Agreed. It is actually very, very difficult to convert a native LaTeX document to a MS Word document. Some people suggest Pandoc but that is not really feasible. It can work for small snippets but not really for a longer document with lots of mathematics. If you already have the LaTeX source then there is very little practical point in converting to rich text format. To get from tex to docx unfortuantely sometimes you just have to save to txt, import into Word and manually typeset the equations and tables. Basically there is no easy simple way to convert cleanly and simply from LaTeX to MS Word as of early 2018.
This is for physics/engineering documents that use a lot of advanced mathematics that are quicker and easier to typeset in LaTeX, but not all physicist/engineers use LaTeX. Which means the original must be converted to MS Word in order for co-authors to contribute. It is also very possible for some mathematicians to only know how to use MS Word. Although a majority of mathematicians use LaTeX for their work a sizeable minority only know how to use MS Word. Also as unusual as it may sound some conferences and journals also insist on MS Word manuscripts. This is basically because the reviewers want to use the MS Word "track changes" feature when they review the document. There is no easy equivalent to "track changes" in LaTeX so basically some scientists/engineers have to convert between LaTeX and MS Word. Note that version control is not necessarily easy for some people who do not do software developement.
Had a professor that made us do all our hw in LaTeX my Junior year we realized at the end of the semester he was trying to turn us into grad students lol
The beauty of LaTeX to me is how we can produce so much with limited computer hardware. I have produced LaTeX documents on the original Raspberry Pi 1. It only has 500MB of RAM. Forty years ago when I was at university I would have though I had died and gone to heaven if I had LaTeX and the Pi given to me.
Simply beautiful. Your meme's truly settled my rustled jimmies. Also, I've been using LaTeX for a good number of years but never made a universal bib file. I'm an idiot. Thank you for that golden nugget. Edit: random landscapes was beautiful. I love your content but I'm subscribing for the memes and landscapes. Vim + LaTeX master-race is +1 stronger.
Been using for years but now I love XeTeX because it uses PostScript and TTF fonts without conversion -- the whole Unicode awareness is very cool. Plus now, TeX editors can have an almost live-updating PDF display as you work in the text editor so you can see if your codes are working as expected. LaTeX is simply a _must_ for any documents of any significant length and/or complexity.
Write any math expression in word. Its gonna take at least 5 minutes. I can do the same thing using latex in 2 seconds. Not to mention that it looks 5 million times better.
I love mom which is a macro set for groff. If you don't have to tinker around with layout too much then it is just fine! Much smaller, lightning fast, use all kinds of preprocessors, put it in Unix pipeline. I do the exams for my students with mom and m4, which does all the math for the grades and points. Pictures on a extra sheet done with Impress. Simple but perfect for me! Thank you Mr. Schaffter!
I wanted to show around 15 plots to my project supervisor so I tried to put the images all in all in a Word file. It turned out really weird so I ended up making a script that would get all files ending in .png and place them in a latex file. That made things a trillion times easier and I ended up using the same script over and over whenever I created new plots.
Lol it can be done with tikz; I haven't ever had the need though. I will say one thing I've never figured out how to easily implement is using emojis in documents, which has actually come up. I can insert them as pictures, but I'm waiting for them to be streamlined in a package.
And if you don't wanna bother using tikz for very simple things you could use artist mode in emacs, there is a guy on youtube who showed how to make UML diagrams with emacs artist mode and ditaa which I find to be very overkill but hey if you want to keep things minimalistic, why not.
@@LukeSmithxyz You know emoji are part of the Unicode standard now, eh? Are you specifically wanting coloured emoji? Because in that case, you just need to insert as images.
In undergrad I was a double major in Applied Physics and Linguistics (at UCSC, I recognize some of your references haha). LaTeX was my friend for both majors. Beautifully typeset quantum mechanics equations, and beautifully typeset syntax trees.
What I've found is that for short stuff (like 2 pages or less), I use markdown-pdf, but when I gotta do anything else (or I just want to use LaTeX, which is about 95% of the time anyways) I just use LaTeX.
I agree with you on all the line generally speaking, with only one exception: you’re right when you say that there are packages for everything, but Latex was originally developed and structured for English native speakers, but if you need to adjust stuff like spellchecking for different languages (like Italian in my case), well ... it’s absolutely possible, but is not really so easy. Anyway, even with this kind of minor problems, since I ‘m using Latex I’ll never came back to WYSYWYG or, so called, office automation stuff for any reason. Fine and happy with Latex.
I used LaTeX for my thesis but wasn’t convinced on its benefit. The main arguments I see for LaTeX is the auto-numbering, cross referencing, and bibliography, but MS Word has native features to do all these since at least 2010. As documents get large, Word does become a pain and is slow, so I would lean towards LaTeX. My company needs to produce massive calculation packages for our projects (1000+ pages) and Word is a write off in that situation. My issue with LaTeX though often came with formatting, the dumbest things would take hours to resolve, like text overflowing the text area or even just coloring a divider line for the header. There’s a lot of packages that can do the same thing but I found many didn’t work. So I haven’t really found any solution yet that I’m content with for big documents
Being an unbiased user of both software, you were clearly using Word in the wrong way.. All the problems you faced could have been avoided if you had spent some more time (even less compared to the time you spent on learning LaTeX) to learn Word's features too.. There are tons of add-ins for Word too. Still though, for reports I prefer LaTeX.
I've been using LaTeX pretty exclusively my entire adult life, since 2005 or so. I have love-hate relationship with it. I won't write my list of complaints here, but suffice to say is that LaTeX is great to put text into a template, but veer away from that template and try to do something a bit different, or load two packages that don't like each other, and you may find yourself spending hours upon hours of macro tweaking. I've been thinking of maybe trying another TeX-based system but I suspect there is no salvation there...
I think he wasn't recommending against using LaTeX, only that for simple documents it's more pleasant to write in the visual and light syntax of something like Markdown (which is also what you'd see used in plaintext emails or forums for example). Then you can convert to LaTeX, HTML or virtually every other format thanks to pandoc. See some examples [here](pandoc.org/demos.html ), of particular interest to LaTeX users are examples 4 and 13. Note how the same MANUAL.txt file written in Markdown syntax is used in all cases, and how simple it is internally. I follow more or less the approach described [here](peerj.com/articles/cs-112/). It allows me to write a single document without all the verbosity that goes into writing LaTeX. The same text ends up being both a web page in my blog and also a beautiful PDF ready for print produced by LaTeX. More complex scenarios will require that I go to LaTeX directly though.
@@TTTtowelythetowelTTT Markdown is more useful for taking notes and this kind of stuff. It's made to be processable (so you can convert it) but also readable in plaintext.
I'm still an undergrad but I literally spent 2 days learning the basics for a simple English letter and now i refuse to use word, especially for lab reports, and also you can upload your stuff to github for a group lab report lol. Latex has saved so much time but then also I tend to spend a whole day writing boilerplate, convincing myself I made progress lol. I guess the time spent is well worth it though considering the table of contents is generated automatically among other things
@@yash1152 i think he is referring to create a github project, upload the .tex file, make some "develop" branch and then if one of the workmates wants to make some changes, he just have to make some new branch, write them and make a merge request. Like someone would do with a programming project. Pretty good idea as long as everyone on the group knows latex.
