On (15/11/05 20:49), Rogério Brito wrote: [snip] > I would say that many people learn LaTeX the wrong way: getting a poorly > designed document and just changing it quickly until it contains more or > less what the person wants it to have. > > This is wrong in, at least, two aspects: > > 1 - this is not in line with the philosophy of LaTeX of separation of > content and presentation (which was here for a loooong time before > people in the Web decided to use Cascading Style Sheets with their > pages and all the technology that accompanies XML); > > 2 - as an extension of point 1, I'd say that writers should learn at > least a modicum of how to use LaTeX macro, so that they create new > environments for their necessities instead of hardcoding things. > > See, if you have a good macro, you can even put that in a style file > of your own and forget about formatting something in that way in the > future. In this sense, you can regard your style file as a "library" > (in the computer programming sense) of distilled knowledge. > > And this also implies that a good approach to using LaTeX is to > regard the text as "the source code" of your text and even use tools > like control revision systems (e.g., RCS, CVS, Subversion etc). > > > "apt-get install" is great here, since installing from source has got > > to be a nightmare. > > Don't forget to install tetex-doc and use the "TeX Catalogue on-line" > for looking for packages to accomplish what you want. Also, a *very* > good source of information here is the UK TeX FAQ (search in Google). > Not only it is very good, but it is quite entertaining.
Thanks Rogerio I flirted with LaTex briefly, a while ago, but didn't get very far. Your advice prompts me to revisit it :) Regards Clive -- www.clivemenzies.co.uk ... ...strategies for business -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
