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Modern LaTeX

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Re: Modern LaTeX

#21

Post by thangalin »

qiu3344 wrote: post #8

LaTeX is quite underrated these days. Even though alternatives like Typst are popping up, LaTeX is also pretty convenient and powerful if you get past the crude syntax and obscure compilation errors. I sill remember my disbelieve when I found out that I can change my article into a presentation just by changing the document class to "beamer". These days I usually default to pandoc's markdown, mostly because the raw t…

> LaTeX is also pretty convenient and powerful ... pandoc's markdown

Have you considered writing pandoc-style Markdown that's converted to TeX for typesetting? If not, have a peek at my text editor:

* https://keenwrite.com/screenshots.html

* https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB-WIt1cZYLm1MMx2FBG9... (see tutorials 4 and 9)

KeenWrite basically transforms Markdown -> X(HT)ML -> TeX -> PDF, although it uses ConTeXt instead of LaTeX for typesetting because ConTeXt makes separating content from presentation a lot easier.

Re: Modern LaTeX

#22

Post by kashunstva »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #3

Trivia: the correct capitalization is LaTeX and it's pronounced "lay-tek". Knuth & friends were on a roll naming things - the 80s must've been quite a time. As always wiki knows all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX

> it's pronounced "lay-tek"

Or “lah-tek”, the Wikipedia article doesn’t seem to address which, if either is preferred. And I think Leslie Lamport said that he didn’t want to impose any particular pronunciation.

Re: Modern LaTeX

#23

Post by anta40 »

I used LaTeX for writing my undergraduate thesis (> 1 decade ago). Nowadays, unless I write anything involving complicated math expressions or something fancy like Karnaugh map, chessboard diagram etc etc, most likely LaTeX is overkill. Markdown is more than enough.

Re: Modern LaTeX

#24

Post by koakuma-chan »

fsiefken wrote: post #7
dochtman wrote: post #5

Typst is the modern LaTeX. https://typst.app/

Typst is more minimal and faster in compiling documents, I prefer using it. But it's not in all cases a LaTex replacement. The ecosystem is also larger. I have LaTex documents I struggle to convert.

[flagged]

Re: Modern LaTeX

#25

Post by JackeJR »

BlackFly wrote: post #19

I always wonder why people compare Latex with word and not with the single most popular document markup (especially here): HTML + css + javascript. The problems are quite similar, "How do I center a div?" vs "How do I keep this float on this page?" Has latex really modernized? I don't hear a lot about new layouts or style mechanisms. Most people are probably reading articles online these days, although there is a lot…

There are many reasons this comparison is not made. I will just touch on one. The target medium is different. For html, you have monitors of different sizes as well as windows that can be resized. For latex, you choose your target at the start: A4 paper? Screen presentation? A0 poster?

With a fixed medium in mind, you can be extremely particular on where on this canvas you want a piece of text/graphic or whatever.

Without a fixed medium, you have to have logic to address the different mediums and compromises have to be made.

Re: Modern LaTeX

#26

Post by KeplerBoy »

BlackFly wrote: post #19

I always wonder why people compare Latex with word and not with the single most popular document markup (especially here): HTML + css + javascript. The problems are quite similar, "How do I center a div?" vs "How do I keep this float on this page?" Has latex really modernized? I don't hear a lot about new layouts or style mechanisms. Most people are probably reading articles online these days, although there is a lot…

Because HTML is not an option. For academic papers you usually have to submit pdfs conforming to either a latex or word template.

Re: Modern LaTeX

#27

Post by iveqy »

I'm looking for something that you can embedd in your own application. LaTeX would be great but it's not really nice to have WEB code in your C application. It's also has a bit troublesome license.

Re: Modern LaTeX

#29

Post by mcv »

kashunstva wrote: post #22
cadamsdotcom wrote: post #3

Trivia: the correct capitalization is LaTeX and it's pronounced "lay-tek". Knuth & friends were on a roll naming things - the 80s must've been quite a time. As always wiki knows all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX

> it's pronounced "lay-tek" Or “lah-tek”, the Wikipedia article doesn’t seem to address which, if either is preferred. And I think Leslie Lamport said that he didn’t want to impose any particular pronunciation.

I've always pronounced it lah-tech, with the guttural ch from the Greek chi, which is what the X represents.

Re: Modern LaTeX

#30

Post by JohnKemeny »

Gualdrapo wrote: post #17
JohnKemeny wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say underrated. Literally every single research article in maths and cs, every PhD dissertation and master thesis in these fields too, are written in LaTeX. Most students, and many researchers use Overleaf nowadays, though.

> I wouldn't say underrated. Literally every single research article in maths and cs, every PhD dissertation and master thesis in these fields too, are written in LaTeX. Usage level is not correlated to "rate". Sometimes people use stuff because they have to, not only because they like it. See the Microsoft Word case. I'd agree that LaTeX has fell a bit in popularity this days against Typst - but not much in its usag…

I've never met anyone who's used Typst, I've only ever heard it on HN. And I meet a lot of researchers, teachers, and students.

Perhaps it's a programmer thing.

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