@@juandavidortiz6596 oh, ohkay. i understand this - using some vcs (version control system) on it being a non-binary file format but that way it was originally phrased was somewhat ... umh, too loose way to put that, so, couldnt make sense of that.
Mad respect to you for doing your masters! Wish I could give a hand shake of respecc. There were a lot of I wished that I wasn't born doing my bachelor of nursing... 35 days left till graduation. 😭
I wish I had learned LaTeX for my lab reports this semester but I've learned the basics over the past few days and it was pretty quick and easy. I'm sure this is gonna come in handy for my bachelor's thesis which will eventually hit me!
I switched in the middle of my master thesis from Word to LaTeX and it took me just a weekend to reproduce everything I had in Word. The learning curve is very steep and I had to do almost nothing for the bibliography, since I used citavi to export all my literature. A shame I decided to get into it so late, even very basic knowledge is enough to produce good looking results.
@@DerBauerful latex was amazing. Its better if you dont get super anal about how things look but even if you do, as long as you are decent at hacking stuff together you can do a lot with the styling system. Its advisable to get a good setup for it so you can write easily and have the preview update fast. I think I used biblatex for references and that was pretty good. As for my thesis... I ended up failing that and then dropping out all together, but at that point I already had the job I wanted and with a lot of extra learning in my personal time I now work for one of the best companies in my profession, in my country. I havent regretted dropping out once since doing it but I would advice other people to not drop out. You will be starting with a massive disadvantage over others and you will have to be ready to put in a lot of work to overcome that. Hope that answers your questions.
Absolutely love Latex dont get me wrong. But word can also do a lot of things automatically like cross referencing, referencing, automatic formatting, etc. Also I agree, for long documents dont even think about word.
You don't have to number anything manually in Word. It has built in tools for doing all of that - examples, figures, references, all handled automatically.
Many of those features in Word still suck. Well, I use them a lot in words and they suck so bad that I have to fix it up almost all the time. It turns out that I spend less time to manually do the numbering than to fix the bug in those automatic numbering/referencing systems in Word.
Come on Luke Smith, it is easy to answer the quesiton why people don't use LaTeX, because it is much more difficult to start with it. Once you know how to use it it is easy but you need to invest a few hours to get started with it and before you even can start with it you have a relatively long install process, you need to figure out which editor to use and how it works... I have tried it. The LaTeX-input is the easy part, the software around it, that is the problem.
I started out using the compiled Waterloo markup language simply called Script, which was before LaTeX was even invented. Along came Word and I switched to that because WYSIWYG is just plain easier and everyone else uses it. It saves you a step, usually one with a built-in coffee break. Yeah, for really long, complex documents like you're talking about (theses, technical books, etc.), LaTeX was traditionally more powerful. But today I can get everything done with LibreOffice, and I can work in WYSIWYG mode. Word processing, footnotes, endnotes, table of contents, lists of illustrations, etc., indexes, references, bibliographies, spreadsheets, embedded tables, figures, slideshows, databases, 2D vector drawings, diagrams, charts, math formulas, it does it all. If you're doing a book-length document that you'd like to edit chapter by chapter, check out the master document feature. It used to be a little light in the help and documentation department compared to Microsoft Office, but now I see that they've written new documentation. Check out the Zotero extension for keeping track of your sources for use in references and bibliographies. It will even read and write MS Word and Excel document formats if you need it to. I understand your ardor, really I do. But for most documents LaTeX is way overkill. And there's no reason to pay extra for Microsoft Word when LibreOffice can do the same thing (and more) for free. Unless you're writing for a publication that insists on LaTeX source, there's no reason not to use LibreOffice.
I found LaTex when I first started needing to write pseudocode a few months ago. Looking back I wish I would have learned it at the beginning of my undergrad instead of in the last few weeks of it. It would have saved me so much time.
I wrote my BA thesis in LateX. The picture handling is a miracle not mentioning the equation numbering and the TOC. :D Edit: My peeps advised against it though.
> _The picture handling is a miracle_ hi, can you expand on that? like how was it great? i am asking as i read some other comment and it mentioned smth related - that image setting - scaling, tilting etc is hard in latex. so, would you like to shed more light?
I hate this video, because I need to run an IEEE workshop, and this is the best and most comprehensive video on youtube for showing why students should swap, and I can't use it. Now I'm just going to demonstrate it live rather than show a video because the rest are subpar.
I learned LaTeX when I was messing with the Desmos API. Interestingly, their website uses a full LaTeX compiler for displaying expressions but it only supports a very small subset of LaTeX for actual expression parsing. This leads to pretty interesting results like a \pm rendering a plus-minus symbol properly while simultaneously displaying an error message about the variables p and m not being defined. Cool stuff.
How does it works with foreign languages that writes from right to left? I know Word sucks when you try to use right to left align language with symbols like parentheses and always mix my text align
I love latex as well, but I have issues with it: 1) Placing images suck, really does. Scaling images, encapsulating them with text, tilting them sideways etc. is really difficult. Whenever I place an image, it's always an adventure to google and 999 different websites. 2) Sharing with other people.... people don't use latex. 3) It's verbose. You're typing \textbf{ } just to make something bold. Just CTRL+B man. Yeah you can "set shortcuts" but who has time to remember all that? 4) Tables. Hooooly cow, it's so much difficult to place tables onto a document that I have to use a website to generate table code for me. 5) Doing anything new. I am already really busy and finding time to learn to do something is quite time consuming. 6) You have 999 different ways of doing the same thing. Just have 1 option that can do everything. 7) Packages. You've found what you need to do but you need to install a frikn package for it. Waste of time. The only great thing about latex really: It prints out good looking documents and it's consistent. That's it.
Hello Luke, I am really considering going to use LaTeX, but can you answer some questions for me? What file format will LaTeX output? What platforms does it support? How will my lecturer open it on there computer. Thanks Steven
LaTeX (specifically the pdflatex command) outputs documents in .pdf form, so people on all platforms can view them identically (you can also output files as dvi/ps/hmtl if you really want). So, yeah, all operating systems and platforms will be able to easily see the documents you make. You can also write and compile LaTeX on any OS you want in many different ways depending on what you want.
I learned Latex and wrote my whole thesis with it, but if I get the chance, I will never use it again. When used directly, it is simply a stupid and cumbersome way of writing documents. It is free, and that is good. As a core technology for other pieces of software, such as Lyx (www.lyx.org/), then I must admit Latex is brilliant and awesome.
