Why do people use LaTex? I have seen it mentioned a few times, and have looked online, but can't figure out at the moment what the benefit is (other than to avoid Microsoft which is good enough for me 8-)). So rather than hijack a thread, I thought I'd ask here.

(Apologies if this has already been discussed, but I tried a search and nothing came up even though I know it is mentioned)

In Latex you focus on the content, and the appearance takes care of itself. I also find that my stuff written in there looks simpler, and therefore I can handle it better.

Basically in Latex you write something, and then select it and mark it as title, or author, or quotation, or section (that's like heading 1), subsection (H2) etc. Then you can apply a template, which decides how the fonts should look like, the page margins, and all that appearance crap. There is even a PhD template. So, your thesis looks very clean and professional with little effort.

When you are writing, the headings and subheadings have working numbers on them, for example
1 HEADING ONE
1.1 SUBHEADING ONE
1.2 SUBHEADING TWO
1.2.1 SUBSUBHEADING

This is quite helpful because I tend to get lost in my headings and sections.

I use Latex because it helps me to focus on the content, and the appearance will take care of itself.

I've just started out with it, but I also hear that there are loooots of add-ons, like stuff to manage bibliographies and much much more
You can even customise LaTex if you know that kind of stuff.

When ever I told someone about the advantages of Latex, they always said to me: But Word can do the same. Yes Word can do but it would take a lot longer and the output looks horrible. Try to compare between a thesis with Word and Latex, you can see a big difference.

I would say, spend a day or two and learn Latex you will never regret. I find latex is very convenient for a big file as the dissertation.

1. It manage the figure, table, ref by its self. You don't have to enter figure number. I have a friend you spend nearly a week just to add one more reference in the introduction chapter because she has to edit all numbers.
2. You can work on each individual chapter and link together
3. You don't have to worry about figures. They store figure in different folder. If you need to edit figures, edit it and it will automatically show up in your docs. You don't have to edit the docs.
4. Choose a template and you will never have to worry about the format, just concentrate on your content.

======= Date Modified 03 Oct 2008 12:36:50 =======
Well initially I used it because my supervisor said I had to. She said that many conferences insist on a LaTeX submission but so far I have done two and they have been happy with doc/rtf/pdf. I find the whole Microsoft-hating thing pretentious and arrogant. Also, in my opinion the time saved by some aspect of LaTeX is offset by the time spent having to learn and use codes to do things that you could do at the click of a button in Word.

For me, the biggest disadvantage is that LaTeX is not WYSIWYG. I tend to start off using a Word document as rough notes for my own purposes, to help me organise my thoughts on a topic. Then I add to it, and eventually it may becomes a publication, or an internal report for my supervisor. I don't like to make notes in a basic text editor because I like to use tables, etc, insert hyperlinks.

However, I have just handed in my end-of-year report, which I did using LyX (www.lyx.org). This is a very good freeware LaTeX editor. Sure, it is not perfect, you have to back it up regularly since occasionally it has a problem. I had a colleague who accused me of being lazy for not using a text editor, and I thought... get off your high horse ffs! I'd rather spend my time researching my subject than typesetting (yawn!).



The output of LaTex is VERY nice :-), to me this is its advantage. Also, it deals with equations better than Word (although the 2007 Word equation editor is improved).

I use Lyx, and I didn't have to learn any codes. It's practically "select and click".

Thanks guys. Anything which means I don't have to deal with MS Word messing up all the tables and numbering at the last minute sounds good. I can live with being pretentious and arrogant ;-), seems a little harsh for not liking some software (for reasons which I didn't think would make the most interesting post), but hey ho :-).

Anyone got any experience of Pages? Was going to go with it as reviews suggest it doesn't have the table and numbering screw up 'feature' but maybe it is pretty much like Word otherwise?

I am glad other people find LyX helpful and you are right Alice, maybe I was a little harsh sorry :-).

I understand many journals etc insist on you using LaTeX.