<p>I know that LaTeX is oh so important in academia but would I ever need to use it for undergraduate studies? </p>
<p>I’m certain, however, that if I were to do research, it might possibly come in handy if I were to write up anything in a more formal manner.</p>
<p>If you’ll be writing anything.</p>
<p>If you’re smart, then you should replace all your Word/Openoffice Writer needs with LaTeX.</p>
<p>LaTeX is a fantastic tool but it may or may not be useful for you. Bosses and colleagues in the future may or may not support it out in industry, though most will in academia. I’d say do it if you may be going to graduate school. If not then it may not be worth the time right now simply because it seems many in industry value the track changes functionality of Word too much.</p>
<p>My D uses it all the time. Learn it, it’s pretty easy. Great thing to do over the summer.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. I plan to go into graduate studies for my field so I think I’ll learn it some time.</p>
<p>It won’t be useful as an undergrad but it’s good to learn early(learly!). I still haven’t used it, I’m a senior.</p>
<p>If by “learn LaTeX” you mean take time specifically to study LaTeX syntax in an artificial self-study environment, I would say no (unless you have nothing better to do, I guess). On the other hand, it might make good sense to complete your university assignments using LaTeX when appropriate, allowing extra time to pick up the syntax as you go along. In my experience, it is not uncommon for students in upper-division undergrad / grad math courses to submit typed LaTeX homework assignments.</p>
<p>My D, who is an undergrad, turns in her assignments in LaTeX. It’s a huge time saver, and the TAs really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Unless you are specifically preparing documents heavy in math for publication, why not just use equation editor in MS Word?</p>
<p>Quick question for anyone who knows: is there any good reason to write equations in LaTeX instead of just using MathType, other than “scientists LOVE LaTeX” or is that pretty much it?</p>
<p>I think noimagination has the best response here so far. Definitely don’t just sit there and try and learn it by reading about it. Find something to apply it to and learn by doing. It is fairly easy to get the basics down and it is quite a powerful tool.</p>
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<p>Probably because in terms of preparing scientific documents, LaTeX and its related languages are much more powerful than Word, especially when making large documents.</p>
<p>Probably the biggest advantage is that LaTeX makes no assumptions about what you are trying to achieve. Whereas Word is incredibly eager to try and read your mind and do what it thinks you want to do (e.g. setting numbering a specific way or changing the format of your text), which can be sometimes helpful and sometimes horrible, LaTeX does exactly what you tell it; no more, no less. You can precisely control how it sets your layout and it maintains that layout effort-free through even incredibly long documents, which get quite cumbersome in terms of formatting in Word. Perhaps more importantly, the built-in layouts keep you from having to learn all the formatting nuances to make some really high-quality documents, and most scientific journals have their own document classes that you download that automatically put your manuscript into the journal’s format without having to deal with it. It also means your text will automatically be in their format when you send it in so they don’t have to assign typesetters to editing your Word file, which leads to faster publication times.</p>
<p>Second, it has a much larger library of mathematical symbols and notation, especially when you add in the things you can get from the package library. Typesetting those equations is much faster once you learn the syntax rather than all the menus and clicking involved in Word. Equation numbering is also handled without any headaches and is persistent through sections, chapters, and all those sorts of things.</p>
<p>You can also effortlessly track your citations in a paper and link it to an external bibliography file that many researchers have (e.g. the .bib file that can be generated by programs such as Mendeley). That way, you can have all your papers documented and point all your documents to that database and it will automatically fill in your references section with the articles you actually cited in the format specified by your or the journal. It also makes linking your citations in the paper via hypertext to the bibliography trivial (same goes for tables of contents, lists of figures, etc.).</p>
<p>Basically, it is a typesetting language designed specifically for scientific writing, and once you learn it, you essentially will not ever want to go back to Word.</p>
<p>Frankly, I just don’t see the benefit. I’ve been able to do everything in MathType without any formatting gripes and without any lack of speed (MathType hotkeys are nice) even for relatively long documents (unless I’m using AutoShapes - do not do this because it will ruin everything). Word is quite reasonable in its typesetting and MathType’s WYSIWYG is definitely much nicer than the possibility of messing up code. LaTeX is certainly “more powerful,” but I’d also rather not program in C++ if a TI-89’s program editor does the job more quickly because that’s using a power drill to do a screwdriver’s job.</p>
<p>Every other reason seems to boil down to “because scientists like it.” Am I missing something, or is that really its main advantage?</p>
<p>Anyone here ever use EXP scientific word processor? It’s a WYSIWYG word processor for Windows that does equations better than Word. It can convert its documents to LaTex formatting. I used it a long time ago, and am surprised to see it’s still being sold…</p>
<p>From what I can gather, it just doesn’t really have a purpose. MathType integrates into Word, and LaTeX is what scientists like. A separate word processor really seems to lack a target audience.</p>
<p>You are certainly free to continue using Word. There are plenty of people who still do. LaTeX is something that generally seems like more trouble than it’s worth… until you try it. Then it is simply outstanding. The typesetting style is, stylistically speaking, generally better than Word as well according to typographers, but I suppose you have to be an aesthetics wonk to appreciate that.</p>
<p>Well that doesn’t really answer my question, does it? I could just as easily say that Word is better if you really get to know how it works and understand the features of formatting and MathType and such.</p>
<p>What is it, specifically, that makes LaTeX worth using for writing a long document? I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, it’s just that I’m not really seeing why these small benefits are worth a whole lot of hassle and writing in code.</p>
<p>Different tools for different jobs and different people. The best tool is the one you like the most.</p>
<p>That said, Macs blow.</p>
<p>Of course my last post didn’t answer your question because my previous one did, which you found unsatisfactorily moving to get you to try it. I was simply responding to that. Easy, killer.</p>
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The value of these benefits and the amount of hassle involved will vary.</p>
<p>The use of LaTeX as a de facto professional standard in some fields and its cross-platform compatibility are probably the key factors. Beyond that, some people will like the more precise control over typesetting and prefer the aesthetics of the finished product. YMMV.</p>
<p>I have had issues with formatting in MS Word when I don’t quite understand what the software is going to do and then get surprised by some hidden automatic function or formatting. I’m sure experience would mitigate those issues, just as experience would make the unfamiliar syntax of LaTeX familiar. Personally, I do most things by hand and use Word for short lab reports and the like. If I had to do more serious scientific writing, I would probably prefer LaTeX for that task.</p>
<p>Personally, I wouldn’t bother to learn LaTeX. 20+ years ago it was very popular in my field, but now it is very rare for anyone to use it.</p>