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.

[synapse]

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.

[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.