A scientist friend sent me a paper to read recently and then told me he had written it using the LaTex text setting system.
My friend is too cool to use Word or Open Docs or even Google Docs but prefers a system where he can tell the computer exactly what to do in words of one syllable that not even a baby could missunderstand. Well, words with lots of dashes, slashes and abbreviations actually. His programming looks like this:
"\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\tolerance 45000
\pagestyle{plain}
\textwidth 14.6 true cm
\textheight 24 true cm
\evensidemargin \oddsidemargin
\begin{document}
\voffset=-1.8cm
\hoffset=-0.5cm
\hyphenation{dimyristoyl-phosphatidyl-choline}
\baselineskip20pt
\begin{center}
{\bf \Large Genetic Susceptibility to General Anaesthetics}
\end{center}
\baselineskip17pt
\section{Aim of Research Project}
[My friend writes whatever he wants to write as text at this point, like this sentance for instance.]"
(my inverted commas.) I did not even notice when I opened the document that it was not Word, so either he had converted it or my computer must have coped with the concept pretty well. Anyway, when I looked at this simple and elegant script, even as someone who only understands HTML I could begin to grasp the concept of this simple language program, which was rather exciting. Wouldn't it be impressive to be able to tell ones friends "well, of course I only use LaTex myself." I will try it the next time I start a new project (but I am not going to start converting all my existing files thanks all the same.)
My friend is too cool to use Word or Open Docs or even Google Docs but prefers a system where he can tell the computer exactly what to do in words of one syllable that not even a baby could missunderstand. Well, words with lots of dashes, slashes and abbreviations actually. His programming looks like this:
"\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\tolerance 45000
\pagestyle{plain}
\textwidth 14.6 true cm
\textheight 24 true cm
\evensidemargin \oddsidemargin
\begin{document}
\voffset=-1.8cm
\hoffset=-0.5cm
\hyphenation{dimyristoyl-phosphatidyl-choline}
\baselineskip20pt
\begin{center}
{\bf \Large Genetic Susceptibility to General Anaesthetics}
\end{center}
\baselineskip17pt
\section{Aim of Research Project}
[My friend writes whatever he wants to write as text at this point, like this sentance for instance.]"
(my inverted commas.) I did not even notice when I opened the document that it was not Word, so either he had converted it or my computer must have coped with the concept pretty well. Anyway, when I looked at this simple and elegant script, even as someone who only understands HTML I could begin to grasp the concept of this simple language program, which was rather exciting. Wouldn't it be impressive to be able to tell ones friends "well, of course I only use LaTex myself." I will try it the next time I start a new project (but I am not going to start converting all my existing files thanks all the same.)
Comments
LaTex from what I remember produces much classier documents than Word does.