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Preliminary documentation

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thomas:
Ugh... not used LaTeX since 1993, what a nightmare... but then, it's you who has to maintain it, not me... so in the end, just use what you are comfortable with :)

Anyway, what's wrong with writing documentation in OpenOffice?

Unless we plant to have a thousand mathematical formulas in our documentation, any modern word processor will do just as good, only more comfortably, faster and in WYSIWYG, will it not?
All modern word processors support PDF and HTML export, too.

A friend of mine is writing his thesis in Microsoft Word at the present time (85 pages of text so far), and even this works without any hassle, including automatic indexing of chapters and stuff. I think if I told him to use LaTeX instead, he'd believe I was joking :)

Biplab:
LaTeX has a number of advantages.


* Press-Quality output can't be obtained from from OpenOffice or even MS Office. The output will not look good.
* Virtually every conceivable mathematical symbols can be used in LaTeX. OOo or MSOfc can't take that. (Though for C::B this is irrelevant)
* LaTeX files can be exported into various other formats.
Word-processors are faster in the sense that they allow us to see the changes on-the-fly, make Cut-Copy-Paste from any other applications.

A thesis can be written in MSWord or OOo Writer. But there are some features (Bibliography management) which is not available in MSOfc or OOo. Most of the Colleges purchase third-party software for their students to help them manage Bibliography in an efficient way.

I have seen people struggling with their thesis (prepared in Word, without a Bibligraphy Management software) at the last moment because their supervisor has asked to remove or add couple of references or equations or figures. With LaTeX you get everything. Just compile it twice after such change and you are ready to submit. :)

byo:

--- Quote from: thomas on June 13, 2007, 05:19:36 pm ---A friend of mine is writing his thesis in Microsoft Word at the present time (85 pages of text so far), and even this works without any hassle, including automatic indexing of chapters and stuff. I think if I told him to use LaTeX instead, he'd believe I was joking :)

--- End quote ---

I've written my thesis in Latex. It wasn't my choice, just many people advised me to do so (some professors in my high school even didn't accepted other formats). Even if I hadn't many formulas there I can say that it was very good choice.

I don't know how it is done in OOo but when my sister was writing her own thesis in MSOfc there was always something wrong with formatting, even changing printer could mix everything up, not mentioning replacement of some word at the beginning of chapter. I remember that she spent over a week for final polishing only because no matter what she did, it always looked wrong after printing (I hope your friend won't have such problems because it's really stressful). And she was shocked when I told that I don't have to care about it because formatting is done automatically.

And it has another advantage - many ppl can work on one document through svn or other versionning system and it won't break. Just like in normal code ;)

Regards
   BYO

David Perfors:
OOo has a bibliography manager. You should use the database for it... I never used it... But LaTeX should be very easy (well I told it was :P)

polygon7:

--- Quote from: Biplab on June 13, 2007, 04:50:58 pm ---
--- Quote ---What kind of documentation type does the community prefer?

--- End quote ---
I would vote for LaTEX. I love it. :)

--- End quote ---
I would vote for LaTeX, too :D

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