[XeTeX] XeTeX in lshort

Gerrit Glabbart g.glabbart at googlemail.com
Thu Sep 30 14:25:07 CEST 2010


2010/9/30 Mike Maxwell <maxwell at umiacs.umd.edu>:
> On 9/29/2010 9:29 PM, Herbert Schulz wrote:
>>
>> I just like well organized articles with good hierarchy although I
>> used to (before I retired) do all my exams in LaTeX with some custom
>> macros.
>
> I think you're quite unusual.

… but in a good way! :)

Actually, the fact that *TeX enforces structured documents is an
important feature, and it makes LaTeX useful even for people who have
little or no need for math typesetting or non-latin scripts. Yes, you
can (sort of) create structured documents with word processors like MS
Word, but since you don't have to, and the advantages are not obvious
at first, too few people do. In LaTeX, they have to, and find out the
advantages for themselves, later. A similar argument can be made in
favor of first composing the text and worrying about appearances
(margins, fonts, layout, etc) later. Again, this too can be done in
wysiwyg word processors, but I haven't yet met anyone who could resist
tinkering with the layout while the focus should have been on the
content only.

-- Gerrit.



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