On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 11:09:46AM -0500, J-F Bilodeau wrote: > I've been using Latex for a while now, and loving it, even if I'm not > doing anything that involves mathematics. There is a learning curve, > but I don't believe it's as steep as some make it sound to be. Docbook > is nice, but I find typing (SG | X)ML slow and painful. > > My recommendation would be Latex hands down. It sounds like Docbook and Latex would be two great meeting tutorial topics. I've just started diving into Latex and am impressed by the output. I'd like to learn a bit more about the structure of the Latex macro grammar so I can understand a bit better what is going on in some of the style sheets. > J-F > > On 2011-02-16, at 10:52 AM, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > > > On Wed, 16 Feb 2011, Prof. John C Nash wrote: > > > >> I recently completed a 313 page book using Latex. The learning cost > >> is heavy, but the rewards are too. > >> > >> Latex is also used by a lot of technical / scientific publishers. > >> I've a paper in process at the moment. Style sheet supplied. > >> Bibliographic support is strong, but again needs learning. > >> > >> There are also recent developments in what is termed "reproducible > >> research" to allow code to be embedded in Latex. We use this to > >> write articles where the statistics (procedures and data) may > >> change. Running special scripts in Sweave and ODFweave allow latex > >> and/or OpenOffice docs to be processed to finished pdf. There are > >> apparently other initiatives like this, but they suggest a useful > >> way to incorporate code and data into documents that avoid copy and > >> paste errors. > > > > if what i was writing involved mathematics in any way, latex would > > be my first choice. but there won't be so i'm not going down that > > road. i'll stick with something based on docbook, i just want to know > > who is doing that sort of thing on a *production* basis, and how it's > > working out for them. > > > > rday slainte mhath, RGB -- Richard Guy Briggs -- ~\ -- ~\ <hpv.tricolour.net> <www.TriColour.net> -- \___ o \@ @ Ride yer bike! Ottawa, ON, CANADA -- Lo_>__M__\\/\%__\\/\% Vote! -- <greenparty.ca>_____GTVS6#790__(*)__(*)________(*)(*)_________________