On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 5:44 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan <pocallag...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2016-01-25 at 13:52 +1030, Tim wrote: > > Just for curiosity's sake, is academias prolific use of it because > > its > > ingrained into them, or does it really outclass the alternatives? > > > > I know that in general use, I find Word horrendous. But I've never > > tried formulae in it, etc., nor used any word processor as a > > precision > > page layout engine, either. > > Yes, it really outclasses the alternatives. When it comes to > typesetting complex equations, it really has no competition. No doubt > Word can be tortured into producing equation output (I know it has some > maths setting capability) but the huge advantage of TeX/LaTeX is that > it's *not* a word processor, it's a document description language and > typesetter. There are plenty of examples on the Web so I won't repeat > them here, but as someone who worked on an early typesetting system for > Cambridge University Press (way back in the 70's) I know how horrendous > maths copy can be and how well TeX handles it. > I formatted my PhD thesis "way back in the 70's" using a CDC mainframe system with a small character set (no lowercase alphabet). Markup was needed for capitalization as well as (typewriter-quality) maths. TeX was developed on a system that supported 7-bit ASCII. Since 2007, Word has used a high-quality math layout engine internally. In short, LaTeX provides structural markup for the low-level TeX engine, while current versions of Word provide a GUI for an engine whose capabilities draw heavily on the ideas behind TeX) but extended to support UniCode. See <http://blogs.msdn.com/b/murrays/archive/2006/09/13/752206.aspx> for details of how Word has adopted (and extended in areas such as UniCode math support) the math typesetting infrastructure that grew up around TeX. Current versions of Word are capable of producing high-quality maths, but there are other reasons for the continued importance of TeX-based systems. TeX/LaTeX are widely used to format software documentation where batch processing across unix/linux and Windows systems is required. There are some massive documents (think about technical manuals for commercial aircraft) that may need to be be provided in multiple translations and formats where a TeX-based format makes it possible to automate much of the formatting. For technical writing in other than Western-European languages (e.g., using UniCOde), open-source TeX-based systems have lagged a few years behind Word. Developing high-quality fonts thru international standards processes has been slow. Microsoft can just go ahead and do things without consulting external bodies. Since there is still an important segment of the TeX community using ASCII source format and a huge number of existing documents that requite updating and revisions, TeX has to preserve support for legacy documents. As a result, we now have two widely used engines, pdfTeX and luaTeX, and also multiple backends (dvips, dvipdfmx), bibliographic systems, and systems for generating graphics in TeX-based documents. The fact that the TeX-based systems are open-source means that users with needs that are not handled by Word can often find solutions using a modern TeX system. -- George N. White III <aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia
-- users mailing list users@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
