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

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg95465] Re: [mg95426] Re: Which editor do you use for math articles
  • From: DrMajorBob <btreat1 at austin.rr.com>
  • Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:58:48 -0500 (EST)
  • References: <200901161109.GAA14132@smc.vnet.net>
  • Reply-to: drmajorbob at longhorns.com

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


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