Finally deciding to learn λατεχ because I've been using LibreOffice which is buggy: objects embedded in Writer documents often delete themselves when they go to swap memory. And LO Math is only based on a small subset of τεχ, which isn't enough for my needs.
thanks a lot for writing the names in greek alphabets also refer the comment by Mikael Nuutila in reply to comment by Electricity taster on "wrong pronunciation of latex"
So here is my problem... You mention that you had to manually organise your references, examples, headers, figures, etc. So instead of learning how to use word properly, you decided to learn LaTeX. That's no bad thing but damn you went at it arse backwards. Word has powerful referencing and outlining tools already built in. I regularly write 60-150 page reports in word (one every week near as dammit), they have as you state many many many references, footnotes, images, tables, etc. If I need to add something at the top of my document 'ctrl-a F9' bam. All references updated, toc, all sections, cross-references, etc. To coin your phrase, "it just works". I love LaTeX or rather LyX which is my experience with it but this video contains info that is just plain incorrect. It's exactly the same as someone saying LaTeX sucks, because it doesn't do headings, sections, formatting, images. They clearly don't know how to use it, just as you didn't understand word.
>So instead of learning how to use word properly, you decided to learn LaTeX. Principles of the Word are totally about improper usage. At the other hand it's too hard to use LaTeX improperly - there is no other way. Its much more easy to learn how to use LaTeX than learn to use Word properly.
I have watched your videos on LaTeX before, but I haven't seen anything about flowcharts. Is this easily done in LaTeX? For my final project last semester I had to make a flow chart for ~1700 lines of assembly code. This ended up being about 35 pages long, and I did it in word. It was fine until about 30 pages in where word started to lag, and I was saving as often as I could, because it seemed like word could crash at any moment.
Breaking the chart to pages would probably be a lot of hassle (I don't have experience with it), but this is again one of the use cases where tikz shines. It's a LaTeX-based graphics language that has dedicated commands for flowchart- and diagram-building.
Really just by looking individual things up as I needed them and watching some videos here and there. Practice and implementation make it easy to remember (as I said, I rewrote my thesis as practice). Documentation is good too, but best for highly specialized things.
Hello from New York City! Can LaTeX be is used to create documents from Templates that have slight variations like resumes and cover letters? Thank you for your informative video.
My university makes an effort to teach undergrads LaTeX in its Accelerated Calculus sequence. I haven't taken it so I can't say for sure, but I believe it's quite crucial for any sort of math input with a keyboard. Word just won't cut it. That being said, I still wish that there were programs that could recognize handwriting and format it to textual math through a writing tablet.
@@hyperupcall It's quite new, but in Word's Equation, it now accepts LaTeX syntax. I like using straight LaTeX anyway, but it's still a better alternative than, like, anything else.
Do you just like learning LaTeX for fun or do you write anything? These things you talk about are all just tools to do things with. What do you actually do, Luke? Do you write software? Do you publish papers?
LaTeX is really good... except when you try to make a fucking CV out of it! LaTeX is for TeXt, not for Visual deign. It's rigid and that's why it's good. It's good for making 10k pages essays without word fucking you over for random bullshit.
so, what to use CVs? also, CV/resume feel similar to brochures & restraunt menus. also, what for newspaper/magzine type of stuff? > _"except when you try to make a fucking CV out of it! "_
@@yash1152 I tend to use visual design a lot in a CV. For this reason, using Adobe Illustrator and InDesign is the only way to ake it effectively and quick. The content matters less than the CV being a shiny, eye-catching piece of ticktok distraction, so as to fit the preferences of the brain dead HR who doesn't even know to call bullshit on the engineers they are about to unleach on the company. For newspapers -> InDesign. You have a lot of pictures with precise placement and big titles. You might make a good rule set to make it work with LaTeX, but without a LaTeX expert, you won't have changes on the fly if necessary. Urgency runs the business. I love LaTeX, but it has ways of fuckig you over sometimes. It's all about finding that one format that works for you and sticking to it
12:27 yeah, i had to submit a "practical file" for the ProgrammingLab - it had to include source code and the outputs. like usual, teacher said to do it in word, and all the classmates pasted the raw text - no code highlighting, no nothing. i wanted code highlighting in there, so, did via screenshots :cry: - pain, first had to search for a light theme, then calculate the screenshot size, then position everything (editor, and screenshot application) to have perfect screenshot, and then have to repeat pasting the screenshots and oughh, it was very very inefficient. had i learnt latex earlier, it would have been much much easier. just initial maybe 15 text lines setup, then 3 liner for each single "practical" - carrying the source code by dynamic embedding, bam, everything done. want to make changes to source? no worries. you need to do nothing extra than recompilling.
I am a full time programmer, I tried latex for my Thesis. I fucking hate it. Don't get me wrong, it's better than word. But as a programming language, it's close to VBA. Outdated, horrible Syntax, a pile of deprecated mess beeping hold together by Korma Script. If there was a alternative I would let it finally die, but there isn't. Latex really is bad on all criteria of the software ergonomic scale. We only use it because it's the only advanced Markup language.
Most people I know don't use any organized global formatting in Word like styles. They just apply character formatting directly and waste a lot of time, and produce somewhat bloated files. Maybe Word doesn't encourage logical thinking about the document with "click and type" features that are used by default. Occasionally I find confusing that when I paste from one Word document into another, only part of the formatting gets inherited, which can be confusing when copying from documents created by other people. Sometimes I wish I could switch to a "code tab" in Word to sort out the formatting, and prevent Word from crashing when it has to reflow too many picture objects in impossible ways temporarily. Word 2000/2003 does everything for me. A fast Windows-feel or Delphi-feel program with a code view could be nice, but I don't feel like seeking one out.
0:46 I will be honest with you, i clicked this video ONLY due to the middle portion of the thumbnail: * bashing the GUI word processors * "ViM + LaTeX"
I am using LaTeX for a decade now and it has changed my life dramatically but I have to say that your introduction about word is not entirely correct. In the MS. word if you use the tools provided to you in the reference tab (i.e. references, captions, cross reference, etc. ) you don't need to manually trace all the changes. The latex is obviously more advanced and lifesaving but the MS. word is not as bad as you depict it. The main issue is that MS. word lets you write bad text for example it lets you not to use references and cross references correctly and writing an incorrectly formatted text is much easier in word comparing to writing it correctly by using the aforementioned tools in the reference ribbon. You can also write an incorrectly formatted text in latex but writing it correctly is easier than writing it incorrectly.
Firstly, don't get me wrong, and use whatever suits your needs and is easier for you. Secondly, you can update all the references by ctrl+a and right-clicking and choosing Update Field. So idk what are you tripping about. Thirdly, you can get Mendeley addon in Word for references(it just works like your packages :)). It gets everything done for you. It adds references in text automatically numbered and added to the according place at the bottom without you having to keep a file, it's merely 3 clicks. Also, you have extensions for chrome that lets you add stuff directly from the browser. Lastly, to me it seems that most of these people making these videos are quite inadequate when it comes to using word right in the first place (maybe that suggests that mircosoft should consider making word tools and their usage more user friendly). So again, don't get me wrong, and use whatever suits your needs and is easier for you. Just don't claim false facts about functions of programs you are obviously not competent enough to use. P.S. people learn to use format painter
1:02 “you should stop using Word or whatever you're using and switch” I’m using plain XeTeX with UTF and OpenType support, I don’t think I should switch to LaTeX.
