Most submissions (in CS at least) require PDF, TeX is a distant second any more for a submission format. No, we use LaTeX because for our needs (like equations) it's still tops by a large margin. Word would produce that PDF file also, but it's just too painful.
The only two systems I've seen anyone use are LaTeX or Word, and I've seen too many horror stories (and experienced a few) regarding Word to use it myself any more.
Heck, a friend of mine just last night had Word/Win delete his book.
The whole thing.
He's a little upset.
(He tried to save, it wouldn't let him. He checks the file, it's *gone*. It won't let him Save As either. He notes that there are indeed autosave files, so he quits and restarts Word. It deleted *those* on quitting.)
Did I mention that the final document was due at the publisher's this morning?
So why did he use Word? Because the publisher insisted.
My physics prof swears by Scientific Workplace... granted it's for PC, but he's written 4 or 5 of his own personal textbooks on it (none published, but used like the bible on this campus).
I've never seen how difficult it is to use, but generally the faculty here likes it.
That horror story looks like very improbable to me. Maybe your friend is a computer idiot. Sorry to say that.
I'm a physics teacher and I've written a huge book on general relativity (not published). All was done in Nisus 3.47 (very old version now) with Expressionist. All my coworkers are using MS Word and MathType. I hate MSW to death and I'll never use it.
I can make PDF out of Nisus 3.47 very easily by printing a PS file to the desktop and then convert it to PDF with the Preview app in Panther. My old physics documents are looking terrific now, and I can share them with anyone on the net (it's all in French, sorry)
My problems are these : there is no links between separate documents. I have this long Contents file and all the separate chapters and sections. I can't just click on a content and automatically go to the selected section. Also, there are many related sections between the files, but as soon as I change one, the other is broken and needs to be updated. This is a real pain in the a** to update. That's why I need to change my writing tools.
I downloaded and installed teTeX and iTeXMac yesterday and they appears to work properly. But how can I use TeX with a WYSIWYG editor ? It's a real pain in the a** to write a technical document by using commands and coding ! Geez, we are in 2004, 21st century !!
oh man!! LyX is AMAZING!!! It is now OS X compatible as well (for the most part). I used it for my senior seminar in college (they required LaTeX), and everyone was amazed at my output. It looks so professional.
And EASY!!!
Way easy. Much better than anything I have used, and no programming!!!
Check out Textures, from Blue sky research, which is a commercial version of LaTex. An OS X native version is being developed, but the current version does run under Classic. It isn't free, but it is easier to use than many of the other LaTex versions out there. A lot of the math typesetters I work with use Textures to typeset books with.
Blue Sky also has a LaTex-based math plug-in for QuarkXPress called Mathsetter.
That horror story looks like very improbable to me. Maybe your friend is a computer idiot. Sorry to say that.
Actually, he's a lead engineer at Cisco, and one of the most technically knowledgeable people I've ever met, on several IETF Working Groups, etc, etc, etc.
Unfortunately, he has this bad habit of expecting things to work rationally...
So no, very probable, and he's not a computer idiot.
(He also did his physics graduate work in string theory at Rutgers until he basically got bored with it... scary, scary man.)
I'm sorry, but LyX looks better and it's free. Hmmm....
Odd, I've tried LyX, and to be honest, I prefer typing in the LaTeX manually. I know exactly what's going to happen in that case, and I find that I can *usually* craft a complex equation faster with raw LaTeX code than I can with point and click on a menu.
I kept praying for a good WYSIWYG LaTeX editor, and when I finally got one... I found out I didn't need it. It's a great way to learn LaTeX though, as long as you can see the raw code underneath.
TeXShop has a LaTeX Panel that provides click access to the most widely used math and environment tidbits, in case you forget that one command you need. It also has a Macros menu that's very extensible and quite powerful. (Check the TeXShop site for more macros to add in.) I plop my most commonly used long constructs there. Very quick and easy.
I installed iTeXMac and TeXShop and played with them.
To be honest, going to this LaTeX thing is a complete and total downgrade to me. It's horribly fastidious to write a simple equation with that system. I tried to write the Einstein equation :
$R_{\\mu\
u} - {1\\over 2} g_{\\mu\
u}R=-\\kappa T_{\\mu\
u}$
while it's so direct with Expressionist. GEEZ ! In Expressionist, it took me seconds to do ! I can't believe it !!
