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Storing text in binary formats like word docs instead of plain text like latex makes git version control unusable.
I used it for resumes and assignments in school. Like others said I wasn’t trying to save time but to make things look more professional.
sample size seems small but im no expert
I’ve wasted hours of my life, trying to insert an image in a word document without word compressing it, making it illegible, only to find out that it’s impossible. I can’t even imagine anything being worse at this point
Sure, but have you ever wasted hours of your life checking the documentation for the exact string of case-sensitive letters that force LaTeX not to yeet your image 45 pages further into the document, because that’s THE MOST PERFECT PLACE to put it?
Clearly flawed methodology.
The value of LaTeX isn’t productivity when making a single document.
The value of LaTeX is productivity when you need to reuse past work, or update it with the latest data and figures, or make a collection of similar documents.
And the ease with which you can generate hundreds of lines of page with a simple text template and code.
Right.
Do your writing in text files accompanying the image files (figures). The LaTeX code is just instructions for how to render the various text sources arrange the figures on pages to be printed or rendered as slides.
It separates the flowing creative experience of writing and documenting what happened in the experiment from the fiddling creative experience of rendering, editing, and presentation to ensure that the text and figures line up appropriately and are on appropriate pages.
Separating fact finding from presentation is an important barrier in the scientific method.
Yup. When I rerun my things, in latex I just overwrite the plots file (pdf/png) and compile latex. In word I have to find where it was and replace it there. It’s way easier on latex if you make your code just write plot files in the same location.
You can use a symlink to point to the
figuresdirectory of a certain run of the code. Add git history to the mix, and now you have an auditable record of what version of the code’s output ended up in each version of the paper.You can be so anal and precise about everything.
Word definitely has its niche.
However, I find for many of my tasks, LaTeX or Typst just make sense. I don’t need to worry about out of date figures. I can customize styling instantly. I can track my changes with Git. Grammar checking is rough tho. lsp-like grammar checking would revolutionize my world lol.
I can personally attest that I transitioned to LaTeX from Word, when Word wouldn’t handle equations correctly, or would crash when I had too many. It doesn’t matter if I can put out 50 word equations faster than LaTeX if I’m breaking my flow state to restart my editor.
They overlap in their ecosystem niches but in no way is one a complete replacement for the other. LaTeX has a larger niche than Word which makes it a really safe default.
“Nobody ever got fired for choosing React”
needs more jpeg.
but on a serious note, how do you version control an msoffice/libreoffice document? you can’t just put it in git, the repo will get huge quickly
docx is just a zip of xml files. if you add some hooks to git, you could make it unzip it, commit the xml files, then when checking out rezip it into a docx automatically.
Now judge it by how good the end result looks
But also… The fuck?
/begin{outrage}
How dare they!?
/end{outrage}
deleted by creator
latex exists to make your text look more professional, not to make you more productive, duh.
pig lipstick
Just write everything in markdown and use pandoc to type set.
That is what Obsidian is for.
“¿Por qué no los dos?”
I write my text in a word processor (Like Libreoffice writer) and typeset the final document in LaTeX.
I never understood this false comparison between the two software that are essentially meant for very distinct tasks.
Thanks Satan !
I’ve been questioning the benefits every time someone insisted that I should use latex. Now I have scientific evidence that it won’t make my life better!
Use latex. It will make your life better.
Well, latex users reported enjoying the software, so I will give you that credit.
This is an outrage! 🧐
