On Thu, Jun 04, 2009, Ralph Corderoy wrote: > > Tadziu Hoffmann wrote: > > > Formatting directives in LaTeX are much more verbose. If you really > > > have to type all that stuff (instead of using editor shortcuts or > > > what else) it gets in the way a bit. > > > > I don't think this is really an issue. I find that when working on a > > document, only 10% of the time is actually taken up by text entry, 90% > > consists of editing already-entered text (and shifting stuff around > > etc.), and most of this editing regards the text proper, not the > > formatting. Thus I would say that learning to use your text editor > > efficiently will benefit you much more than saving a couple of > > keystrokes on a markup tag. > > True. But the other side of LaTex being more verbose is that it's extra > noise when trying to read the underlying text. With troff's macro > invocation at the start of the line I find it's quite easy to skip the > macro name entirely when coming across, e.g. a .B, in the middle of a > output paragraph but at the start of the source line.
FWIW, I write structured plain text files and pass them through sed to introduce groff or LaTex formatting. Aside from keeping the files clean/readable, it makes things easier when I want to recycle them--say, into html. Normally, I toss the formatted files when my pipeline's complete; only rarely do I keep them, and that's usually only for micro typography, like creating beautiful rag or hanging punctuation outside the right margin. -- Peter Schaffter