
Ask HN: MS Word alternatives for writing academic reports - indralukmana
Right now i am searching for an alternative for writing academic reports (master thesis). in the past i have written such reports (bachelor final projects) with MS Word and it is NOT an enjoyable experience. Whereas latex is widely used for academic reports, i don&#x27;t really want to learn something so complex only for academic reports, i want to learn something that also can be used for general usage (documentation, blog writing, etc).<p>Here i found out about restructuredtext and markdown as a markup language for documentation. After some reading i concluded that restructuredtext is more in tune with what i am trying to accomplish e.g: it can be converted into latex if i want to incorporate bibliography from latex<p>What are your experiences on using markup language for writing general or academic documents(using figures, tables, bibliography, etc)? do you have suggestions regarding this topic?<p>PS:
I mainly using linux<p>amd
Here are some applications for writing markup language that i found:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;notex.ch&#x2F; (rst, markup, latex) -- it seems to be made with GWT<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;rst.ninjs.org&#x2F; (rst)<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;github&#x2F;markup (many)<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sourceforge.net&#x2F;projects&#x2F;retext&#x2F;<p>edit:<p>i agree with the expression &quot;when you have a hammer, you see every problem as a nail&quot; as stated by commenters.<p>but right now i am not proficient enough with a tool to switch or compare with another one.<p>some commenter suggest that i really invest in learning latex. i was starting to learn latex from wikipedia wikibook when i got intimidated by it and went to searching for alternatives.<p>based on the commenters some ways&#x2F;applications to ease this learning are:<p>1. lyx<p>2. www.writelatex.com<p>3. using latex templates<p>4. scrivener<p>any other suggestions?
======
GlennS
The first thing you need to know about is
[http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/](http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/) which
is a fantastic tool.

So I would say that it might be worth reconsidering LaTeX because it has
[http://www.bibtex.org/](http://www.bibtex.org/) which is excellent for
academic papers. The investment to get competent with LaTeX is certainly
several hours, but it pays itself back quickly. See
[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX) for a
good learning resource.

For myself, I mainly use [http://orgmode.org/](http://orgmode.org/) for emacs.
This can export as LaTeX, and from there to any of the vast multitude of
formats that LaTeX can be converted to. However, if you're not willing to
learn LaTeX, then you're probably not willing to learn emacs either: where
LaTeX is a matter of hours to learn competently, emacs takes weeks.

I used Markdown to write the bulk of my text for a while, but I found it
didn't scale very well to large documents. It is great for blog posts and the
like.

~~~
xorbyte
MultiMarkdown might be more suitable for large documents, as it allows the
inclusion of files between documents, cross-references etc.

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agentultra
Maybe [https://www.writelatex.com/](https://www.writelatex.com/) can help you
become familiar with LaTeX? I'm not huge into type-setting myself but there
are numerous text editors and markup formats that can export to LaTeX. The
bonus is that you can script most of the workflow and cargo-cult what you need
to get the document working until you properly figure things out.

~~~
jdleesmiller
I'm a cofounder at wL. If you're new to LaTeX, you might want to check out our
online course [1], and we also have a 'rich text' mode that renders equations
and some commands inline in the editor, for quicker feedback [2].

[1] [https://www.writelatex.com/blog/7-free-online-
introduction-t...](https://www.writelatex.com/blog/7-free-online-introduction-
to-latex-course-part-1)

[2] [https://www.writelatex.com/blog/81](https://www.writelatex.com/blog/81)

~~~
lightcatcher
Sorry for being off topic, but I have a writeLaTex feature request/question.

There's only one thing about writeLaTex that convinced me to stop using the
service (which I used while learning LaTeX) and to start doing all editing
locally. This is the behavior when the connection is lost/dropped momentarily.
The red bar appears at the top of the screen, but I'm still able to type, only
to have my typing disappear a few seconds later and the cursor reset to the
top of the input box. This is incredibly annoying even when it only happens
once every 15 minutes. It seems like this could be fixed very easily (just
store what I'm typing locally and then sync it to your servers).

Also, this isn't so much a complaint but a feature request: I'd be much less
paranoid about writeLaTeX going down when I need to print/access a major
report or something if there was a way to automatically save files locally.
This could be done using the Dropbox or Google Drive APIs. For an example of
these feature, you can try editing a file in Dropbox with
[https://draftin.com/](https://draftin.com/) .

Thanks a ton, besides these warts I love the product!

~~~
jdleesmiller
Thanks for the feedback. That should now be better: we remember the cursor
position for when the connection picks up again. If there's anything else we
can help with, just let us know. :)

------
Paul_S
Have you considered LyX? Designed for people with a problem like yours -
wanting the benefit of TeX output without the effort needed to learn something
new. It's also a pretty good structure oriented (rather than WYSIWYG) editor.

~~~
partoutok
Isn't LyX WYSIWYG ? Personally I would say it is. (and also @vancomycin
below). Sure there is also the "WYSIWYM" category, but it's more of a pun and
not broadly known.