The only problem I've found is that when trogs want something "compatible with everything" and I hand them a PDF, then freak out and demand the document in docx.
hmmm, I've just jumped into this subject very recently... but have you tried GNU TeXmacs. it is an intuitive WYSIWYG editor. I think TeXmacs creates a fine blend for GUI scrubs and Keyboard commandos, as if LibreOffice Math and LaTeX combined.
Puh, I tried to get into TeX and LaTeX numerous times since I first got a copy of it back in my Amiga days. I have lived through all the pains of classical word processors since Lotus Symphonie, WordPerfect and sadly also Microsoft Word. I understand the theoretical advantages of LaTeX, but despite all the hardship elsewhere, I never got the hang of it. I guess the barrier to entry is just higher than the ongoing pain of my status quo and any long term benefits aren't appealing enough for me to overcome it. Being a Linux & open source person who loves to work on the console, that feels a bit like a personal defeat.
i hate word too, glad i entered this word of markup languages thanks to markdown (umh, i knew html since 2010, but umh, .... html is not that much suitable for word processing tasks, so, i wont thanks that ofc)
Luke, while there's no argument that LaTeX is the superior choice, some of the things you struggled with in writing your thesis are eaisly automatable in Word. Most notably, the use of captions and cross references to keep track of figure/table/equation/footnote numbers, the referencing tool (or easier still, the Mendeley add-on) for bibliographic management, and the LaTeX intup option in the equation editor. Where I'm studying at the moment I'm required to submit my assignments in .docx format, so the time I wanted to spend learning LaTeX was diverted to figuring this stuff out in Word. Just saying. Anyway, great video.
2:35 No it's not. Word can handle sections and references. And footnotes! And the index. The reference file with everything in it is an awesome idea. You can easily just write and then worry about formating using Word's "outline" feature, and later edit the styles. The problem with word is it sometimes doesn't work the way you'd think it should. Just today I was raging because I'd change the numbering on one list and for some unknown reason (to me), it would reset the numbering in ALL lists. Good thing about Word is you don't have to read 405 pages of documentation, as the GUI can, most of the time, explain how things work. At least for simple things. LaTeX seems GREAT for academia and maths and journals etc, but when you just want to write a report for work... meh. Too much work for too little gain? I've been thinking about trying to write my report (the one Word keeps fucking up the numbering) with LaTeX, but because of this very specific styling/fomatting I need to follow it just doesn't seem like a viable option, unfortunately :(
yes, for example, latex can be extremely flexible and dynamic for making high school level practical files of computer programming subject where you have to show the source code and the output.
Dude. I can't even do math derivations without LaTeX anymore. You have no idea how much easier it is to copy the previous line, make a single change, move to next line, and repeat. Especially when each line takes up the entire row (in landscape). Not to mention the rush you get when you see a massive ass expression gradually reduce to a handful of terms over the course of a page or two. All beautifully typeset with no scribbles or redactions. The only time I need to jump to pen and paper is if the derivation requires me to use some geometrical intuition and I need to sketch it out.
To be honest, Word doesn't even have the most basic features. - Inserting images and csv tables live, (meaning changing the image or the csv file changes it in the document) - Code highlighting with pygments (last time I checked you had to paste it from an IDE) - Vim keybindings and windows transparency (Out of the question) - Good luck having multiple people work on the same document without patch, diff or git. I used these for my first ever latex document. The features I mentioned are either non existent in Word, or it's so hard to setup no one gives a shit.
i don't think any of the examples you named are valid reasons as to why LaTeX is better than word. You can't use word wrong (e. g. manually labeling the numbers in your heading) and then complain about it. Don't get me wrong there are actual reasons for latex such as typing mathematical formulas will not kill your last will to live but i feel like this video was unfair towards word.
the fun with latex stops when the client wants the document in word compatible format for further editing.
time to get a new client
Agreed. It is actually very, very difficult to convert a native LaTeX document to a MS Word document. Some people suggest Pandoc but that is not really feasible. It can work for small snippets but not really for a longer document with lots of mathematics. If you already have the LaTeX source then there is very little practical point in converting to rich text format. To get from tex to docx unfortuantely sometimes you just have to save to txt, import into Word and manually typeset the equations and tables. Basically there is no easy simple way to convert cleanly and simply from LaTeX to MS Word as of early 2018.
Is this for math? Because if so, why would the client ask for the document in Word compatible format? Isn't the industry standard for math LaTeX?
This is for physics/engineering documents that use a lot of advanced mathematics that are quicker and easier to typeset in LaTeX, but not all physicist/engineers use LaTeX. Which means the original must be converted to MS Word in order for co-authors to contribute. It is also very possible for some mathematicians to only know how to use MS Word. Although a majority of mathematicians use LaTeX for their work a sizeable minority only know how to use MS Word. Also as unusual as it may sound some conferences and journals also insist on MS Word manuscripts. This is basically because the reviewers want to use the MS Word "track changes" feature when they review the document. There is no easy equivalent to "track changes" in LaTeX so basically some scientists/engineers have to convert between LaTeX and MS Word. Note that version control is not necessarily easy for some people who do not do software developement.
zazarüy But when going from docx to tex you will have a mess. Because docx is a MESS.
but have you heard of MS paint
Had a professor that made us do all our hw in LaTeX my Junior year we realized at the end of the semester he was trying to turn us into grad students lol
The beauty of LaTeX to me is how we can produce so much with limited computer hardware. I have produced LaTeX documents on the original Raspberry Pi 1. It only has 500MB of RAM. Forty years ago when I was at university I would have though I had died and gone to heaven if I had LaTeX and the Pi given to me.
>500 MB of RAM
Fuck, I got cancer just thinking about that, I'm so glad that I never had to deal with that shit.
In the early 2000s i had a pc with 256mb of ram. And it was an ok pc at that time.
@@DmitriiGlandarius I used a computer with 512mb ram running Windows XP 8 years ago for about 2 years just for playing Mario and paint.
@@DmitriiGlandarius 192MiB because a 128MiB stick bricked and ram was expensive, could only afford a 64MiB stick
@@dangernoodle2868 that's more than plenty
Simply beautiful. Your meme's truly settled my rustled jimmies.
Also, I've been using LaTeX for a good number of years but never made a universal bib file. I'm an idiot. Thank you for that golden nugget.
Edit: random landscapes was beautiful. I love your content but I'm subscribing for the memes and landscapes. Vim + LaTeX master-race is +1 stronger.
tell me about more programs to achieve maximum comfy
lethargic Microsoft Word
minecraft
ditto
just live in shell...
cmus for music, calcurse for calendar
damn, your usage of pepe memes is pretty dank
peepee images?
@@cthedosboss5113 its the frog, knowyourmeme points it as a trumpist propaganda
Been using for years but now I love XeTeX because it uses PostScript and TTF fonts without conversion -- the whole Unicode awareness is very cool. Plus now, TeX editors can have an almost live-updating PDF display as you work in the text editor so you can see if your codes are working as expected. LaTeX is simply a _must_ for any documents of any significant length and/or complexity.
