
TeX and LaTeX in industry applications - idle
http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/40720/213
======
sliverstorm
My experience tells me that until you are an expert, you have to fight with
TeX- sometimes you even have to fight it when you are an expert.

So, much like anything open source vs. Microsoft, you will get excellent
results for low effort with the Microsoft tools when doing anything "normal".
When doing something really unusual, turn to TeX because it will be easier to
wrangle than Word.

For example, I tried really hard to use TeX for my resume. It was a tremendous
pain for weeks, and the most popular template hadn't been updated since 1970.
I switched to Word and made a better resume in about twenty minutes. On the
other hand, when working on a hundred-page collaborative report with a team of
eight people working together through a VCS, TeX was a godsend- most notably
for \include, inherited layouts, figures, and citations. (Each of which is
easy for an individual in Word, but hard to manage with eight people)

~~~
sasvari
_you will get excellent results for low effort with the Microsoft tools when
doing anything "normal"_

If you have basic LaTeX skills, you get excellent results for low effort with
LaTeX when doing anything _normal_.

 _For example, I tried really hard to use TeX for my resume. It was a
tremendous pain for weeks, and the most popular template hadn't been updated
since 1970._

As far as my resume is concerned, I can't share your complaint: using an up-
to-date template generated by somebody else, it was very easy to adjust it to
my needs to get a decent looking resume in no time.

(La)TeX can be quite a hassle for some (mostly complex) issues. But especially
for easy tasks, it beats Word and alike easily IMO.

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vessenes
On the one hand, using a modern TeX like ConText can be maddening. On the
other hand, there really isn't an open equivalent for dumping out high-
resolution arbitrarily complex reports that I'm aware of; all the Jasper
reports-inspired reporting systems absolutely suck in terms of printed
quality.

Getting HTML to high-quality print status is easier than it used to be, but
frankly, it just wasn't designed with printed reports in mind.

The SE comments note that while your colleagues may be impressed with the
niceness of your reports, they will be annoyed when they need to edit them:
this is my experience as well.

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mturmon
Some people use LaTeX on multi-institution research proposals.

The usual competing tool for this is Word. But coordination of multiple
contributions in Word docs can be a hassle, even with the tracking features of
Word.

But you can use LaTeX and a good VCS to track and merge changes. Kind of
slick. Works best with academic or quasi-academic collaborators, of course.

Most of the automation-type applications mentioned in the thread probably
could also use HTML+CSS, which is what I prefer for this stuff now.

I don't know anyone who has used HTML+CSS in a research proposal.

~~~
ludwigvan
For HTML/CSS, PrinceXML produces beautiful results, but it is not free.

<http://www.princexml.com/samples/>

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T_S_
When I worked on Wall Street about 10 years ago, somebody tried to used it to
make a daily report and got slapped by the IT dept. for using "unsupportable"
software. There weren't as many freshly minted PhDs floating around then.
Maybe the attitude would be different. The report looked great.

~~~
donflamenco
Early on at Amazon, the forms you got with your order was generated with TeX (
LaTeX? )

It was probably installed by (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Davis_%28programmer%29> ), but he was gone
by that point.

The system was running on a couple of the Sparcstations and at that time (97)
the zon was switching to Alpha.

I remember looking at that the build system and thought that it was
"unsupportable" by myself or any other systems admin there at that time.

Recently, I've wrote some docs in LaTeX and was told to convert it to
Word/Confluence.

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noelwelsh
We split our time between consultancy and our startup projects. The
consultancy side produces a lot of documents (specs, quotes, reports, etc.)
Sometimes we write these collaboratively with the customer. Then we use Word.
When we write them on our own we use Latex. We use XeLatex for pretty fonts
and the very flexible memoir class. We have a standard template all our docs
use. Latex is so much more productive than Word, due to abstraction, easy VCS
integration, and living in our text editors.

------
TwoBit
Can somebody tell me what the primary use of TeX is and what the standard
alternative is? I can't believe that it's Word, as I'm pretty sure Word is for
something else (e.g. intra-office docs).

~~~
chalst
For serious publishing, the usual workflow is that authoring and editing
happens in Word, and once the editing is finished the text is imported into
software such as Indesign for typesetting.

With Tex-based publishing workflows, authoring and editing is typically done
using Latex (in tandem with a Latex-aware text editor, and typesetting phase
is carried out with a Tex-based form as well.

An alternative workflow used by several Context-based publishers (Context is
an alternative format for Tex, now tied to Luatex) is to use one of several
XML-based authoring software and turn the XML document into Context for
typesetting.

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Hominem
Knew a couple people attempting to use it for an 8k self filing solution.
Uploaded word docs get transformed and typeset behind the scenes then output
to the SEC's version of HTML for filing.

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ComputerGuru
I'd imagine Tex/LaTex would provide great productivity boosts for K-12 and
university-level textbooks, assuming publishers (and authors?) actually knew
how to use it..

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dextorious
From the stackexchange thread: """Probably not before you are hired but you
can impress with your good looking reports, presentations etc. after you're
hired."""

I don't think so. The stock standard LaTeX templates are not that good looking
compared to the kind of reports presentations etc a competent guy versatile in
graphic design (not necessarily a graphic designer) can achieve -- perhaps
even using some ready made presentation/report template bundled with his
office suite or third-party.

Slightly better typography is the main advantage, but people would fell asleep
reading a LaTeX template report or presentation. Lack of color, imagery, drab
looking charts and diagrams etc --unless you really dive full in and peruse
all of LaTeX. And it's not like anyone sweats over typography details when
reading a bloody report.

~~~
chalst
I think the commenter was thinking of Beamer, which does have some attractive
layout in its standard suite.

Beautifying Latex and Beamer is really not that difficult. An issue, though,
is that the techniques to do so are different to those used in standard
graphic design.

~~~
dextorious
If we're to judge from this:

<http://www.hartwork.org/beamer-theme-matrix/>

I wouldn't say that Beamer presentation themes are any better --actually
worse--, than what's included with Pages/Powerpoint.

