Re: OT: Choice of OOo and LaTeX
On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 06:54:24 -0700, Steve Lamb <grey@dmiyu.org> said:
> Neil Watson wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 10:11:31PM -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:
>>> Furthermore I fail to see this supposed "don't think about the
>>> formatting" simplicity when I can't even write a simple financial
>>> value without resorting to escapes!
>> Hardly any different from resorting to mouse clicks. However, you
>> seem to have made up your mind without actually spending some time
>> writing a document or two.
> Very nice how you conveniently left out where I stated CNTL-I is
> fewer keystrokes compared to {\it}. In other words you're shifting it
> to a personal attack of "look, he's one of those GUI people".
Well, I have emacs keybinding set so that CNTL-I spits out
{\it}. In open office, when you hit CNTL-I, it does some weird stuff
hiddden from you, in LaTeX is puts the directive right there for you to
see, and edit, later, conveniently.
> Whatever. I don't need to write a document or two to know that it
> would be inconvenient, to me, to shift to 5 keys instead of 2 (or even
> 1) for a simple operation like italics and that having to remember to
> escape certain normal characters would be a problem.
There are helpful modes in modal text editors that do help
alleviate this user interface issue -- but note you are not tied
down to any particular front end. There have been times when I
appreciated not being tied down to a frontend -- since there are
different editors which are convenient at different time (emacs + X +
font locking when editing locally, vim when editing over ssh from an
airport lobby). With the modal editor and LaTeX modes, I find entering
the codes, and syntax highlighted semi-wysiwyg better than Ooo, in my
personal and very very humble opinion.
> The ultimate irony is that the end result of all this evangelical
> blather for LaTeX has resulted in people suggesting extremely
> convoluted methods of achieving a simple requirement in OOo. Convert
> LaTeX to HTML and then from HTML to Word! That is reasonable?! The
> most amusing part is that people have suggested using a WYSIWYG editor
> for LaTeX... and use LaTeX because the WYSIWYG editor called OOo is
> bad because it is WYSIWYG. A-wha!?
I do not consider converting to word a desirable feature, so I
have had no itch to scratch to make it convenient. I understand this
might make LaTeX less desirable for you, but again, that triggers no
itch I feel the need for scratching.
You asked for suggestions. TeX is the solution I use in a
similar situation, and I offered it up to you, mentioning some of the
advantages I see in that solution.
You are, of course, under no obligation to take my solution.
But please try to refrain from calling my helpful suggestion
"evangelical blather", if you can, in order for this discussion to
remain collegial.
manoj
--
When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, you
modify the problem, not the remedy.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.golden-gryphon.com/>
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