I installed iTeXMac and TeXShop and played with them.
To be honest, going to this LaTeX thing is a complete and total downgrade to me. It's horribly fastidious to write a simple equation with that system. I tried to write the Einstein equation :
$R_{\\mu\
u} - {1\\over 2} g_{\\mu\
u}R=-\\kappa T_{\\mu\
u}$
while it's so direct with Expressionist. GEEZ ! In Expressionist, it took me seconds to do ! I can't believe it !!
Then use Expressionist.
Everyone's got their own style of working. I find that the LaTeX learning curve is steep, but once you get the knack, it's faster and more powerful.
In TeXShop, pop up the Latex Panel ( Cmd-= ). The International tab gives you single-click to the accented chars, but if you want to do it from the keyboard, you're going to have to use TeXShop's Macros. Open up the Macros Editor (top of the Macros menu), add in macros for the various accented commands, and bind them to easy to remember keys. While typing hit the key, and voila, the command is inserted.
Alternately, you could set up a Completion trigger to make the command for you, and place the cursor where you want it inside the brackets, but that would require hitting right arrow before continuing.
In TeXShop, pop up the Latex Panel ( Cmd-= ). The International tab gives you single-click to the accented chars, but if you want to do it from the keyboard, you're going to have to use TeXShop's Macros. Open up the Macros Editor (top of the Macros menu), add in macros for the various accented commands, and bind them to easy to remember keys. While typing hit the key, and voila, the command is inserted.
Alternately, you could set up a Completion trigger to make the command for you, and place the cursor where you want it inside the brackets, but that would require hitting right arrow before continuing.
This is totally insane ! How is it possible ? It's unbelievable ! We are in 2004, not in 1980 ! Is there really someone out there, non-English, using this system without have gone insane ?
This LaTeX system is supposed to free me from thinking about layout and presentation, and worry just about my subject. I find that, on the contrary, I constantly have to worry about coding, even to type a letter with an accent. This is so archaic.
For me, it is just so much faster, when I want to make a mu to type \\mu rather than have to cursor around some panel of sybols. For me it is as much an issue of time savings as anything else. Leaving the office around 6 pm, knowing that my colleague will still be mousing around in Word five hours later--- that makes it all worth it.
But if its not for you, then so be it. There must be a way to easily enter French accents, but I have never had to deal with this much, so I can't help there.
This is totally insane ! How is it possible ? It's unbelievable ! We are in 2004, not in 1980 ! Is there really someone out there, non-English, using this system without have gone insane ?
Actually, LaTeX is more popular in Europe than it is in the US.
Quote:
This LaTeX system is supposed to free me from thinking about layout and presentation, and worry just about my subject. I find that, on the contrary, I constantly have to worry about coding, even to type a letter with an accent. This is so archaic.
*shrug* I find that it isn't so bad, but then, I'm not using wacky furrin' characters...
I'm curious though... '\\^i' vs. 'opt-i i'... is it really that intrusive? Or does it just look weird to you?
LyX may in fact be a better choice for you, if it allows for opt-i i -> \\^i conversion on the fly.
I tried LyX. It has a non-Mac like interface, something which reminds me Windoze. Also, it's buggy to death in Panther.
Faledmathematician said :
> when I want to make a mu to type \\mu rather than have to cursor around some panel of sybols.
In Expressionist, I trigger mu with a single key. Faster than to write \\mu.
I can write most equations only by using the keyboard. It is very efficient and satisfying. Typing codes and commands to write a document is very archaic to me and reminds me DOS back in the 80'.
Some solutions, like using Word or another word processor with an equation editor, has some major drawbacks. Using a LaTeX system has other major drawbacks and is (to me) a pain in the a**. Actually, I feel there is no satisfying solution to write efficiently a scientific document in OS X. This is very sad.
I'll probably continue to use Nisus and Expressionist in the Classic mode, and convert my documents to PDF as before, until I find something new which do not exist right now. To me, this is a sign that the OS X environment has not achieved its full maturity.
