Re: OT : RE: water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

[Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org>]

D-Man <dsh8290@rit.edu> writes:

> Would anyone like to provide a comparison of LaTeX and Docbook?
> (without a flamewar of course).

LaTeX:

* Been around longer

* Stable, ie changes little over the years

* Extremely easy to set up (significantly because of above)

* Well documented if you like dead tree.

* Trivial to output PDF (pdflatex, dvipdfm, ps2pdf)

* Can be converted into HTML, but not always at optimal quality
  without some finagling.  (latex2html, tth)

* Physical and/or logical markup.

* Easier to define your own markup (which is both good and bad)

DocBook: 

* Newer

* Changes more frequently than LaTeX

* Less easy to get a working setup from scratch (but Debian packages
  are available and make it easy).

* Fewer dead-tree resources, I think, but more online

* Conversions to various formats available, including PDF (often
  through TeX), though translators are of varying quality

* Easier to parse and make new translators

* Logical markup only.


That sums up the essential differences.  Most projects choose DocBook
for better translations to HTML and text.  I normally use LaTeX for
my stuff because I've been using it for years and DocBook doesn't seem
well-suited to some of the things I do.  (It may be fine, but I don't
know enough about DocBook yet.)  For things where I want control over
formatting _and_ logical markup, LaTeX is good.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
Your temporary financial embarrassment will be relieved in a surprising manner.