Comments on: Writing a thesis in LaTeX

By: Michael Martin

Michael Martin — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 01:47:19 +0000

That sounds like a great tool Kristarella. I’m used to fiddling with Word by now, but from your description alone, it’s clear that it’s not anywhere as flexible for long documents like a thesis! Bookmarked this for learning when I get a chance, thanks. :D

By: kristarella

kristarella — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:56:52 +0000

Yeah, I use Pages and OpenOffice myself.

Wouldn’t be bothered to set up a LaTeX document for simple things. Pages is very nice with all its built in templates and styles. Good for knocking together some tables or making a PDF of instructions. From memory it can import HTML, which is handy too.

By: ko

ko — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:07:34 +0000

I think my biggest assignment ever was maybe 1500 words so I never hit too many issues with Word.

These days, I’m like you I guess, I use a combination of Word, Pages, OpenOffice and Word depending on the machine I’m using and what I’m trying to do.

By: kristarella

kristarella — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:53:57 +0000

Hi ko,

Yes, LaTeX is particularly good for technical writing.
I haven’t learnt Vi, that is old school, I think my husband uses it (or maybe Vim).
Yeah, Word is okay, except for the occassional craziness of MS Office file incompatibilities and propensity to crash. Word, Pages and OpenOffice are usually sufficient. I’ve used them for up to 2500 words, but much more I would use LaTeX. It also produces much smaller file sizes.

By: ko

ko — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:41:16 +0000

I remember my Dad used to (and probably still does) write all of his technical papers in LaTeX.

I remember writing stuff in LaTeX around 1991/1992 using vi but that’s because I’m old school.

I remember then moving to MS Word because it did everything I needed to do (school assignments) at that stage and was much much easier to use. I have not needed to go back to LaTeX and don’t anticipate that I will.

All the best with your thesis and LaTeX.