<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1525174765796_4771">Following Mojca's explanation, I feel I should switch to ConTeXt :-))</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1525174765796_4781"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1525174765796_4782">Wilfred</div><div><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1525174765796_4760"><span></span></div> <div class="qtdSeparateBR"><br><br></div><div class="yahoo_quoted" style="display: block;"> <div style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div dir="ltr"><font size="2" face="Arial"> On Tuesday, May 1, 2018 3:43 PM, Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com> wrote:<br></font></div> <br><br> <div class="y_msg_container"><div dir="ltr">On 26 April 2018 at 14:20, Carrs wrote:<br clear="none">> Hi,<br clear="none">><br clear="none">> a newbie question. I would like advice on which TeX-based software it would<br clear="none">> be best to learn in detail for my typesetting plans. So far, I have learned<br clear="none">> a little TeX and a little LaTeX, but not enough of either to tell me which<br clear="none">> will work best for me.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">You can also look into ConTeXt.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">It is based on TeX, so you get support for all the fancy math stuff<br clear="none">and typographical quality.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">The basic syntax is not that much different from (La)TeX. Instead of<br clear="none">\begin{itemize} ... \end{itemize} you use \startitemize ...<br clear="none">\stopitemize for example, but syntax for math is mostly the same. The<br clear="none">internals/programming is cleaner in my opinion (but much different in<br clear="none">any case).<br clear="none"><br clear="none">It works well on all platforms you need (Linux, Mac, Windows, but also<br clear="none">many others), like any other TeX flavour.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">It works with both Unicode engines (LuaTeX and XeTeX, even though<br clear="none">ConTeXt's support for LuaTeX is much much more advanced nowadays). It<br clear="none">supports more scripts than just Latin script and can also<br clear="none">automatically compose characters for you even when some font of lower<br clear="none">quality is lacking those characters.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Its support for very different and very flexible styles is great and<br clear="none">very well integrated into the package. Support for multiple columns is<br clear="none">quite advanced and allows you to place pictures across multiple<br clear="none">columns and across multiple pages if needed.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">It is of course completely free and opensources, no licences (that is<br clear="none">also true for nearly all TeX anyway). There are TeX user groups around<br clear="none">the globe (TUG in US, DANTE in Germary, as well as some others in<br clear="none">Poland, UK, France, Italy, Denmark, ... ConTeXt group as well) where<br clear="none">you can enrol as a member and support TeX development, but those are<br clear="none">optional.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Beginner manual is here:<br clear="none"> <a shape="rect" href="http://distribution.contextgarden.net/current/context/current/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/ma-cb-en.pdf" target="_blank">http://distribution.contextgarden.net/current/context/current/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/ma-cb-en.pdf</a><br clear="none">along with a lot of other manuals. The only drawback is that there are<br clear="none">so many different document spread around that it's sometimes tricky to<br clear="none">figure out where to look unless you read them all.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">You can also get face-to-face help at the meeting:<br clear="none"> <a shape="rect" href="http://meeting.contextgarden.net/" target="_blank">http://meeting.contextgarden.net</a><br clear="none">which is a great place to meet people, exchange ideas, learn about new<br clear="none">development, get your questions answered.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">What I particularly like about ConTeXt is that:<br clear="none">- it is very actively developed<br clear="none">- it has a consistent user interface and no need to find a different<br clear="none">package for every feature you need in your document<br clear="none">- it has a very active mailing list and you can usually get your<br clear="none">questions answered very quickly<br clear="none">- new functionality is often added on user requests, sometimes within<br clear="none">a few hours<br clear="none">- it has a lot of amazing functionality with respect to new<br clear="none">technologies (like fonts) that not even the expensive commercial<br clear="none">products can offer<br clear="none">- built-in clean programming language (lua)<br clear="none">- ability to interface with external libraries (nearly built-in<br clear="none">support for reading from databases)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">The only "drawback" of ConTeXt is that for historic reasons (ConTeXt<br clear="none">is younger) LaTeX has more users, so if a complete newbie seeks help<br clear="none">nearby (not online), it is slightly easier to find someone familiar<br clear="none">with LaTeX. But as soon as you have some specific needs like advanced<br clear="none">support for image placement and other trickery, the fact that your<br clear="none">neighbour has written a paper with LaTeX some time ago will usually<br clear="none">not help that much anyway.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Mojca<div class="yqt8683062911" id="yqtfd20139"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">--------------------------------------------------<br clear="none">Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.:<br clear="none"> <a shape="rect" href="http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex" target="_blank">http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex</a><br clear="none"></div></div><br><br></div> </div> </div> </div></div></body></html>