On Wednesday, 25 January 2017 at 20:07:22 UTC, Chris Wright wrote:
On Wed, 25 Jan 2017 11:58:45 +0000, Chris wrote:
On Tuesday, 24 January 2017 at 14:27:15 UTC, aberba wrote:
Which one works well? I'm more concerned about syntax
highlighting and line numbering (in some cases). Support for
custom fonts.
I know people who write articles and their Ph.D.
thesis in LaTeX to get maximum control over the layout (to
avoid
Word-like surprises).
If you are submitting a paper to an academic journal, they will
tell you what format they expect. If you sent a paper as a Word
document when they require LaTeX, they will reject it with a
note telling you to use LaTeX instead. Conversely, if they
expect Word documents, they will reject anything in LaTeX.
They usually accept both Word and LaTeX and provide templates.
I've never heard of LaTeX only though, because a lot of academics
wouldn't want to use it - and shouldn't be forced to.
As a PhD student, your advisor will tell you what format to
use. This will almost certainly match the most commonly used
file format for journal submissions in your field.
Not true. It's about what the printing company accepts - and they
are usually fine with LaTeX or a PDF generated out of it. A Ph.D.
thesis still has to be printed and bound. I think PDF is accepted
for digital storage.
Regardless, you want *consistency* more than control. If you
submit to a CS journal, they will often give you a .sty file --
this sets up page layout and the like, taking control away from
the writer of the article. If you submit to a humanities
journal, they might have a Word document template. They might
also simply give style requirements that you must obey.
Er, yes. That's how it works. Always ask the publisher first. But
that wasn't the question. The question was Markdown or LaTeX, and
if you want to generate your own PDF for e.g. a M.A. or Ph.D.,
some people prefer LaTeX because of the fine grained control it
offers. I don't know a single Ph.D. student who used Word who
didn't have to fight with Word stubbornly restructuring the
layout. The footnotes, the graphics ... a nightmare.
The downside is the source code.
It's not very nice to read and you get lost easily. And try to
get back
after a year and change something!
It's like C++. If you use the same restricted subset that you
understand concretely, you shouldn't have a bad time. If you
use a different set of packages and macros every document,
you're in for a world of hurt.
Unfortunately, you need to add packages for various reasons, e.g.
IPA (not the beer!) and Maths extensions, formatting extensions
etc. The odd macro will also make sense.
Also, you have to convert it to PDF
each time you wanna (proof)read it, so you usually deal with
two layouts
at the same time (source code and PDF/HTML), which is time
consuming and
error prone.
It separates the writing / editing process from the proofing
process and gives you a significantly different format for
proofing. This is helpful for catching errors.
It is helpful to catch errors (cf. the "Save and preview"
function on this forum), that's why I always read my LibreOffice
documents as PDF as well. However, constantly switching between
two representations introduces additional errors.
I wouldn't use htlatex. Instead of a simple <em> or <i> tag, it
produces <span class="autogenerated-i-1"> type things. Which is
okay if you just want to throw it up online, but if you want to
produce an ebook with maximum compatibility, simpler HTML is
better.
A lot of publishers will prefer Word, because they can easily
edit it and if they have their own layout section, they will
transform Word to txt and paste it into say Adobe InDesign.
Change tracking and commenting are the huge things publishers
use Word for.
Yes, if they edit it on the screen. Some editors remove all
formatting, print it and read it on the paper. Formatting and
change tracking is not always advisable, because it can introduce
errors like notes or tracked changes that are exported alongside
the normal text. You'd be surprised at how many writers spend
hours fighting with Word, trying to format everything only to
have it removed by the editor.
Either you are given a template / style guide to adhere to, in
which case they probably have an automatic conversion tool, or
you shouldn't bother too much with formatting, because they have
their in-house layout crew.
I for my part have stopped worrying about it too much. Just
write the text (in Word or an Ascii editor)
If it's a few pages, it's painful and error-prone to retro-add
formatting once you finished the content. If it's a hundred
pages, you might need to spend several weeks to format it. That
doesn't seem like a good tradeoff to me.
Usually you only add "Header (1, 2, 3)" etc. Of course, emphasis
(bold, italic etc.). has to be marked in the text somehow, else
you'll never find it again. Then you can add / insert the
graphics and tables. Not too big a deal. It's worse having to
restructure an existing layout I think.
