

LaTeX for Secretaries - surfingdino
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3387

======
thangalin
Article dated 2000.

I used LyX (<http://www.lyx.org/>) and LaTeX to write a technical manual
(<http://www.whitemagicsoftware.com/books/indispensable/>).

LyX is a nice WYSIWYG-ish editor, but for a document of any complexity, LaTeX
code must be learned and in-lined.

LaTeX is not a tool for secretaries. I would not recommend LaTeX to even
moderately geeky friends. Microsoft Word and LibreOffice do just about
everything the average and above-average computer user needs.

If you are thinking about using it, bookmark this invaluable site:

<http://tex.stackexchange.com/>

------
andrewcooke
I am (or was - much now forgotten) "expert" at Latex/Tex, but recently have
taken to using restructured text instead (more exactly, as a precursor to -
the RST is used to generate Latex and then PDF). I don't know how it would
work for mathematical formulae, but when you're free to use your own layout
(ie not writing for some journal) it's pretty sweet.

For anyone interested, here's the source -
<http://code.google.com/p/pytyp/source/browse/pytyp.rst#23> \- for this paper
- <http://www.acooke.org/pytyp.pdf> \- and here's some notes on how it was
generated - <http://www.acooke.org/cute/HowToWrite1.html>

Even though Latex itself is usually not that intrusive, I find this
significantly easier to read and write (particularly lists!) - it also feels
more natural to edit the source (with Latex I switch more to the formatted
result).

------
trotsky
I'm trying to envision a world where a boss forced his "secretary" to not only
use LaTeX but compose it in emacs. It seems like cruel and unusual punishment.
Even places I was at in the late 80's that were sun/vax/hp shops and everyone
did composition in tex, the assistant pool etc. had dos pcs with wordperfect -
that the engineers often wanted to borrow.

------
StudyAnimal
Heh I was in '96-'97 a lab supervisor at uni, helping people with Microsoft
Word and other applications.

I remember at one of our meetings someone, not even a computer science
student, suggested making everyone use LaTeX as a solution to all the problems
people were having with word.

Half of me kind of wishes they did.

------
rndholesqpeg
I find LaTex to be one of the easiest typesetting languages around. I got used
to taking notes in it while sitting in class years ago, and prefer to use it
for all my notes and paperwork for the most part.

My only gripe is working with someone that uses Scientific Word. Working with
a SW tex file is like trying to look through an html file that was created by
FrontPage in the late 90's.

~~~
surfingdino
I used all three: LaTeX, Lout, and troff. Each has its strengths and
weaknesses. I love them all. If I could not work for a living, I'd spend the
rest of my life playing with typesetting :)

------
warmfuzzykitten
Secretaries? Who has secretaries?

~~~
surfingdino
Bosses who like latex?

