LaTeX and big writing projects

[Liz Hare]

Hi Robert,

I'm not Jason, but I wrote my dissertation in LaTex 14 years ago. Back 
then, I had someone read me the print books that had been written on the 
subject. I'm not sure what resources are out there now, but I bet there 
is a lot of online documentation. It's also helpful to look at the .tex 
files for documents others have written that have similar features to 
those you want.

It was great. I had way more control of the formatting and tables than I 
ever could have had with a word processor. I think if you are taking on 
a project like writing a thesis or a book, it's definitely worthwhile.

The disappointing part was that once I finished the degree and made it 
out into the real world (working in the life sciences), I couldn't use 
it much. Journal articles had to be submitted in Word. I didn't have any 
coworkers who knew LaTeX and so many documents, like grant applications, 
had to be in word processing files. If I had the opportunity to work on 
a large writing project now, I'd have a lot to re-learn, and things have 
probably also changed a lot since then. But I still use the notation 
from LaTeX to communicate with sighted people about equations.

Liz

Liz Hare PhD
Dog Genetics LLC
doggene at earthlink.net
http://www.doggenetics.com

On 3/1/2012 6:47 PM, Robert cole wrote:
> Jason,
>
> Sorry to divert this, but I have read about you writing your thesis
> using LaTeX on the Orca list in the past. I was always curious and
> wanted to ask you what resources you used to learn LaTeX. I've been
> working to learn both vi and Emacs, and I think I would rather use LaTeX
> than a GUI word processor for different projects.
>
> As far as the Raspberry Pi goes, I am definitely planning on getting one
> (or more, if possible) when they are offered with cases. It is so
> wonderful to see all of these nice flashy Linux systems coming out.
>
> Although the price is out of range for me right now, I'd like to get my
> hands on a KDE Plasma Active powered Spark tablet [1] one of these days.
> this looks like a very promising device, especially as KDE is seeming to
> become more accessible thanks to QT-AT-SPI, Orca, and all of the other
> projects which are being developed. This is definitely getting exciting!
>
> Take care, and my apologies for my diversion from the original topic.
>
> [1] http://makeplaylive.com/
>
> On 03/01/2012 03:17 PM, Jason White wrote:
>> Littlefield, Tyler<speakup at braille.uwo.ca> wrote:
>>> emacs. I love it, especially with emacspeak.
>> And to be more specific, AucTeX mode for anything complicated and
>> Org-mode for
>> notes and other simple documents.
>>
>> I wrote my thesis in Emacs, with BRLTTY operating the braille display and
>> emacspeak for speech output, and, of course, Git for revision control
>> of the
>> files. TeX gives better typeset output, reputedly, than popular word
>> processors and you can use a good text editor such as Emacs for input.
>> I've
>> been using LaTeX instead of a word processor since 1998, so there was
>> no doubt
>> as to what tool to use when it came to writing my thesis.
>>
>>
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