I'm still playing with TeXShop. I like the interface. It is clean and simple. Appears to be very stable. For the moment, I have two MAJOR pain in the butt with it :
I'm still playing with TeXShop. I like the interface. It is clean and simple. Appears to be very stable. For the moment, I have two MAJOR pain in the butt with it :
before the \\begin{document}, then use your keyboard as you always did and your chapters etc. will appear in french. And most importantly... chill down. Learning LaTeX takes time.
OzTeX has been ported to MacOS X for a couple of years now. It is a Carbon app that works fine on MacOS 9.x or MacOS X 10.x.
Yes, I know that. Actually, my post was not clear enough: I am talking about OzTeX running under OS 9 along with Alpha, one of the best text editors in our platform. When the transition to OS X began, Alpha lost the train and there is no finalised OS X version today. In the meantime TeXShop made his appearance...
Quote:
You don't anyone who uses FrameMaker? Expressionist? MathType? Equation Editor? MathEQ? MathMagic? Scientific Word/Scientific Workplace? Several of these can export to TeX.
I know actually a couple of cases of mathematicians who tortured themselves in writing thesis and papers in a Mac with MS Word.
Quote:
It would be most cumbersome to use TeX to layout a magazine. However, TeX can layout just about any kind of book and do so very well. The primary reason that scientists use TeX is that their professional journals require TeX.
Of course I was not talking about magazines, but about a more generalised use of LaTeX, outside the academic world. Yes, there is some learning, but still...
And why the professional journals require TeX? Because it is way superior in every aspect from anything easily available to science people. That's why scientists use TeX/LaTeX, that's why professional journals require TeX/LaTeX.
There's a steep learning curve to LaTeX, but it is *SO* very much worth it in the end.
Ya gotta admit, the final product is just too purty.
Edit: LyX, on the other hand... er... ow, my eyes? Good start, but it has a long way to go before I'd consider it polished enough for heavy everyday use. One to keep an eye on though.
Comments
Most submissions (in CS at least) require PDF, TeX is a distant second any more for a submission format. No, we use LaTeX because for our needs (like equations) it's still tops by a large margin. Word would produce that PDF file also, but it's just too painful.
The only two systems I've seen anyone use are LaTeX or Word, and I've seen too many horror stories (and experienced a few) regarding Word to use it myself any more.
Heck, a friend of mine just last night had Word/Win delete his book.
The whole thing.
He's a little upset.
(He tried to save, it wouldn't let him. He checks the file, it's *gone*. It won't let him Save As either. He notes that there are indeed autosave files, so he quits and restarts Word. It deleted *those* on quitting.)
Did I mention that the final document was due at the publisher's this morning?
So why did he use Word? Because the publisher insisted.
I've never seen how difficult it is to use, but generally the faculty here likes it.
I'm a physics teacher and I've written a huge book on general relativity (not published). All was done in Nisus 3.47 (very old version now) with Expressionist. All my coworkers are using MS Word and MathType. I hate MSW to death and I'll never use it.
I can make PDF out of Nisus 3.47 very easily by printing a PS file to the desktop and then convert it to PDF with the Preview app in Panther. My old physics documents are looking terrific now, and I can share them with anyone on the net (it's all in French, sorry)
My problems are these : there is no links between separate documents. I have this long Contents file and all the separate chapters and sections. I can't just click on a content and automatically go to the selected section. Also, there are many related sections between the files, but as soon as I change one, the other is broken and needs to be updated. This is a real pain in the a** to update. That's why I need to change my writing tools.
I downloaded and installed teTeX and iTeXMac yesterday and they appears to work properly. But how can I use TeX with a WYSIWYG editor ? It's a real pain in the a** to write a technical document by using commands and coding ! Geez, we are in 2004, 21st century !!
And EASY!!!
Way easy. Much better than anything I have used, and no programming!!!
www.lyx.org
It is extremely nice to use and lets you input whatever you want.
Give it a whirl. One of my favorite programs around.
Blue Sky also has a LaTex-based math plug-in for QuarkXPress called Mathsetter.
Originally posted by Kali
That horror story looks like very improbable to me. Maybe your friend is a computer idiot. Sorry to say that.
Actually, he's a lead engineer at Cisco, and one of the most technically knowledgeable people I've ever met, on several IETF Working Groups, etc, etc, etc.
Unfortunately, he has this bad habit of expecting things to work rationally...
