should I use LaTeX and why (not)?

Question

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Is LaTeX worth learning today?

I'm a student, and just finished this last semester. This summer I will be working on a project that will require a lot of documentation and reports, and I'm shivering every time I think of styling in either Word or OpenOffice.

I've been wanting to learn LaTeX for a while, but I can't help but think; is it worth it? Does anyone actually use it except for academics? Is it worth taking the time it takes to learn to use it efficiently? What are the pros and cons?

Answer 1

It is definitely worth the time. I look at it this way, even if you discount all the modules available which make things easier, would you rather spend your time formatting your content, or creating your content? Once you get over the initial learning curve, you'll find that using traditional word processing is a lot less efficient than LaTeX.

Answer 2

This is not programming related, but I only use LaTeX for maths/physics. I wouldn't use it for programming-related documentation. It's just not suited for it. The most effective style of documentation for programming is web-based, obviously. Word or OpenOffice or even one of the lightweight text makrup systems (i.e. for book writing) are also appropriate.

So yes, I'd only recommend LaTeX if you're making use of the math markup it offers. Outside of that, I wouldn't bother.

Answer 3

I have used LaTeX a lot over the years and found it an invaluable tool for producing documents. I'd say that if you are going to be working on relatively large documents then it is definitely the way to go as it will make managing the document a lot easier than in Word. Particular benefits would be consistent styling across the doc and excellent tools for producing indexes, content pages, and references. If you're needing to include mathematical notation then it is a lot simpler to work with than a formula editor in a word processor.

However, if you are just producing short reports and documents then maybe something like Word or OpenOffice is sufficient.

Answer 4

Yes

Yes it is worth it, for large and complex documents/reports thesis. The quasi programable/scriptable nature of LaTex gives you a huge productivity and flexibility boost not found in other platforms.

For example, when doing my Thesis, each chapter was maintained in a seperate 'module' or .tex file. The master document simply referenced it. This highly organised way makes creating very large documents very easy (in terms of managing it).

Also what I tend to do is use it along with words:

simply write all the text in words, then copy and paste into text. So basically word is used for Word Processing (spell checking, grammar etc)

Down site, is you end up with two versions, but if you maintain a good folder structure this is not a problem.

Eg:

 >Words
     >Sections
       >Section 1
       ...
 >LaTeX
    ...

Answer 5

It's 2010, why are you planning to produce documentation and reports on dead trees ? Seriously, there are are a lot of good (and some bad) things about LaTeX (and Word, and OpenOffice) for documentation but surely by now you (we, all of us) should be putting our documentation in some on-line form.

Some of the Wiki software would be entirely appropriate, but there's a gazillion other choices too: XML (with your favourite flavours added), DocBook, and lots lots more to choose from.

Personally I use LaTeX all the time, the programs I document are computational geophysics codes so the maths abilities of LaTeX are very very useful, but I wouldn't advise a beginner to pick it up.

Answer 6

LaTeX is great if you want cross-references, indexes and consistent styles of text. It's not so great for handling graphics and desktop publishing things. It makes most sense when used on large projects of fairly regular, structured text.

Make sure to really understand \newcommand. Ideally, you should never need to put formatting commands directly into your text, but always define a command that says why you want formatting and use that. Since you'll be making a lot of similar documents, having the style commands in a separate include file will be very handy. Do check on what the policy of the project is, and that other project members are cool with using LaTeX.

It is a language that requires having a reference book, but if you want the best in typography and maintainability, it's the way to go.

Answer 7

I wrote my final year degree report in LaTeX, and it came out looking really nice. However, it doesn't mean you have to work directly with LaTeX. I'd recommend LyX as an editor to save time and brain cycles when you're doing your paragraphs and headings, while still allowing you to insert arbitrary equations and other markup where you need to.