Re:Image to LaTeX
by ska on Wednesday July 03, 2019 @05:57PM
(#20349300)
> for all its warts, MS Word has an excellent formula editor
This just isn't true. The problem is that the domain is complex, and it is difficult to support both simple and complex expressions well in way with good UX. MS Word's editor is good for simple expressions (although the typesetting is never good, sometimes terrible). For complex things, latex is much nicer.
Honestly, if you are taking the time to write something up properly, the time spent on the equations is a small fraction. And in most contexts it's just more efficient to use LaTeX anyway, at least for papers, manuscripts, thesis etc. So you save more time. If you are collaborating with multiple people you can use a revision control system and have much less pain that track changes, etc. And no more 30s rerendering loop in Word for no obvious reason once you've added some complex content.
More Anectdata: I've watched multiple people give up on writing a thesis or paper in word due to too many issues, and then moved to LaTeX. I've never seen someone go the other way due to limitations they hit in LaTeX.
Honestly, if you are taking the time to write something up properly, the time spent on the equations is a small fraction. And in most contexts it's just more efficient to use LaTeX anyway, at least for papers, manuscripts, thesis etc. So you save more time. If you are collaborating with multiple people you can use a revision control system and have much less pain that track changes, etc. And no more 30s rerendering loop in Word for no obvious reason once you've added some complex content.
More Anectdata: I've watched multiple people give up on writing a thesis or paper in word due to too many issues, and then moved to LaTeX. I've never seen someone go the other way due to limitations they hit in LaTeX.