8:28 this is easy to do in Word
Now I dare Word user to draw mollecular orbital diagram (there’s a library for this in LaTeX)
"If it can't be done in Word, it's not worth doing" - _Barack Obama_
Write any math expression in word. Its gonna take at least 5 minutes. I can do the same thing using latex in 2 seconds. Not to mention that it looks 5 million times better.
@@hexa3389 You can even make polygon animation fanart in tikZ. You shouldn't, but you can.
I love mom which is a macro set for groff. If you don't have to tinker around with layout too much then it is just fine! Much smaller, lightning fast, use all kinds of preprocessors, put it in Unix pipeline. I do the exams for my students with mom and m4, which does all the math for the grades and points. Pictures on a extra sheet done with Impress. Simple but perfect for me! Thank you Mr. Schaffter!
apparently you can use some postscript hack to embed images in groff documents. haven't tried tho
when you showed the bibliography functions, my god, my jaw dropped with amazement. I'm now a convert
Ye had me at "never another bibliography" ;_;
I wanted to show around 15 plots to my project supervisor so I tried to put the images all in all in a Word file. It turned out really weird so I ended up making a script that would get all files ending in .png and place them in a latex file. That made things a trillion times easier and I ended up using the same script over and over whenever I created new plots.
What about Word Art?
Lol it can be done with tikz; I haven't ever had the need though. I will say one thing I've never figured out how to easily implement is using emojis in documents, which has actually come up. I can insert them as pictures, but I'm waiting for them to be streamlined in a package.
And if you don't wanna bother using tikz for very simple things you could use artist mode in emacs, there is a guy on youtube who showed how to make UML diagrams with emacs artist mode and ditaa which I find to be very overkill but hey if you want to keep things minimalistic, why not.
I think it was a joke
@@LukeSmithxyz You know emoji are part of the Unicode standard now, eh?
Are you specifically wanting coloured emoji? Because in that case, you just need to insert as images.
@@thomase13 yeah, i also find it helpful to be able to insert emojis 😅
In undergrad I was a double major in Applied Physics and Linguistics (at UCSC, I recognize some of your references haha). LaTeX was my friend for both majors. Beautifully typeset quantum mechanics equations, and beautifully typeset syntax trees.
i am using latex for taking notes in the class physics mathematics it just works
What I've found is that for short stuff (like 2 pages or less), I use markdown-pdf, but when I gotta do anything else (or I just want to use LaTeX, which is about 95% of the time anyways) I just use LaTeX.
I agree with you on all the line generally speaking, with only one exception: you’re right when you say that there are packages for everything, but Latex was originally developed and structured for English native speakers, but if you need to adjust stuff like spellchecking for different languages (like Italian in my case), well ... it’s absolutely possible, but is not really so easy.
Anyway, even with this kind of minor problems, since I ‘m using Latex I’ll never came back to WYSYWYG or, so called, office automation stuff for any reason. Fine and happy with Latex.
Just shifted to latex for my masters reports. I wish i knew about it during my bachelors. It makes writing reports so much easier.
I used LaTeX for my thesis but wasn’t convinced on its benefit. The main arguments I see for LaTeX is the auto-numbering, cross referencing, and bibliography, but MS Word has native features to do all these since at least 2010. As documents get large, Word does become a pain and is slow, so I would lean towards LaTeX. My company needs to produce massive calculation packages for our projects (1000+ pages) and Word is a write off in that situation. My issue with LaTeX though often came with formatting, the dumbest things would take hours to resolve, like text overflowing the text area or even just coloring a divider line for the header. There’s a lot of packages that can do the same thing but I found many didn’t work. So I haven’t really found any solution yet that I’m content with for big documents
Being an unbiased user of both software, you were clearly using Word in the wrong way..
All the problems you faced could have been avoided if you had spent some more time (even less compared to the time you spent on learning LaTeX) to learn Word's features too..
There are tons of add-ins for Word too.
Still though, for reports I prefer LaTeX.
I've been using LaTeX pretty exclusively my entire adult life, since 2005 or so. I have love-hate relationship with it. I won't write my list of complaints here, but suffice to say is that LaTeX is great to put text into a template, but veer away from that template and try to do something a bit different, or load two packages that don't like each other, and you may find yourself spending hours upon hours of macro tweaking. I've been thinking of maybe trying another TeX-based system but I suspect there is no salvation there...
thanks a lot for your valuable input
after you learn LaTeX give 10 minutes to learning how to use pandoc to convert Mardown to LaTeX. that will make you like lightning-fast productive
what is really the purpose of Markdown versus LaTeX ? I ask because everyone in my field of study use latex and i don't know why would I use markdown.
I think he wasn't recommending against using LaTeX, only that for simple documents it's more pleasant to write in the visual and light syntax of something like Markdown (which is also what you'd see used in plaintext emails or forums for example). Then you can convert to LaTeX, HTML or virtually every other format thanks to pandoc. See some examples [here](pandoc.org/demos.html ), of particular interest to LaTeX users are examples 4 and 13. Note how the same MANUAL.txt file written in Markdown syntax is used in all cases, and how simple it is internally.
I follow more or less the approach described [here](peerj.com/articles/cs-112/). It allows me to write a single document without all the verbosity that goes into writing LaTeX. The same text ends up being both a web page in my blog and also a beautiful PDF ready for print produced by LaTeX. More complex scenarios will require that I go to LaTeX directly though.
and there is also org-mode in emacs with latex export
True words.
@@TTTtowelythetowelTTT Markdown is more useful for taking notes and this kind of stuff. It's made to be processable (so you can convert it) but also readable in plaintext.
I use word and I'm literally shaking and crying rn
I'm still an undergrad but I literally spent 2 days learning the basics for a simple English letter and now i refuse to use word, especially for lab reports, and also you can upload your stuff to github for a group lab report lol. Latex has saved so much time but then also I tend to spend a whole day writing boilerplate, convincing myself I made progress lol. I guess the time spent is well worth it though considering the table of contents is generated automatically among other things
> _"also you can upload your stuff to github for a group lab report"_
i did not understand this part
@@yash1152 i think he is referring to create a github project, upload the .tex file, make some "develop" branch and then if one of the workmates wants to make some changes, he just have to make some new branch, write them and make a merge request. Like someone would do with a programming project. Pretty good idea as long as everyone on the group knows latex.
@@juandavidortiz6596 oh, ohkay. i understand this - using some vcs (version control system) on it being a non-binary file format
but that way it was originally phrased was somewhat ... umh, too loose way to put that, so, couldnt make sense of that.
The table of contents is generated automatically? Did you use to write it manually in Word? 🤣
Mad respect to you for doing your masters! Wish I could give a hand shake of respecc.
There were a lot of I wished that I wasn't born doing my bachelor of nursing... 35 days left till graduation. 😭
I wish I had learned LaTeX for my lab reports this semester but I've learned the basics over the past few days and it was pretty quick and easy. I'm sure this is gonna come in handy for my bachelor's thesis which will eventually hit me!
My current killer combo: MacTex & Texpad. All the power of LaTeX, with 90% less hassle.
