At 06:09 10.02.2006 -0500, Doran, Harold wrote: >I didn't follow this thread entirely, but I did make a LaTeX >recommendation and I know that wasn't what you were asking for. But, if I >may, let me respond to the ideas you present below in an attempt to be >somewhat persuasive.
No, you are correct, I was not looking for a LaTex solution. I would never want to try to wean my students from an office type package. That would not be worth the trouble -- for me. They should find out about these things by themseves. For my own part, I am curious, and will probably have a look at it. >IMHO, this are horrible inefficiencies of SPSS and other packages, not >virtues. To do what you are suggesting requires that one work in two >environments, word and SPSS. If the researcher changes their analysis or >wants to tweak the data, then you rerun the analysis, go back to SPSS copy >and paste again. Why would someone want to do this when a much more >efficient method exists? Hmm. I would think that most users handle a number of applications for different purposes. I do not expect R to handle my e-mail, nor do I expect a spreadsheet to do text formatting. In itself, that is not a good argument IMHO. As to the trouble with cut and paste, well, I do not do that operation that often. But I do want things do be simple, simply to avoid wasting time explaing. >Instead, with Sweave, you embed your R code inside the LaTeX document and >work in a *single* environment. There is no need to copy and paste and if >the data or analysis changes, you update your document very easily saving >time, effort, and room for errors. In addition, the tables look much >better than word, which (again IMHO) is an aggregiously bad program to >begin with. I have always liked the formatting of the documents I have recognized as being formatted with LaTex. And the Sweave concept seems very interesting. I have never heard of that system before, so thank you for mentioning it. I will have a look at it. >Using this method, you can place any R code in the document, including >graphics, tables (say with xtable) or anything. There is never a need to >copy and paste as there is a wonderful, seemless effort between the two >programs. Because LaTeX has options for presentations, one can easily >create slides that look much better than ppt using a similar method saving >hours of effort in my experience. > >So, instead of getting R to do what other less sophisticated programs do, >which is an effort backwards into the old, and inefficient, ways of doing >things, R is moving progressively forward and offers these similar >capabilities, but in a much more efficient manner. > >Last, if your students are doing technical work, I would suggest they >should be familiar with TeX anyhow. It is free, easy to use and learn, >offers significant advances alongside R, and equations actually look like >equations. BTW, creating and numbering equations in word is about the most >difficult effort on earth! This is students of psychology. Not technical work, and the number of formulas per 100 research reports and paper would be closer to 1 per 100 papers than 1 per 10 papers. They have been using Office type programs almost since Kindergarten. That is a simple fact of life (for me at least). Tom ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html