Any TeX-perts out there? (was: Re: [PLUG] Struggling with OpenOffice

[Dean S. Messing]

 :: On Thu, 2002-08-08 at 12:08, E. Rogan Creswick wrote:
 :: > >   Maybe what we need is a group session where we all install LaTeX fonts and
 :: > > learn how to build customized style sheets.
 :: > 
 :: > 
 :: > ...sounds like a good topic for a learning co-op. If there is no-one
 :: > better suited, Jason and I could probably put together a session if there
 :: > is interest.
 :: > 
 :: > 
 :: > -Rogan
 :: 
 :: >From what I've heard, TeX is *the* way to write any kind of technical
 :: papers.

It depends on the society.  AMS (American Mathematical Society) is (or
was, last time I looked) exclusively TeX/LaTeX-based.  They even have
a version of LaTeX named AMS-LaTeX.  The manifold theorist, Michael
Spivak, has published a nice book (in the style of Knuth and Lamport)
for those who want to do Pure Maths Typesetting with "straight"
TeX. It is called

    _The Joy of TeX - A Gourmet Guide to Typesetting with
                  the AMS-TeX Macro Package_.

He even formed his own publishing company (based on TeX) to publish
his five volume work on Differentiable Manifolds.

IEEE (my society) allows both .ps files (usually derived from LaTeX)
and .doc files (written with you-know-who's typesetting software)
and provides style files and templates for each system.

MPEG does everything with .doc files.

I don't know about Physics, Chemistry, or Biology, but I know that
LaTeX has sophisticated macro packages for the first two that allow
just about any graphic, e.g. Feynman diagrams, Organic Molecule
diagrams, to be designed.  There is also a nice Music Typesetting
package, as well as packages for Chess, Maps, &c.

Long before Linux and the "free software revolution" there was TeX and
the army of people writing all kinds of modules for it.  For serious
users it's a way of life and makes the "cult of emacs" pale in
comparison. (Well, that may be slight exaggeration).

Be aware that TeX/LaTeX is _not_ a WYSIWYG system, though there are
Linux packages out that have a WYSIWYG front end.  My (nearly nil)
knowledge of these is that they are great if you are not trying to do
anything very sophisticated.  But to get the full power of LaTeX you
must go to old-fashioned editing.  But it is not bad at all.  I can
code up a complex mathematical expression in TeX by typing in the
commands to a file, compiling it, and displaying it just as fast as my
colleagues can use "Equation Editor" in M$ Word.
And mine will look like professionally typeset mathematics rather than
the stuff that my eight grade algebra teacher would print off on the
school mimeograph machine thirty years ago.  (That's probably another
slight exaggeration.)

 :: I haven't used it at all thus far, though.  Slackware has a
 :: whole seperate diskset for it, for some reason... I've never installed
 :: it. 

There are two (or three?) major distributions of TeX/LaTeX.  I can't
remember the 2nd one but the one I use is called `tetex' and I have
version 1.0.7 installed.  Of course I simply do: "rpm -Uvh tetex*.rpm"
and it's installed and ready to use.
But since you use Slack you may have to compile.  It's not a single binary
but a whole raft of things.

In "the old days" compilation was a bear.  It probably isn't any more.
There are many, many components to a full TeX system including the
viewers, the translator(s) from .dvi format to .ps, the plethora of
fonts, and much more.  You need to worry about very little of this if
you use a tetex sub-system.

You may wish to look at http://www.ctan.org/ where the CTAN (comprehensive
TeX Archive Network) is housed. Everything (and a lot more) is there.


 :: As an engineering student, I think a TeX class of some sort would be a
 :: good thing to have under my belt!  I'll bet you could get a lot of folks
 :: to participate in something like that if they were aware of it.
 :: 
 :: -- 
 :: Rob
 :: "Google is your friend"

Dean