![]() ![]() Most of the "newer" systems build guis and extend TeX, which I believe is the right approach. "When he designed TeX, Donald Knuth did not believe that a single typesetting system would fit everyone's needs" ( wikipedia) It does what it does well, but there isn't a large enough need for something better. TeX is actually a fairly special purpose typsetting system. It's an answer to a question about technical documentation tools for someone who specifically didn't want to use a markup language based system. For quite a long time most if not all O'Reilly books were typeset using it.ĮDIT: See this Stackoverflow post for a more in-depth rundown on Framemaker and other technical documentation tools. Originally designed for technical documentation within AT&T during the 1970s (actually a spinoff of the UNIX R&D work), it's still quite widely used for this today. Building a single-source technical documentation workflow with LaTeX is quite a different proposition - you will need access to someone with a technical skill base. Thus, you can only really use it for non-casual applications if you have access to someone with that level of technical skill. This puts you in the business of understanding how it works behind the scenes, which is actually fairly technical. LaTeX and other packages suffer heavily from leaky abstraction issues and often require technical intervention to get what you want out of it. The longer answer is 'There are alternatives'. In fact, TeX is sufficiently good at technical publishing that the commercial market for technical publishing tools is rather squeezed between TeX at the 'geek' end and word at the 'great unwashed' end. ![]() It's also free, so there is relatively little commercial incentive to attempt to replace it. The short answer is 'No' as LaTeX is the incumbent and quite good at its job. sometimes you have to type too much (begin that's just a lame complaint :P.a few things are a little counter-intuitive.it is complicated to control position of images.you can encapsulate solutions and copy&paste them to new documents or send them to others to learn from (thanks dmckee)īut on the other hand some little things are not so good:.you can use standard build control tools to support complicated documents (thanks dmckee).it has many extensions to reach different goals (a successor would start without extensions, but would have a good extension-system).it has a stable layout: if I change something at the start of the document, it doesn't affect other things at the end of the document.it uses text files, this way the input-files can be diffed and many tools exist to work with text.and lots of other goodies.TeX/LaTeX is great, I use it in many ways. ![]() Īs the code is a flat file, the output file will be small compared to files from many standard word processing applications. Editors like Notepad++, TeXmaker or XEmacs with the AUCTeX package will syntax color the LaTeX code, making it more intuitive to write.Īlso, if one would like a more WYSIWYG approach, one would consider using LyX or TeXmacs. The document is initially created as a flat file, meaning that one can use any non-formatting editor of choice. Ī LaTeX document structure is split in two: There is a preamble, which indicates some basic, overall features of the document, and there is the main document with the relevant markup for formatting. Such packages can found at (and submitted to) the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. The LaTeX system is continually under development, and it is extensible by packages. This is especially true for areas where formulae play an important role. ![]() While critics claim that using a markup language structure is dated compared to using WYSIWYG word processors, LaTeX still plays an important part in the industry and science. LaTeX is particularly well-equipped for displaying formulas and diagrams.Ĭitizendium and Wikipedia use LaTeX for the presentation of mathematical formulas. It is mostly used in academic circles, primarily in the natural sciences, for creating material for scientific publications. TeX and LaTeX are Free Software.Ī file with formatting tags is compiled to create a high-quality print-ready graphical file, observing the rules of style defined by typesetting professionals. It was originally written by Leslie Lamport as a package of macros extending Donald Knuth's TeX system. LaTeX is a markup language for generating print-quality typesetting. ![]()
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