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Re: Re: Which editor do you use for math articles

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg95595] Re: [mg95552] Re: Which editor do you use for math articles
• From: Curtis Osterhoudt <cfo at lanl.gov>
• Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:01:46 -0500 (EST)
• Organization: LANL
• References: <gkppt1$dpi$1@smc.vnet.net> <200901211147.GAA12547@smc.vnet.net>
• Reply-to: cfo at lanl.gov

On Wednesday 21 January 2009 04:47:31 Sjoerd C. de Vries wrote:
[...]
> 
> LaTeX had all kinds of problems. Figures never appeared where you
> wanted them. 

   Thus the h! flag. Most of the GUI frontends to LaTeX now allow for easy specification of where you want the figures, and the degree of their "floatiness".

> Quite often they ended up bunched together at the end of 
> a chapter. You needed a kludge like the here.sty style file. Using
> different fonts was next to impossible. LaTeX2e that appeared later
> improved that (so I have heard). However, years later, when I tried to
> typeset my plain LaTeX based thesis once again, I couldn't get it to
> compile with the then current 2e version. So much for compatibility.

  This may still be a problem. 

> Equations of more than average complexity easily filled up half a page
> of code rubbish and were a pain to debug. 

  No problem with, e.g., LyX and its "instant preview".

> Spellchecking less than 
> basic. Try to write a multiple language peace and spellcheck that in
> LaTeX. 

  This is no problem now.

> Virtually no picture tools. No tracked changes. No 
> collaboration tools etc etc.

   All of that is quite easy now. 

> I don't want to start a flame war. Just balancing the discussion
> somewhat. I am well aware of many or most of the problems of Word.
> 
> Cheers -- Sjoerd
> 
> 

  Points taken! All of the "desktop publishing" paradigms can *really* be worked on.



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