On Thursday 08 February 2007 09:47, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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/ -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