~~~
Paul_S
LyX is not WYSIWYG and I'm not sure how to argue this point. What you see in
the editor window doesn't look like the paginated output - it's not really up
to someone's opinion to decide.

~~~
partoutok
It's not the paginated output but it's close, especially compared to LaTeX
code. And I believe many people understand WYSIWYG broadly as a point and
click interface with visual feedback, in contrast to writing some code.

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vancomycin
Lyx is a good option for a sort of WYSIWYG LaTeX
([http://www.lyx.org/](http://www.lyx.org/))

~~~
indralukmana
thank you, i will look into it

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wglb
I recommend latex, as once you get going it is not really all that complex,
what with all the packages available.

~~~
indralukmana
i am considering learning latex, but it looks like it has a steep learning
curve compared with markup language like rst or markdown and also it seems
very verbose i.e, presentation and content are written whole/completely

~~~
pseingatl
LaTex is not a writing application, it is a typesetting application. LaTex
should be your last stop before publication.

You can, of course, write natively in LaTex but the program wasn't designed
for that.

~~~
jimhefferon
> You can, of course, write natively in LaTex but the program wasn't designed
> for that.

Hard to know precisely what you mean by this, but if you mean that you
shouldn't be writing things like

    
    
        \documentclass{article}
    
        \begin{document}
        Hello world.
        \end{document}
    

then you are mistaken; the LaTeX book (and many other documents) describes
what to do. If what you mean is that a person is somehow meant to use a front
end such as LyX, then you'll get a lot of disagreement (such as from me).

~~~
pseingatl
What I mean is that in your example the only content is "Hello world." The
rest is typesetting. The original question asked, "what tool should I use to
write?" LaTex answers the question, "how can I typeset what I have written?"
BTW, Lyx is a terrific program. My only complaint with it is that I haven't
found a way to mimic a word processor's tab behavior consistently. The tabbing
package doesn't do it for me. \qquad does, kind of, but that's six keystrokes.
The problem is that in some kinds of writing text placement may have meaning
and this conflicts with LaTex's underlying paradigm of automating typesetting
decisions.

~~~
jimhefferon
LaTeX was certainly intended for a document such as I wrote so you are wrong,
as documented in Lamport's book.

------
ratsimihah
You may not want to use the same tools to write academic reports and blog
posts. It's best explained by the popular programming quote that "when you
have a hammer, you see every problem as a nail."

LaTeX can get hard, but templates lower the learning curve. Google "latex
report templates," learn how to compile them, play with them. Even if it's
harder the first day, it will be a lot more useful in the long term.

The learning curve is not a fair excuse not to try it. If you try it, build
things with it, and don't like it, you'll know what you're not missing.

------
xorbyte
Look if anyone in your institution has created a dissertation template for
LaTeX, or if you can use one [from
elsewhere]([https://github.com/briandealwis/ubcdiss](https://github.com/briandealwis/ubcdiss)).
I personally found the formatting to be the hardest part, not the actual
writing, especially since you can find helpers for various text editors, like
LaTeXTools for Sublime etc.

As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, don't make your hammer solve all of
the problems.

------
shushcat
As other commenters have mentioned, Pandoc[1] is an incredibly useful tool for
converting documents between formats. I do not, however, think that its
usefulness in a solution to your specific problem has been framed clearly
enough. It uses a version of the markdown syntax which is slightly-modified to
ease writing of lengthier or academic documents. For example, a citation to a
BibTeX bibiliography (usually performed in LaTeX by typing
`\cite{McElroy-2000}`) is written `@McElroy-2000`, headers can be tagged to
simplify internal references, and actual LaTeX commands can be called if you
need them. Since the changes from standard markdown are minimal, you can write
using any of the many markdown editors which are available.

As to my particular setup, I write Pandoc markdown in Vim using a plugin which
I wrote for that purpose.[2] Nothing fancy, mind you, just light syntax
highlighting, some keyboard shortcuts for (1) exporting to html or pdf (via-
LaTeX) and (2) jumping between headers, and document folding, the latter of
which is especially useful for outlining and organizing lengthy documents.

[1]: [http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/](http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/)

[2]: [https://github.com/shushcat/minimd](https://github.com/shushcat/minimd)

------
AnimalMuppet
Lyx. Full stop.

I've used it for two papers for arXiv, with equations and tables. It can write
any math formula you can write on paper. You don't need to learn Latex _at
all_ to use it. It's very clear and intuitive. It's not WYSIWIG, but it's
clear what you're going to get, and what you need to do on-screen to get what
you want.

And,if you're on Linux, you should be able to get it running with no sweat.

------
csense
Markdown and RST is what people generally use for documentation and blog
writing.

However, LaTeX has features designed for academic writing (e.g. you can have
references to sections / bibliography entries, so when you insert or delete
new ones, the numbers in the text are updated automatically.)

You don't mention what subject your thesis is in, but if it involves
mathematical notation, you will likely have a lot more work and poorer results
if you use anything but LaTeX.

Specifically related to the question of using LaTeX's mathematical typesetting
capabilities in documentation or webpages, MathJax [1] is a popular solution.
The Python-based static blog generator Nikola [2] has support for MathJax.

As for being intimidated by LaTeX, and being too unfamiliar with alternatives
to make a comparison, I suggest spending a day or so trying to write a small
part of your report in LaTeX, then deciding after you've used it.

[1] [http://www.mathjax.org/](http://www.mathjax.org/)

[2] [http://getnikola.com/](http://getnikola.com/)

------
indralukmana
Thank you everyone for the suggestions and insights. After contemplating with
the choices i have decided to go through with restructuredtext, and pickup
latex bit-by-bit to incorporate scientific parts (it turns out you can do some
inline latex in restructuredtext).

here are some factors that drive my decision:

\- i can start writing content right away without much initial learning

\- rst can be read/revised by my other peers with more ease than full blown
latex document.

\- i can use latex parts (equations, typesetting, etc) inline with rst, and i
can learn latex bit-by-bit on the way

\- there some libraries/program that can make attractive presentations using
rst
([http://regebro.github.io/hovercraft/#/step-1](http://regebro.github.io/hovercraft/#/step-1))

so i will use rst and learn latex on the way.

------
cmrivers
I'm also an academic. I use Scrivener, then pop it into LaTeX. Scrivener has a
non-commercial version for Linux. It's not fully featured, but it still does a
good job. You have to download it from their forum:
[http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=33&s...](http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=33&sid=40d9c854a6f68a5b81399c30098eec7f)

Learning LaTeX is absolutely worth the time and effort. I realize it's not the
easiest thing to learn, but it's invaluable for keeping track of citations,
simple typesetting, and rendering equations. It is not, however, worth using
for making slideshows or posters.

------
pseingatl
1\. Draft in Scrivener. 2\. Export to rtf. 3\. Open the file in Open Office.
4\. Export to LaTex. 5\. Typeset pdf.

You can also export directly from Scrivener to LaTex, but a thesis is going to
require a good deal of back and forth and revisions before it is ready for
typesetting.

If you don't want to have a typeset final product, you can write in Scrivener
and export to many different formats. If you want to write using Markdown
syntax, you can do so in Scrivener as well. It's a terrific program.

