[LINK] ArsT: 'Microsoft Word, RIP: 1983 - 2009'

[Glen Turner]

On 04/08/09 13:52, Ivan Trundle wrote:
>
> On 04/08/2009, at 10:00 AM, Paul Bolger<pbolger at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Well you could try Lyx http://www.lyx.org/  and you could use
>> Subversion for versioning. Or you could try Google docs.
>
> Not a viable option for managing workflow, styles, chapters, endnotes,
> footnotes, indexing, TOC, front and end matter, or many other aspects
> of book production. There is a point at which Word becomes difficult
> to manage (documents with more than about 20,000 words - but easily
> solved using chapters).

Um, perhaps you should try it. TeX-based tools are the only choice for
serious books in some sciences. A lot of the facilities in Word are
reimplementations of features originally seen in TeX -- automated
contents, labelled cross references, in-line bibliographic material,
and math layout are usually bought across with only superficial differences.
TeX's hyphenation is the starting point for the hyphenation algorithms in
most word processors.

Lyx is a graphical editor for LaTex books and shares the strengths and
weaknesses of LaTeX.

> Sure, there are many alternatives to Word, but none can match it in
> the heavyweight department.
>
> And the point at which Word fails is when desktop publishing steps in

And when desktop publishing fails, that's where you find TeX-based systems.
As an example, let's say I've made an error in some data. You simply re-make
the document and the data is re-analysed, graphed, and the updated graph
pulled into the dissertation.

It and FrameMaker are the only two programs I've used which can lay out
the same document into completely different styles without any further
stuffing about.  That's useful for scientists as it allows you to provide
a peer review format of your paper (double-spaced, full-page graphs and
so on) and a as-published view of the paper (two columns, graphs in
columns or at top of page).

As for workflow, major academic publishers use TeX-based systems just fine.
Even when I ghost wrote a book for Macmillan the choice was Word or LaTeX.

-- 
  Glen Turner   <http://www.gdt.id.au/~gdt/>