2010-10-28 19:42:00

Re: EMACS for word processing?

#7 2010-10-28 19:49:28

Re: EMACS for word processing?

#8 2010-10-28 19:52:49

Re: EMACS for word processing?

#9 2010-10-28 20:01:24

Re: EMACS for word processing?

#10 2010-10-28 20:03:05

Re: EMACS for word processing?

#11 2011-05-13 17:47:45

Re: EMACS for word processing?

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