[TriLUG] LaTeX revisited

[Steve Litt]

On Thursday 08 February 2007 09:47, tomed at bellsouth.net wrote:
> I've recently looked into LaTeX after several years of other types of
> document management/publishing. I was pleased to find that development
> on LaTeX has continued, making it somewhat more user friendly. I'd say
> it's now as easy, for complex documents, as your friendly neighborhood
> word processor.
>
> * It now has a pdf rendering engine, with support for standard
> graphics formats, so it's no longer necessary to convert images to
> eps, and pdf generation is a one step process.
>
> * There are more easy options for page layout, headers, footers, etc.
>
> * My company requires long tables in some documentation. These tables
> can go on for page after page, a real headache in word processors.
> LaTeX now handles these nicely.
>
> * You can easily modularize documents. This feature has always been
> there, but it was my exposure to xml documentation that introduced
> me to the concept. It makes it very easy, for example, to move huge
> tables around, and to add, delete, or reuse them.
>
> Some of the old issues are there, for example it's still difficult
> to convert documents from word processor formats. Microsoft's strange
> ideas about certain unicode characters are still a hassle (although
> LaTeX now has good support for standard unicode.)
>
> Also, lots of people love the MS revision control system, as it's simple
> and doesn't require a RC server.
>
> So it's still the case that it's difficult to collaborate with users who
> love their word processors and who know nothing of text based RC. For me
> this means that I only use LaTeX (or xml) when I'm flying solo.
>
> Tom Ed

Absolutely! LaTeX creates a beautifully typeset book. My last 3 books (and my 
upcoming one) were written in LaTeX (in my case via the LyX front end).

That brings up another point. With LyX, if one pre-creates the paragraph and 
character styles that will be needed in the book, then writing the book is a 
typing task (well, except for the organization and content :-).

For anyone interested in LyX, LaTeX and TeX, I have some beginners guides on 
the net:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/lyx/

SteveT

Steve Litt
Author: Universal Troubleshooting Process books and courseware
http://www.troubleshooters.com/