On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 07:00:14AM +0100, Jan Simons wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I really like the concept of LyX and I'm tempted to abandon OpenOffice.
> But as I'm in physics, I've got plenty of formula in my documents. I
> could never get a hold on the cryptic LaTeX-formula-syntax
....well, start learning. If you're in physics, it's worth the effort.
I mean it.
- M$ Word will *never* be able to render the math in your journal
papers ... much less your dissertation ... correctly. Same goes for
OO.
These are designed for WYSIWYG... which means that what you see is
all you'll ever get... if you're lucky!
- Most journals want your articles submitted in (La)TeX format.
- LaTeX is only more effort for very small, inline, non-vector
equations.
- For moderate-sized equations, you'll spend more time twiddling with
your mouse in a GUI than you will entering LaTeX expressions.
I speak from experience, from writing my own dissertation.
- For large equations, LaTeX will be far easier to deal with than
OO/Word. And, LaTeX will render it correctly, everytime, no effort
on your part.
- For severly complex equations, OO/Word *will* *fail*. LaTeX won't.
Oh, you may need to do extra work to fine-tune the formatting. You
may even need to write a few macros and use them in combination.
But you can get it to work.
- Most physicists use LaTeX markup in their emails when discussing
equations.
If I write "\frac{\partial}{\partial t} \vec{x}(t)", any physicists
can read it right off the bat.
Until MathML stabilizes, the physics community will still be
putting equations into their email using LaTeX. (Heck, even after
MathML stabilizes, a lot of those physicists won't change...)
My advisor *strongly* *encouraged* me to use LaTeX very early on.
Like you, I was initially resistant. After I finally climbed the
learning curve, I never went back. After I found LyX, I was hooked.
I'm no longer in academia, but I *still* use LyX & LaTeX. I still
prefer it over M$ Word, whose output still looks like crap and with
which I have to struggle and fight just to get a consistent enumerated
list. And OpenOffice is more limited than Word, so the struggle is
worse there.
--
John Weiss, PhD in climate physics: 1998
