An analysis of typesetting engines, MS Word vs. Oo Writer vs. LaTeX Options

[mipadi]

I found this interesting article that compares typesetting in Microsoft Word, OpenOffice Writer, and (my personal favorite) LaTeX: http://oestrem.com/thingstwice/2007/05/lat...word-vs-writer/

Enjoy.

[fixtatik]

you need to convert font files to latex font files to do this? it seems an awful amount of work unless you're self-published novelist or journalist.

side note...it made me happy seeing that only one person in the comments used IE. =D

[mipadi]

you need to convert font files to latex font files to do this? it seems an awful amount of work unless you're self-published novelist or journalist.

LaTeX ships with a variety of fonts (and not cheap knock-off fonts like Arial or Georgia, but nice fonts like Helvetica, Times, and Garamond).

I liked how the Latex one makes typed projects look better, but I've used OOo before, it's UI is ugly. I couldn't find a single screenshot of Latex from http://www.latex-project.org/ overall, I like the UI for ms word, it's just much more userfriendly.

LaTeX files are just text files, so you just edit them in a text editor. I guess there are some GUI interfaces for LaTeX, but I've never used them so I can't comment.

LaTeX has a higher learning curve, but the results are stunning, because the program is designed to produce output suitable for publishing.

[fixtatik]

LaTeX ships with a variety of fonts (and not cheap knock-off fonts like Arial or Georgia, but nice fonts like Helvetica, Times, and Garamond).

i suppose i was a little confused by one of the comments the author made:

Anyway: First of all you need a licenced set of the font Adobe Garamond Pro, the type1 version, with all the different types of files (.afm, .pfm, and .pfb). Then go to http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/metrics/w-a-schmidt/ and download the file called pad.zip. That contains everything you need to convert the type1 files to proper latex font files, including detailed instructions. The most tedious part is renaming all the files and putting them all in the right location, but it’s worth the effort :)
Exactly where that “right location” is will depend on how your version of latex is configured. I put them in ~/.texmf-var, for what it’s worth.

i'm assuming that's if you want to use fonts other than what's supplied with latex.

[mipadi]

i'm assuming that's if you want to use fonts other than what's supplied with latex.

Yeah.