Trying to write stuff and instead having an epic battle with latex* and currently losing badly.

[sundogplanets@mastodon.social]

Trying to write stuff and instead having an epic battle with latex* and currently losing badly.

*Typesetting latex! Not any other kind of latex. This is a lot less epic of a battle than I may have led you to believe.

[wordshaper@weatherishappening.network]

@sundogplanets I've used both latexes. I... would 100% understand if the battle with the computer one was the significantly more epic.

[micha_silver@fosstodon.org]

@sundogplanets I hear you, and I also went thru the "punching bag" stage with Latex. And more or less came out OK, somewhat scathed but still using it, for both papers and presentations.

[szescstopni@circumstances.run]

@sundogplanets When I was on Twitter mentions of latex were always about synthetic elastic material. Here it's almost always about typesetting. Thanks for reminding me to get back to a LaTex project I almost abandoned

[lonm@social.vivaldi.net]

@sundogplanets "Word is amazing until you have a finished document, then it's a nightmare.

Latex is a nightmare until you have a finished document, then it's amazing."

- Sun Tzu

[nivex@tenforward.social]

@sundogplanets I usually see folk use LaTeX to refer to the typesetting software for a quick distinction.

[gnomon@mastodon.social]

@wordshaper @sundogplanets .oO( "latexes... latices..?" )

[quephird@tech.lgbt]

@sundogplanets At one point, the bottommost item was my display name for here and Bluesky. :3

[sundogplanets@mastodon.social]

@quephird I remember laughing pretty hard at that!!

[quephird@tech.lgbt]

@sundogplanets

I’m a very silly girl…

[paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange]

@sundogplanets

oh, from my memories of using LaTeX, battling LaTeX is way more painful than battling latex.

it still sucks less than MS office for large/complex docs or stuff with lots of math and equations but it's not for the faint of heart.

[quephird@tech.lgbt]

@sundogplanets Also, I’m pretty sure the Unicode Consortium has a warrant out for my arrest. :3

[stevebellovin@infosec.exchange]

@sundogplanets I’ve typeset three CS books in LaTeX but have to do my legal writing in Word. I *hate* Word, and for all my battles with LaTeX overall it’s far better.

[miekg@mastodon.nl]

@SteveBellovin @sundogplanets Maybe you are ready for a new battle?

I'm converting to typst for most of my stuff. And it is NICE

[stevebellovin@infosec.exchange]

@miekg @sundogplanets At this point, I have so much infrastructure for books—and I have two in progress now—that switching would be painful.

[dlakelan@mastodon.sdf.org]

@sundogplanets
I worked with a woman who was a department secretary who got a message from our boss "Its time for you to start learning to use LaTeX" and she just about broke down and cried, thinking he was making some kind of horrible sex related harassment demand.

Was super relieved the next morning when she discovered it was just typesetting software to help the group publish some results.

[acsawdey@fosstodon.org]

@paul_ipv6 @sundogplanets If you use LaTeX you just have to accept that it has *opinions* about how your paper is going to look and if you want to change that, you will pay in blood, sweat, and tears. That said, if you need something that looks decent and has math and/or big tables, well, I personally think the price to ones sanity will be lower with LaTeX than M$Word.

[agturcz@circumstances.run]

@Szescstopni @sundogplanets Certainly, there is someone on the fediverse, who's typing LaTeX in latex.