I switched in the middle of my master thesis from Word to LaTeX and it took me just a weekend to reproduce everything I had in Word. The learning curve is very steep and I had to do almost nothing for the bibliography, since I used citavi to export all my literature. A shame I decided to get into it so late, even very basic knowledge is enough to produce good looking results.
I will so use this for my thesis in a year
How did it work out?
@@DerBauerful latex was amazing. Its better if you dont get super anal about how things look but even if you do, as long as you are decent at hacking stuff together you can do a lot with the styling system.
Its advisable to get a good setup for it so you can write easily and have the preview update fast.
I think I used biblatex for references and that was pretty good.
As for my thesis... I ended up failing that and then dropping out all together, but at that point I already had the job I wanted and with a lot of extra learning in my personal time I now work for one of the best companies in my profession, in my country. I havent regretted dropping out once since doing it but I would advice other people to not drop out. You will be starting with a massive disadvantage over others and you will have to be ready to put in a lot of work to overcome that.
Hope that answers your questions.
@x I can't share it because its covered under an NDA sorry
Absolutely love Latex dont get me wrong. But word can also do a lot of things automatically like cross referencing, referencing, automatic formatting, etc. Also I agree, for long documents dont even think about word.
God thank you because I found this channel, I didn't think about how much I need it your channel until I find it. Thank you
You don't have to number anything manually in Word. It has built in tools for doing all of that - examples, figures, references, all handled automatically.
Yeah; I use Microsoft Word 2000, and it has built-in citation features - it's not a new feature!
Many of those features in Word still suck. Well, I use them a lot in words and they suck so bad that I have to fix it up almost all the time. It turns out that I spend less time to manually do the numbering than to fix the bug in those automatic numbering/referencing systems in Word.
Every video on this channel deserves a like.
Come on Luke Smith, it is easy to answer the quesiton why people don't use LaTeX, because it is much more difficult to start with it. Once you know how to use it it is easy but you need to invest a few hours to get started with it and before you even can start with it you have a relatively long install process, you need to figure out which editor to use and how it works...
I have tried it. The LaTeX-input is the easy part, the software around it, that is the problem.
To be fair, Microsoft Word also has an extremely high learning curve to use properly!
@@thomase13 not really
@@jodazague8333 not really...
it has the curve.... the thing is, the "proper" use is not that much enforced
I started out using the compiled Waterloo markup language simply called Script, which was before LaTeX was even invented. Along came Word and I switched to that because WYSIWYG is just plain easier and everyone else uses it. It saves you a step, usually one with a built-in coffee break.
Yeah, for really long, complex documents like you're talking about (theses, technical books, etc.), LaTeX was traditionally more powerful. But today I can get everything done with LibreOffice, and I can work in WYSIWYG mode. Word processing, footnotes, endnotes, table of contents, lists of illustrations, etc., indexes, references, bibliographies, spreadsheets, embedded tables, figures, slideshows, databases, 2D vector drawings, diagrams, charts, math formulas, it does it all. If you're doing a book-length document that you'd like to edit chapter by chapter, check out the master document feature. It used to be a little light in the help and documentation department compared to Microsoft Office, but now I see that they've written new documentation. Check out the Zotero extension for keeping track of your sources for use in references and bibliographies. It will even read and write MS Word and Excel document formats if you need it to.
I understand your ardor, really I do. But for most documents LaTeX is way overkill. And there's no reason to pay extra for Microsoft Word when LibreOffice can do the same thing (and more) for free. Unless you're writing for a publication that insists on LaTeX source, there's no reason not to use LibreOffice.
Hey, off topic, but damn... Wish my advisor looked like that. Love the channel!
I found LaTex when I first started needing to write pseudocode a few months ago. Looking back I wish I would have learned it at the beginning of my undergrad instead of in the last few weeks of it. It would have saved me so much time.
wow, how does latex help you for pseudocodes??
Pro tip. If you create a matrix with pythons sympy library. Example M=Matrix([[2, 2],[1,2]]) and then print(latex(M)).
I wrote my BA thesis in LateX. The picture handling is a miracle not mentioning the equation numbering and the TOC. :D
Edit: My peeps advised against it though.
> _The picture handling is a miracle_
hi, can you expand on that? like how was it great? i am asking as i read some other comment and it mentioned smth related - that image setting - scaling, tilting etc is hard in latex. so, would you like to shed more light?
to be fair, word integrated this "ink to math" thing and this makes writing equations reaaaaaaally easy.
Does take away from all the other benefits of LaTeX. Additionally, there’s noway to do that with the keyboard alone
Thanks! I ve started thinking about learning this, and that's also thanks to u! c;
Sounds like something that would have really been useful for comp...
I hate this video, because I need to run an IEEE workshop, and this is the best and most comprehensive video on youtube for showing why students should swap, and I can't use it.
Now I'm just going to demonstrate it live rather than show a video because the rest are subpar.
LaTeX is great and i use it almost exclusively. However, everything you said about Word is dead wrong.
Also Overleaf, they have many templates to start with
I learned LaTeX when I was messing with the Desmos API. Interestingly, their website uses a full LaTeX compiler for displaying expressions but it only supports a very small subset of LaTeX for actual expression parsing. This leads to pretty interesting results like a \pm rendering a plus-minus symbol properly while simultaneously displaying an error message about the variables p and m not being defined. Cool stuff.
How does it works with foreign languages that writes from right to left?
I know Word sucks when you try to use right to left align language with symbols like parentheses and always mix my text align
I love latex as well, but I have issues with it:
1) Placing images suck, really does. Scaling images, encapsulating them with text, tilting them sideways etc. is really difficult. Whenever I place an image, it's always an adventure to google and 999 different websites.
2) Sharing with other people.... people don't use latex.
3) It's verbose. You're typing \textbf{ } just to make something bold. Just CTRL+B man. Yeah you can "set shortcuts" but who has time to remember all that?
4) Tables. Hooooly cow, it's so much difficult to place tables onto a document that I have to use a website to generate table code for me.
5) Doing anything new. I am already really busy and finding time to learn to do something is quite time consuming.
6) You have 999 different ways of doing the same thing. Just have 1 option that can do everything.
7) Packages. You've found what you need to do but you need to install a frikn package for it. Waste of time.
The only great thing about latex really: It prints out good looking documents and it's consistent. That's it.
@@dueldu70 hi, can you add your input to images in latex, and expand on the table part in latex a bit more??
You can add another big advantage: automatically generate documents. From a database with a script.
Hello Luke,
I am really considering going to use LaTeX, but can you answer some questions for me?
What file format will LaTeX output? What platforms does it support? How will my lecturer open it on there computer.
Thanks
Steven
LaTeX (specifically the pdflatex command) outputs documents in .pdf form, so people on all platforms can view them identically (you can also output files as dvi/ps/hmtl if you really want).
So, yeah, all operating systems and platforms will be able to easily see the documents you make. You can also write and compile LaTeX on any OS you want in many different ways depending on what you want.
Oh cool, thanks for the reply. I have been watching your new LaTeX episodes they are great.