So no, very probable, and he's not a computer idiot.
(He also did his physics graduate work in string theory at Rutgers until he basically got bored with it... scary, scary man.)
Originally posted by sassycat
I'm sorry, but LyX looks better and it's free. Hmmm....
Odd, I've tried LyX, and to be honest, I prefer typing in the LaTeX manually. I know exactly what's going to happen in that case, and I find that I can *usually* craft a complex equation faster with raw LaTeX code than I can with point and click on a menu.
I kept praying for a good WYSIWYG LaTeX editor, and when I finally got one... I found out I didn't need it. It's a great way to learn LaTeX though, as long as you can see the raw code underneath.
TeXShop has a LaTeX Panel that provides click access to the most widely used math and environment tidbits, in case you forget that one command you need. It also has a Macros menu that's very extensible and quite powerful. (Check the TeXShop site for more macros to add in.) I plop my most commonly used long constructs there. Very quick and easy.
To be honest, going to this LaTeX thing is a complete and total downgrade to me. It's horribly fastidious to write a simple equation with that system. I tried to write the Einstein equation :
$R_{\\mu\
u} - {1\\over 2} g_{\\mu\
u}R=-\\kappa T_{\\mu\
u}$
while it's so direct with Expressionist. GEEZ ! In Expressionist, it took me seconds to do ! I can't believe it !!
I'm writing in French, and apparently LaTeX can't even print the letters with an accent (è é Ã* ù etc). I have to put some commands to make it working correctly. Please, tell me how to write accents without entering commands !!
Originally posted by Kali
I installed iTeXMac and TeXShop and played with them.
To be honest, going to this LaTeX thing is a complete and total downgrade to me. It's horribly fastidious to write a simple equation with that system. I tried to write the Einstein equation :
$R_{\\mu\
u} - {1\\over 2} g_{\\mu\
u}R=-\\kappa T_{\\mu\
u}$
while it's so direct with Expressionist. GEEZ ! In Expressionist, it took me seconds to do ! I can't believe it !!
Then use Expressionist.
Everyone's got their own style of working. I find that the LaTeX learning curve is steep, but once you get the knack, it's faster and more powerful.
I'm writing in French, and apparently LaTeX can't even print the letters with an accent (è é Ã* ù etc). I have to put some commands to make it working correctly. Please, tell me how to write accents without entering commands !!
In TeXShop, pop up the Latex Panel ( Cmd-= ). The International tab gives you single-click to the accented chars, but if you want to do it from the keyboard, you're going to have to use TeXShop's Macros. Open up the Macros Editor (top of the Macros menu), add in macros for the various accented commands, and bind them to easy to remember keys. While typing hit the key, and voila, the command is inserted.
Alternately, you could set up a Completion trigger to make the command for you, and place the cursor where you want it inside the brackets, but that would require hitting right arrow before continuing.
Originally posted by Kickaha
In TeXShop, pop up the Latex Panel ( Cmd-= ). The International tab gives you single-click to the accented chars, but if you want to do it from the keyboard, you're going to have to use TeXShop's Macros. Open up the Macros Editor (top of the Macros menu), add in macros for the various accented commands, and bind them to easy to remember keys. While typing hit the key, and voila, the command is inserted.
Alternately, you could set up a Completion trigger to make the command for you, and place the cursor where you want it inside the brackets, but that would require hitting right arrow before continuing.
This is totally insane ! How is it possible ? It's unbelievable ! We are in 2004, not in 1980 ! Is there really someone out there, non-English, using this system without have gone insane ?
In this system, I have to write, for example :
\\^etre ou ne pas \\^etre oubli\\'e,
j'ai pleur\\'e, l\\`a o\\`u il \\'etait temps.
while the same on the keyboard is
être ou ne pas être oublié.
j'ai pleuré lÃ* où il était temps.
This LaTeX system is supposed to free me from thinking about layout and presentation, and worry just about my subject. I find that, on the contrary, I constantly have to worry about coding, even to type a letter with an accent. This is so archaic.
But if its not for you, then so be it. There must be a way to easily enter French accents, but I have never had to deal with this much, so I can't help there.
Originally posted by Kali
This is totally insane ! How is it possible ? It's unbelievable ! We are in 2004, not in 1980 ! Is there really someone out there, non-English, using this system without have gone insane ?
