A mini D book: Markdown or LaTeX?

Chris via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Thu Jan 26 02:26:25 PST 2017


On Wednesday, 25 January 2017 at 20:07:22 UTC, Chris Wright wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jan 2017 11:58:45 +0000, Chris wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, 24 January 2017 at 14:27:15 UTC, aberba wrote:
>>> Which one works well? I'm more concerned about syntax 
>>> highlighting and line numbering (in some cases). Support for 
>>> custom fonts.
>> 
>> I know people who write articles and their Ph.D.
>> thesis in LaTeX to get maximum control over the layout (to 
>> avoid
>> Word-like surprises).
>
> If you are submitting a paper to an academic journal, they will 
> tell you what format they expect. If you sent a paper as a Word 
> document when they require LaTeX, they will reject it with a 
> note telling you to use LaTeX instead. Conversely, if they 
> expect Word documents, they will reject anything in LaTeX.

They usually accept both Word and LaTeX and provide templates. 
I've never heard of LaTeX only though, because a lot of academics 
wouldn't want to use it - and shouldn't be forced to.

> As a PhD student, your advisor will tell you what format to 
> use. This will almost certainly match the most commonly used 
> file format for journal submissions in your field.

Not true. It's about what the printing company accepts - and they 
are usually fine with LaTeX or a PDF generated out of it. A Ph.D. 
thesis still has to be printed and bound. I think PDF is accepted 
for digital storage.

> Regardless, you want *consistency* more than control. If you 
> submit to a CS journal, they will often give you a .sty file -- 
> this sets up page layout and the like, taking control away from 
> the writer of the article. If you submit to a humanities 
> journal, they might have a Word document template. They might 
> also simply give style requirements that you must obey.

Er, yes. That's how it works. Always ask the publisher first. But 
that wasn't the question. The question was Markdown or LaTeX, and 
if you want to generate your own PDF for e.g. a M.A. or Ph.D., 
some people prefer LaTeX because of the fine grained control it 
offers. I don't know a single Ph.D. student who used Word who 
didn't have to fight with Word stubbornly restructuring the 
layout. The footnotes, the graphics ... a nightmare.

>> The downside is the source code.
>> It's not very nice to read and you get lost easily. And try to 
>> get back
>> after a year and change something!
>
> It's like C++. If you use the same restricted subset that you 
> understand concretely, you shouldn't have a bad time. If you 
> use a different set of packages and macros every document, 
> you're in for a world of hurt.

Unfortunately, you need to add packages for various reasons, e.g. 
IPA (not the beer!) and Maths extensions, formatting extensions 
etc. The odd macro will also make sense.

>> Also, you have to convert it to PDF
>> each time you wanna (proof)read it, so you usually deal with 
>> two layouts
>> at the same time (source code and PDF/HTML), which is time 
>> consuming and
>> error prone.
>
> It separates the writing / editing process from the proofing 
> process and gives you a significantly different format for 
> proofing. This is helpful for catching errors.

It is helpful to catch errors (cf. the "Save and preview" 
function on this forum), that's why I always read my LibreOffice 
documents as PDF as well. However, constantly switching between 
two representations introduces additional errors.

> I wouldn't use htlatex. Instead of a simple <em> or <i> tag, it 
> produces <span class="autogenerated-i-1"> type things. Which is 
> okay if you just want to throw it up online, but if you want to 
> produce an ebook with maximum compatibility, simpler HTML is 
> better.
>
>> A lot of publishers will prefer Word, because they can easily 
>> edit it and if they have their own layout section, they will 
>> transform Word to txt and paste it into say Adobe InDesign.
>
> Change tracking and commenting are the huge things publishers 
> use Word for.

Yes, if they edit it on the screen. Some editors remove all 
formatting, print it and read it on the paper. Formatting and 
change tracking is not always advisable, because it can introduce 
errors like notes or tracked changes that are exported alongside 
the normal text. You'd be surprised at how many writers spend 
hours fighting with Word, trying to format everything only to 
have it removed by the editor.

Either you are given a template / style guide to adhere to, in 
which case they probably have an automatic conversion tool, or 
you shouldn't bother too much with formatting, because they have 
their in-house layout crew.

>> I for my part have stopped worrying about it too much. Just 
>> write the text (in Word or an Ascii editor)
>
> If it's a few pages, it's painful and error-prone to retro-add 
> formatting once you finished the content. If it's a hundred 
> pages, you might need to spend several weeks to format it. That 
> doesn't seem like a good tradeoff to me.

Usually you only add "Header (1, 2, 3)" etc. Of course, emphasis 
(bold, italic etc.). has to be marked in the text somehow, else 
you'll never find it again. Then you can add / insert the 
graphics and tables. Not too big a deal. It's worse having to 
restructure an existing layout I think.


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