Thanks
Steven
Actually I think you can output a lot more than that. I know that you can output postscript and html. Probably with pandoc.
Always thought it was Latex like laytex lol.
Is it not? I thought it was a play on "latex" -> flexible, stretchy, and expandable
Write on paper and take photos with a 16 color web cam.
I learned Latex and wrote my whole thesis with it, but if I get the chance, I will never use it again.
When used directly, it is simply a stupid and cumbersome way of writing documents. It is free, and that is good.
As a core technology for other pieces of software, such as Lyx (www.lyx.org/), then I must admit Latex is brilliant and awesome.
LaTeX is one of the best examples of software excellence.
Finally deciding to learn λατεχ because I've been using LibreOffice which is buggy: objects embedded in Writer documents often delete themselves when they go to swap memory. And LO Math is only based on a small subset of τεχ, which isn't enough for my needs.
thanks a lot for writing the names in greek alphabets
also refer the comment by Mikael Nuutila in reply to comment by Electricity taster on "wrong pronunciation of latex"
The further I indulge in Linux the further I'm away from the civilisation....
So here is my problem...
You mention that you had to manually organise your references, examples, headers, figures, etc.
So instead of learning how to use word properly, you decided to learn LaTeX. That's no bad thing but damn you went at it arse backwards. Word has powerful referencing and outlining tools already built in.
I regularly write 60-150 page reports in word (one every week near as dammit), they have as you state many many many references, footnotes, images, tables, etc. If I need to add something at the top of my document 'ctrl-a F9' bam. All references updated, toc, all sections, cross-references, etc.
To coin your phrase, "it just works".
I love LaTeX or rather LyX which is my experience with it but this video contains info that is just plain incorrect. It's exactly the same as someone saying LaTeX sucks, because it doesn't do headings, sections, formatting, images. They clearly don't know how to use it, just as you didn't understand word.
>So instead of learning how to use word properly, you decided to learn LaTeX.
Principles of the Word are totally about improper usage. At the other hand it's too hard to use LaTeX improperly - there is no other way. Its much more easy to learn how to use LaTeX than learn to use Word properly.
top 5 best markup tools
4. LaTeX
3. reStructuredText
2. markdown
1. XML + nano
0. Word, the ultimate, the only
you left ascii doc
I have watched your videos on LaTeX before, but I haven't seen anything about flowcharts. Is this easily done in LaTeX?
For my final project last semester I had to make a flow chart for ~1700 lines of assembly code. This ended up being about 35 pages long, and I did it in word. It was fine until about 30 pages in where word started to lag, and I was saving as often as I could, because it seemed like word could crash at any moment.
Breaking the chart to pages would probably be a lot of hassle (I don't have experience with it), but this is again one of the use cases where tikz shines. It's a LaTeX-based graphics language that has dedicated commands for flowchart- and diagram-building.
@@Alche_mist thanks for recommendation of latex-based tikz for flowchart
How did you learn latex? Did you go through the package documentations or something else?
Really just by looking individual things up as I needed them and watching some videos here and there. Practice and implementation make it easy to remember (as I said, I rewrote my thesis as practice). Documentation is good too, but best for highly specialized things.
Thanks!
Hello from New York City! Can LaTeX be is used to create documents from Templates that have slight variations like resumes and cover letters? Thank you for your informative video.
8:20
>word
>insert
>equations/symbol
My university makes an effort to teach undergrads LaTeX in its Accelerated Calculus sequence. I haven't taken it so I can't say for sure, but I believe it's quite crucial for any sort of math input with a keyboard. Word just won't cut it. That being said, I still wish that there were programs that could recognize handwriting and format it to textual math through a writing tablet.
>hunt around for each equation/symbol, one at a time
Very efficient.
Actually since the syntax is quite similar, this can be your first stepping stone on learning LaTeX
It's actually much faster to write using LaTeX, assuming that Microsoft Word does not allow you to use LaTeX-like syntax to create equations, etc.
@@hyperupcall It's quite new, but in Word's Equation, it now accepts LaTeX syntax.
I like using straight LaTeX anyway, but it's still a better alternative than, like, anything else.
word actually can handle references pretty easily
Do you just like learning LaTeX for fun or do you write anything? These things you talk about are all just tools to do things with. What do you actually do, Luke? Do you write software? Do you publish papers?
LaTeX is really good... except when you try to make a fucking CV out of it!
LaTeX is for TeXt, not for Visual deign. It's rigid and that's why it's good. It's good for making 10k pages essays without word fucking you over for random bullshit.
so, what to use CVs? also, CV/resume feel similar to brochures & restraunt menus.
also, what for newspaper/magzine type of stuff?
> _"except when you try to make a fucking CV out of it! "_
@@yash1152 I tend to use visual design a lot in a CV. For this reason, using Adobe Illustrator and InDesign is the only way to ake it effectively and quick. The content matters less than the CV being a shiny, eye-catching piece of ticktok distraction, so as to fit the preferences of the brain dead HR who doesn't even know to call bullshit on the engineers they are about to unleach on the company.
For newspapers -> InDesign. You have a lot of pictures with precise placement and big titles. You might make a good rule set to make it work with LaTeX, but without a LaTeX expert, you won't have changes on the fly if necessary. Urgency runs the business.
I love LaTeX, but it has ways of fuckig you over sometimes. It's all about finding that one format that works for you and sticking to it
I'm using LaTeC, but I'm calling it LaTeX.
12:27 yeah, i had to submit a "practical file" for the ProgrammingLab -
it had to include source code and the outputs. like usual, teacher said to do it in word, and all the classmates pasted the raw text - no code highlighting, no nothing.
i wanted code highlighting in there, so, did via screenshots :cry: - pain, first had to search for a light theme, then calculate the screenshot size, then position everything (editor, and screenshot application) to have perfect screenshot, and then have to repeat pasting the screenshots and oughh, it was very very inefficient.
had i learnt latex earlier, it would have been much much easier. just initial maybe 15 text lines setup, then 3 liner for each single "practical" - carrying the source code by dynamic embedding, bam, everything done. want to make changes to source? no worries. you need to do nothing extra than recompilling.
I had the exact same problem in high school. The minted package made my project so smooth.
@@user-he4ef9br7z thanks a lot for input. minted package - is that name of some other package altogether, or some variation of latex package?
ohkay, searching now, it is a package for source code highlighting in LaTeX similar to lstlisting package i think
You can also use automatic references on Word using Endnote
I am a full time programmer, I tried latex for my Thesis. I fucking hate it. Don't get me wrong, it's better than word. But as a programming language, it's close to VBA. Outdated, horrible Syntax, a pile of deprecated mess beeping hold together by Korma Script. If there was a alternative I would let it finally die, but there isn't. Latex really is bad on all criteria of the software ergonomic scale. We only use it because it's the only advanced Markup language.
