Re: Re: Which editor do you use for math articles
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg95470] Re: [mg95426] Re: Which editor do you use for math articles
- From: DrMajorBob <btreat1 at austin.rr.com>
- Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:59:43 -0500 (EST)
- References: <200901161109.GAA14132@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: drmajorbob at longhorns.com
What I find odd is using a text editor for this. Is TeX a version of HTML, then? Bobby On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:30:46 -0600, Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu> wrote: > What you say is both true and non-true! A commercial package such as PC > TeX is a single application that includes the editor, previewer, etc. > > On the other hand, the origin of TeX is in the *nix world, so the > paradigm persists of a separate tool for each task: a text editor; the > executable TeX engine itself; and a previewer (from which one often does > the printing). The TeX engine may itself have a version that produces > pdf directly, or one may use a separate tool in the bundle that converts > the the standard TeX device-independent output .dvi file into pdf. > > The TeX engine is the analog of Mathematica's kernel; the editor and > previewer together form the analog of Mathematica's front end; and the > various TeX/LaTeX packages are analogs of specialized Mathematical > packages. > > With contemporary distributions, however, the separation into the > different tools is largely transparent to the user. The front-end editor > is, in a sense, the application, and you don't really have to care what > executable or batch file is doing what. > > About fonts: producing a high-quality font family that includes all the > necessary fonts for mathematics is no mean feat. That was a reason that > Donald Knuth originally designed TeX, because so many journal articles > looked plain ugly as they tried to mix and match symbols with letters. > And among symbols I include upper & lower-case Greek, both upright and > slanted, Cyrillic, "blackboard bold", Hebrew (for set theory's Aleph, > e.g.) > > The standard, default set of fonts is Computer Modern, which looks great > on-screen but can seem a bit spindly in print. Many folks who are > producing technical documents with mathematical symbols want a different > choice, and that's why the two most popular alternatives -- Times with > MathTimes and Lucida with Lucida Math -- were developed. To use those, > instead of Computer Modern, one simply includes a line or two of code in > the document to load some packages; then, provided you have the > underlying fonts, everything works transparently; you do have many > options available that you can set for these fonts though, and some even > for Computer Modern, e.g., just what font to use for script. > > (TeX is is used for many purposes far from math and science, and there > are fonts and supporting packages available for a huge number of world > languages.) > > It is NOT difficult at all to getting a working TeX system: my TeX-naive > Math 370 students all managed to do it in short order. > > But just like using Mathematica effectively takes some learning effort, > so using LaTeX effectively does, too. > > DrMajorBob wrote: >> Judging from your links, there IS no application that creates, edits, >> and maintains LaTex (and displays it; I forgot that part). >> It takes at least four different pieces of software? And dozens of >> extra, optional pieces? For one task? >> And you sometimes use a different package because it handles certain >> fonts, but the other package doesn't? >> Wow! That sounds like quite a briar patch you're suggesting. >> Anyway, www.tug.org/mactex/ isn't loading, and THAT'S not encouraging. >> I initially used TeX for early versions of my dissertation back in >> 1987-1989, but the writing went on hiatus when I was assigned to the >> Pentagon, dissertation unfinished. (Dr. Klingman, my adviser, was dying >> of brain cancer at the time, though I don't offer that as an excuse.) >> When I took up the struggle again in 1992, I used Word and its Equation >> Editor (later adding MathEdit because Equation Editor was only its >> stunted younger brother). It was a MUCH better experience than what I'd >> gone through with TeX, although I suppose TeX had improved in the >> meantime as well. Sadly, it was not long after finishing the >> dissertation that Word would no longer display the equations properly. >> (A year or two?) >> Still, my MS Thesis was accomplished (1983) with rub-off templates for >> equation symbols, so it was a very significant progression from that, >> to 1988 TeX, to 1992 MathEdit. >> Oh, and let's not forget the Wang workstations I used, 1984-1986, >> which handled equations better than anything I've seen since... until >> Mathematica. >> Another poster suggested LyX, and it "looks" very promising (though >> looks can be deceiving). It seems to do everything at once. >> Bobby >> On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 04:31:52 -0600, Murray Eisenberg >> <murray at math.umass.edu> wrote: >> >>> There are several distributions of TeX, which include the LaTeX macro >>> package along with scads of other packages that modify the default >>> behavior of, or add new functionality to, LaTeX. Some of these >>> distributions, except for Linux, include a "front end" editor that >>> integrates into the input -> dvi (or pdf) viewer -> print chain. >>> >>> For some recommendations, see the menu item "About Math 370" at: >>> >>> http://bcrc.bio.umass.edu/courses/fall2008/math/math370/ >>> >>> And you may be interested in the items under "LaTeX resources" at that >>> site. >>> >>> For a more complete listing of TeX/LaTeX distributions >>> >>> http://www.latex-project.org/ftp.html >>> >>> and the links there. >>> >>> There are both free and commercial distributions. >>> >>> For an easy-to-install Windows distribution that includes a front end >>> editor, I recommend ProTeXt. Personally I most often use the free >>> MiKTeX >>> distribution (which is part of ProTeXt) together with the low-cost >>> front >>> end editor WinEdt (which is more powerful than the editor that comes >>> with ProTeXt but is more complicated to configure). Sometimes I use the >>> nicely integrated, commercial PCTeX system (www.pctex.com) just because >>> some of the LaTeX packages it includes make it much easier to use the >>> non-default Lucida fonts or the MathTime Pro fonts. >>> >>> >>> DrMajorBob wrote: >>>> What application creates, edits, and maintains LaTex? >>>> >>>> Sign me curious, >>>> Bobby >>>> >>>> On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:27:37 -0600, Murray Eisenberg >>>> <murray at math.umass.edu> wrote: >>>> >>>>> If you want an interactive document, then there's little, if >>>>> anything, >>>>> that can touch Mathematica. >>>>> >>>>> If you want a more-or-less static document, then the gold standard in >>>>> the mathematical community, and in a good part of the scientific >>>>> community, is LaTeX. You can include any Mathematica-produced graphic >>>>> there by exporting it as EPS. >>>>> >>>>> And LaTeX documents today typically wind up as PDF, with embedded >>>>> hyperlinks and even animation and some interactive effects. >>>>> >>>>> TL wrote: >>>>>> Although Mathematica 7 is a very powerful peace of software as far >>>>>> as >>>>>> the computational part goes it turns out to be quite limited and >>>>>> unstable when it comes to word editing and processing, despite the >>>>>> claims in the help that it is almost as powerful as WinWord. >>>>>> For example it crashed multiple times on me while I was trying to >>>>>> setup >>>>>> the right fonts and sizes, as a result I lost all my work several >>>>>> times, it also messed up my fonts, sizes, styles, settings for the >>>>>> equations, its undo is totally useless and I couldn't figure out >>>>>> how to >>>>>> format a text and a graphic in two or more columns and display them >>>>>> side >>>>>> by side in a notebook as well as how to control what goes on what >>>>>> page >>>>>> and while printing to PDF often it wouldn't print all pages, but >>>>>> just >>>>>> the first 2-3. >>>>>> >>>>>> All that said I'm wondering what program to use to write my work >>>>>> in, and >>>>>> I'm asking for advice - is WinWord any better when it comes to >>>>>> handling >>>>>> equations? >>>>>> Any other choices? >>>>>> >>>>>> What is the best way to export Mathematica 7 equations and graphics? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> > -- DrMajorBob at longhorns.com
- References:
- Which editor do you use for math articles
- From: TL <latev@shaw.ca>
- Which editor do you use for math articles