Actually, LaTeX is more popular in Europe than it is in the US.
This LaTeX system is supposed to free me from thinking about layout and presentation, and worry just about my subject. I find that, on the contrary, I constantly have to worry about coding, even to type a letter with an accent. This is so archaic.
*shrug* I find that it isn't so bad, but then, I'm not using wacky furrin' characters...
I'm curious though... '\\^i' vs. 'opt-i i'... is it really that intrusive? Or does it just look weird to you?
LyX may in fact be a better choice for you, if it allows for opt-i i -> \\^i conversion on the fly.
Faledmathematician said :
> when I want to make a mu to type \\mu rather than have to cursor around some panel of sybols.
In Expressionist, I trigger mu with a single key. Faster than to write \\mu.
I can write most equations only by using the keyboard. It is very efficient and satisfying. Typing codes and commands to write a document is very archaic to me and reminds me DOS back in the 80'.
Some solutions, like using Word or another word processor with an equation editor, has some major drawbacks. Using a LaTeX system has other major drawbacks and is (to me) a pain in the a**. Actually, I feel there is no satisfying solution to write efficiently a scientific document in OS X. This is very sad.
I'll probably continue to use Nisus and Expressionist in the Classic mode, and convert my documents to PDF as before, until I find something new which do not exist right now. To me, this is a sign that the OS X environment has not achieved its full maturity.
1- Using the default macros, chapters titles are in plain English. For example : Chapter 1 : La relativité générale. The word "chapter" is in English, and it should be "Chapitre" in French. I don't know how to change that.
2-I can't type normally all the French letters with an accent (é, è, Ã*, ù, ê). I have to put a special command in the text or I have to search the right letter in the international palette. I want to use my keyboard like in any normal word processor or text editor.
Is there a way to change that ? PLEASE !!!!
Originally posted by Kali
I'm still playing with TeXShop. I like the interface. It is clean and simple. Appears to be very stable. For the moment, I have two MAJOR pain in the butt with it :
1- Using the default macros, chapters titles are in plain English. For example : Chapter 1 : La relativité générale. The word "chapter" is in English, and it should be "Chapitre" in French. I don't know how to change that.
2-I can't type normally all the French letters with an accent (é, è, Ã*, ù, ê). I have to put a special command in the text or I have to search the right letter in the international palette. I want to use my keyboard like in any normal word processor or text editor.
Is there a way to change that ? PLEASE !!!!
Declare these
\\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\\usepackage[francais]{babel}
before the \\begin{document}, then use your keyboard as you always did and your chapters etc. will appear in french. And most importantly... chill down. Learning LaTeX takes time.
Originally posted by Mr. Me
OzTeX has been ported to MacOS X for a couple of years now. It is a Carbon app that works fine on MacOS 9.x or MacOS X 10.x.
Yes, I know that. Actually, my post was not clear enough: I am talking about OzTeX running under OS 9 along with Alpha, one of the best text editors in our platform. When the transition to OS X began, Alpha lost the train and there is no finalised OS X version today. In the meantime TeXShop made his appearance...
You don't anyone who uses FrameMaker? Expressionist? MathType? Equation Editor? MathEQ? MathMagic? Scientific Word/Scientific Workplace? Several of these can export to TeX.
I know actually a couple of cases of mathematicians who tortured themselves in writing thesis and papers in a Mac with MS Word.
It would be most cumbersome to use TeX to layout a magazine. However, TeX can layout just about any kind of book and do so very well. The primary reason that scientists use TeX is that their professional journals require TeX.
Of course I was not talking about magazines, but about a more generalised use of LaTeX, outside the academic world. Yes, there is some learning, but still...
And why the professional journals require TeX? Because it is way superior in every aspect from anything easily available to science people. That's why scientists use TeX/LaTeX, that's why professional journals require TeX/LaTeX.
Originally posted by PB
Learning LaTeX takes time.
I'll second this.
There's a steep learning curve to LaTeX, but it is *SO* very much worth it in the end.
Ya gotta admit, the final product is just too purty.
Edit: LyX, on the other hand... er... ow, my eyes? Good start, but it has a long way to go before I'd consider it polished enough for heavy everyday use. One to keep an eye on though.