Check out typst
Him: talking passionately about LaTeX
Me: hey that's korean
this operating system is trash, doesn't even have Microsoft Word 2007 era clipart
Most people I know don't use any organized global formatting in Word like styles. They just apply character formatting directly and waste a lot of time, and produce somewhat bloated files. Maybe Word doesn't encourage logical thinking about the document with "click and type" features that are used by default. Occasionally I find confusing that when I paste from one Word document into another, only part of the formatting gets inherited, which can be confusing when copying from documents created by other people. Sometimes I wish I could switch to a "code tab" in Word to sort out the formatting, and prevent Word from crashing when it has to reflow too many picture objects in impossible ways temporarily.
Word 2000/2003 does everything for me. A fast Windows-feel or Delphi-feel program with a code view could be nice, but I don't feel like seeking one out.
0:46 I will be honest with you, i clicked this video ONLY due to the middle portion of the thumbnail:
* bashing the GUI word processors
* "ViM + LaTeX"
I am using LaTeX for a decade now and it has changed my life dramatically but I have to say that your introduction about word is not entirely correct. In the MS. word if you use the tools provided to you in the reference tab (i.e. references, captions, cross reference, etc. ) you don't need to manually trace all the changes. The latex is obviously more advanced and lifesaving but the MS. word is not as bad as you depict it. The main issue is that MS. word lets you write bad text for example it lets you not to use references and cross references correctly and writing an incorrectly formatted text is much easier in word comparing to writing it correctly by using the aforementioned tools in the reference ribbon. You can also write an incorrectly formatted text in latex but writing it correctly is easier than writing it incorrectly.
Firstly, don't get me wrong, and use whatever suits your needs and is easier for you.
Secondly, you can update all the references by ctrl+a and right-clicking and choosing Update Field. So idk what are you tripping about.
Thirdly, you can get Mendeley addon in Word for references(it just works like your packages :)). It gets everything done for you. It adds references in text automatically numbered and added to the according place at the bottom without you having to keep a file, it's merely 3 clicks. Also, you have extensions for chrome that lets you add stuff directly from the browser.
Lastly, to me it seems that most of these people making these videos are quite inadequate when it comes to using word right in the first place (maybe that suggests that mircosoft should consider making word tools and their usage more user friendly). So again, don't get me wrong, and use whatever suits your needs and is easier for you. Just don't claim false facts about functions of programs you are obviously not competent enough to use.
P.S. people learn to use format painter
you can update all references by hitting F9 iirc
1:02 “you should stop using Word or whatever you're using and switch” I’m using plain XeTeX with UTF and OpenType support, I don’t think I should switch to LaTeX.
I see you, lurking on wallhaven huh?
The only problem I've found is that when trogs want something "compatible with everything" and I hand them a PDF, then freak out and demand the document in docx.
hmmm, I've just jumped into this subject very recently... but have you tried GNU TeXmacs. it is an intuitive WYSIWYG editor.
I think TeXmacs creates a fine blend for GUI scrubs and Keyboard commandos, as if LibreOffice Math and LaTeX combined.
Puh, I tried to get into TeX and LaTeX numerous times since I first got a copy of it back in my Amiga days. I have lived through all the pains of classical word processors since Lotus Symphonie, WordPerfect and sadly also Microsoft Word. I understand the theoretical advantages of LaTeX, but despite all the hardship elsewhere, I never got the hang of it. I guess the barrier to entry is just higher than the ongoing pain of my status quo and any long term benefits aren't appealing enough for me to overcome it. Being a Linux & open source person who loves to work on the console, that feels a bit like a personal defeat.
hi, any update? did you get over it?? maybe try ascii doc??
Lets not worry
i hate word too, glad i entered this word of markup languages thanks to markdown
(umh, i knew html since 2010, but umh, .... html is not that much suitable for word processing tasks, so, i wont thanks that ofc)
Luke, while there's no argument that LaTeX is the superior choice, some of the things you struggled with in writing your thesis are eaisly automatable in Word. Most notably, the use of captions and cross references to keep track of figure/table/equation/footnote numbers, the referencing tool (or easier still, the Mendeley add-on) for bibliographic management, and the LaTeX intup option in the equation editor.
Where I'm studying at the moment I'm required to submit my assignments in .docx format, so the time I wanted to spend learning LaTeX was diverted to figuring this stuff out in Word. Just saying.
Anyway, great video.
2:35 No it's not. Word can handle sections and references. And footnotes! And the index.
The reference file with everything in it is an awesome idea.
You can easily just write and then worry about formating using Word's "outline" feature, and later edit the styles. The problem with word is it sometimes doesn't work the way you'd think it should. Just today I was raging because I'd change the numbering on one list and for some unknown reason (to me), it would reset the numbering in ALL lists.
Good thing about Word is you don't have to read 405 pages of documentation, as the GUI can, most of the time, explain how things work. At least for simple things.
LaTeX seems GREAT for academia and maths and journals etc, but when you just want to write a report for work... meh. Too much work for too little gain? I've been thinking about trying to write my report (the one Word keeps fucking up the numbering) with LaTeX, but because of this very specific styling/fomatting I need to follow it just doesn't seem like a viable option, unfortunately :(
Show me someone in math or the hard sciences who doesn't used LaTeX. Who are you addressing this rant to?
on the real though:
can LaTeX do Word Art?
is there any benefits for using latex for smaller, high school level 1-5 page projects.
yes, for example, latex can be extremely flexible and dynamic for making high school level practical files of computer programming subject where you have to show the source code and the output.
Dude. I can't even do math derivations without LaTeX anymore. You have no idea how much easier it is to copy the previous line, make a single change, move to next line, and repeat. Especially when each line takes up the entire row (in landscape).
Not to mention the rush you get when you see a massive ass expression gradually reduce to a handful of terms over the course
of a page or two. All beautifully typeset with no scribbles or redactions.
The only time I need to jump to pen and paper is if the derivation requires me to use some geometrical intuition and I need to
sketch it out.
The Mandela Effect strikes again. In my parallel dimension, its pronounced as Lay--Tex, like what condoms are made of.
Thank you. u r so cool :)
Sorry thats bullshit, cross reference sort themself when you do it properly ...
if you know how to use word properly its a really useful tool
To be honest, Word doesn't even have the most basic features.
- Inserting images and csv tables live, (meaning changing the image or the csv file changes it in the document)
- Code highlighting with pygments (last time I checked you had to paste it from an IDE)
- Vim keybindings and windows transparency (Out of the question)
- Good luck having multiple people work on the same document without patch, diff or git.
I used these for my first ever latex document. The features I mentioned are either non existent in Word, or it's so hard to setup no one gives a shit.
I saw the Korean, yes I did! (Not to be that guy, but your romanization was off :^)))))
Have you tried org mode & evil mode?
Where do you get your wallpapers?
Be quiet and give me those background images omggg
now Word cannot autonumber sections and do references?
back in Office 97 days it was able to do that..
You'd have to convert the file to a docx extension if you want to submit your assignments, unfortunately
Why not pdf?
does a lyx user is a beta chad?
i don't think any of the examples you named are valid reasons as to why LaTeX is better than word. You can't use word wrong (e. g. manually labeling the numbers in your heading) and then complain about it. Don't get me wrong there are actual reasons for latex such as typing mathematical formulas will not kill your last will to live but i feel like this video was unfair towards word.