~~~
indralukmana
it looks like a very nice application, but i forgot to mention that i am now
mainly using linux and it seems there is no linux version? (and also free (as
in free lunch version) :D)

~~~
pseingatl
There is a linux version, it's available here:

[http://literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=252...](http://literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=25201)

------
wodenokoto
Word with Zotero makes for a rather painless thesis writing experience.

Just remember to mark headlines as headings, and don't just change the font
size of your headlines. It's easy to insert references to formulas, figures
and graphs.

LibreOffice + Zotero makes for the some fairly painless bibliography, table of
content, internal figure referencing.

If you need to build advanced graphs from large dataset, there is no painless
way about it, but LaTex is in no way more difficult than the other options.

------
atsaloli
Check out asciidoc, it is quite mature. You can start using it quickly, but
it's very full-featured and has a supportive community. Can generate text,
HTML, Docbook XML, PDF output. Generates nice looking output, customizable,
etc.

It's like markdown but more mature and scales to large documents.

[http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/](http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/)

------
andrewcooke
i would probably try using pandoc's markdown
[http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/README.html#pandocs-
markdow...](http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/README.html#pandocs-markdown) and
then generating latex from that. but that's because (imho) markdown is easy to
edit / read. getting latex output any different from the default is going to
involve "learning latex" i suspect.

pandoc is written in haskell and available on linux. for opensuse you can
install it from
[http://software.opensuse.org/search](http://software.opensuse.org/search)

[i wrote my own thesis in latex, but that was many years ago. another
advantage of starting in markdown is that it's easier to get to other formats,
like putting your thesis on the web.]

------
partoutok
We're beta-testing an online editor for technical documents, if you want to
join we would be glad to have you (email/url in my profile). If you'd prefer a
more DIY solution, in addition to LaTeX you should also check out asciidoc, it
seems to support a lot of what you're after.

------
gatesphere
If you want to go with reStructuredText, I highly suggest using Leo[1] -- it
uses rST heavily internally, and provides fantastic tools for working with it.

[1]: [http://leoeditor.com/](http://leoeditor.com/)

------
acd
Write it in LaTeX.

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kcbanner
I would just learn LaTeX. As far as I know, it is essential to writing a
decently formatted whitepaper.

