Re: LAtex (again)

Johnny <nomailthanx@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

: This sounds more or less right. But chiefly I want to be able to edit the
: code and view it in the form of mathematical symbols; if I have to use
: something other than Word, so be it.

Well, you noticed your problems when coordinating the machineries of Word
and Ribbit, even though the concept is quite straightforward: Ribbit takes
TeX/LaTeX source code, generates a typeset representation (like your
desired equations, etc.), converts that into a graphics file and places
it somewhere into your Word document.

While this is straightforward as an integration model it "solves" its own
home-made problems rather than really helping you.

Not knowing your time constraints I can suggest only one thing:
switch of your computer for a day and lean back for a few hours,
have a walk, share a meal with friends, and once you feel ready
for new challenges, answer yourself a few simple questions:

- do I frequently write texts containing many formulae?
- do I want to concentrate on the contents of my writing,
instead of wasting time with inapt software, or commuting
between several software products, each being a fixture
for the failures of the other applications?
- do I want to make sure that others can appreciate the same
degree of print quality that I prefer to see my papers
printed with?
- am I willing to invest once, at the very beginning, into
time and energy needed for, as well as the willingness to
climbing a somewhat steeper learning curve, in order to
be rewarded with a time-saving, quality-assured work-flow
ever after?

If you only have a mild tendency of answering two of these
questions positively, then proceed as follows:

- Get yourself a beginner's book, tutorial, or a friend's help
for learning some basics (what is a path, a command prompt,
where does the computer store your files, etc.). This know-
ledge is always helpful, because even with menu-driven
stuff and "dialog boxes" you still have to remember where
you put your files, and which applications are expected to
work with what kind of data. Most of the necessary knowledge
can be shown by a friend within less than one hour, everything
else can be learnt during work.

- Only then try the simple instructions given by the previous posters
on how to write a LaTeX document, starting with the hello.tex
or test.tex thingies quoted there. Repeat a few times the
cycle of editing your test file, displaying it with yap,
until you get a feeling of the concepts behind LaTeX and
the software applications needed.

- Now that you feel self-assured enough to write, compile, display
and perhaps print your simple examples, you can start writing
your first article. Apparently you are already familiar with
the codes needed for typesetting math (equations and formulae),
so you can start writing a few of these.

- At this point, you are more or less set to start writing your
first serious document; you move into production mode, so to say.
Get a LaTeX tutorial, it will tell you everything about how to
structure your article with \section commands, how to name your
paper (\title{My First Paper}), etc.

Congratulations, you've learnt to swim.

You'll never ever again have to waste endless hours with images not
fitting in your main text written in a different system; you'll never
again have to worry about somebody using a different printer, and ruining
all your carefully fine-tuned layout when printing your paper, your
system will never crash because you've too many formulae, you'll never
have to worry anymore whether you can still process and edit your
documents once a new version of Word is on the market; you'll never
again fight against absolutely unexplicable quirks and idiosyncrasies
where the text you enter, the formatting you try to apply and the output
on screen/on paper seem to be totally uncorrelated to each other, and
worse yet, UNDOing something doesn't undo, but rather produces the
next unfathomable result.

The price to pay (since there is nothing such as a free launch;-) is
getting yourself familiar with software that had several decades to
mature (all that stuff was conceived ages before any Win-something
came out), and hence is reliable, trustworthy and predictable, one
reason why this newsgroup can offer so much concentrated and useful
expert knowledge.

In the beginning you can use Notepad or any other text editor you
like. Getting a good editor is as much a technical choice as it is
one of personal preference. There is essentially nothing bad in
saying, I do not like Emacs, I prefer (my preferred editor). LaTeX
code is ASCII text, without fancy formatting. You noticed this when
using Ribbit, right?

Once your projects get bigger, a more powerful editor than Notepad
will certainly be helpful; perhaps you try TeXNicCenter (spelling?)
or WinEdt (spelling?) --- I can't offer any advice here since I
do not use them. Anyway, these editors feature menus for many LaTeX
commands, they make compilation and display easy, etc.

Feel free to ask any question here if you don't know how to solve
a problem, but please, be more descriptive in explaining your problem
than before, otherwise answers conjectured by wild guessing might
not help or even mislead you. Try to read documentation, even if it
is only half a web page.

Good luck!

Oliver.
--
Dr. Oliver Corff e-mail: corff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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