技术写作与文档2019go.nature.com
文字处理器正抛弃公式编辑器，转向 LaTeX
Word processors are ditching equation editors in favour of LaTeX
导读
《自然》报道称，Word 等文字处理软件正用 LaTeX 语法取代自家的公式编辑器；Hacker News 的讨论则围绕“LaTeX 到底值不值得学”展开。对写作者来说，这组讨论真正有价值的地方在于：它把人从“公式好不好看”拉到“文档结构与格式是否可维护”这个更根本的问题上，也顺带提醒我们，可访问性（accessibility）和交互性正成为新的评价维度。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把格式交给规则系统（如 LaTeX 的自动编号、交叉引用、图表题注），比逐处手动微调更能保证长文档的一致性。
- 02
排版的美观与结构的可靠是两件事：先解决“引用、编号、模板约束不会随手一改就崩”，再谈视觉风格。
- 03
采用模板时要选能“强制约束”的格式（如 LaTeX 模板），否则再详尽的 Word 排版规则也会被人手破坏。
- 04
写完技术文本后要检查可访问性：表格、公式是否为屏幕阅读器可读，别让排版工具替读者设下门槛。
HN 评论精选
别只看公式漂不漂亮，LaTeX 产出的文档在无障碍阅读上是明显短板。
LaTeX 是写数学的好语言，但对可访问性极不友好：它生成的 PDF 远不如 Word 等系统产出的文档易读，盲人用户读到的 LaTeX 表格是一团乱麻。学术界大规模用 LaTeX 生成 PDF，使需要无障碍文档的人处境非常艰难。
CJefferson查看英文原文
While LaTeX makes a good language for writing maths, I always feel I want to add it is an awful system for accessibility. The PDFs / outputs created by other systems like Microsoft Word are much more accessible. For blind users, LaTeX Tables come out as an unreadable mess. The large-scale use of Latex to generate PDFs makes academia extremely unfriendly to anyone who needs accessible documents.
LaTeX 是成就卓著的遗留标准，但不该被当作文档的未来形态。
LaTeX 应被视为遗留技术而非未来。它的价值在于已成通用标准、到处能用（很多 StackExchange 站点通过 MathJax 支持其子集），但局限太大，不该被当作前进方向；其逻辑是静态的、基于纯文本的，而未来属于交互式文档，而非把纯文本静态编译成像图片一样的文档。它值得写进历史书，但不是未来。
_Nat_查看英文原文
LaTeX should be regarded as a legacy technology, not the future. It's useful because it's a standardized language everyone knows and can be applied across the web, e.g. on many StackExchange sites (at least the TeX subset via MathJax), but it's too limited to be held up as a standard to move toward. For a discussion of some of its limitations and things that can be improved: [The LATEX3 Project][1] (1999). Personally, though, my main criticism of LaTeX is that its logic is static and based in plaintext. The future is in interactive documents (e.g., in the direction of [Wolfram's][2]), not statically compiling plaintext to image-like documents. Of course, credit to where credit is due: LaTeX was a hugely powerful tool that's done a lot of good in the world. It also continues to be useful for many purposes, especially due to its widescale adoption from this bright history. It's a great page for the history books -- but, it's not the future. [1]: https://www.latex-project.org/help/documentation/ltx3info.pdf [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computable_Document_Format
LaTeX 的核心优势是自动维护引用与格式、模板可强制生效，省下的返工时间远超学习成本。
把 LaTeX 简化为“公式长得好看”是没抓到重点。我用它是因为它能把一切格式都排对：在 Word 里插图插表极其折磨人，双栏文档里加个表格简直是灾难，题注系统也像个笑话。在 LaTeX 里新增图表，引用会自动更新，章节标题格式会保持；而会议论文的 Word 模板规则一大堆，几乎没人能全部满足，因为 Word 根本无法强制模板生效。我宁愿花几天做一个好的 LaTeX 模板，也不愿花更多天跟 Word 的荒唐较劲。学 LaTeX 要花时间，但绝对值得。
tapia查看英文原文
Reducing LaTeX to the look of the equations it produces clearly misses the point. I use LaTeX because it just formats everything correctly. Inserting figures or tables in word can be one of the most frustrating tasks I can do. Every little change can potentially break the format. Have you ever tried to add a table in word in a double column document? It is madness. The caption system for figures and tables is a joke, too. With LaTeX your references get updated when you add new figures or tables without having to think about it. The same holds for the references. The formatting of sections and titles is kept (the only way to change the format is that you really want to). In the Word-templates for papers of conferences there are always so many rules about the formatting. Most of the people never satisfies all those rules, even if they started with the template. I blame word for that, because there is no way to enforce a template (take care of the references, captions, etc.). The last year I just stopped sending word documents to the conferences I go, and instead created an equivalent latex template for them (one of them got even officially accepted). I prefer to invest a few days in making a good LaTeX template than loosing much more days fighting against the Word-nonsense. It is true that LaTeX requires some time to learn, but it definitely compensates for the time you can loose using word.
是否学 LaTeX 取决于需求强度，但“成品更好看”是最普遍的动机。
LaTeX 值不值得精通，取决于研究者：你用公式的频率多高、需要多细粒度的文档控制、有多少时间学一门新语言。但我用它的主要原因是成品就是更好看，我想这也是它对很多人的主要卖点。
throwawaytemp2查看英文原文
So is LaTeX worth mastering? It depends on the researcher: how often do you use equations, how much is fine-grained control do you need over a document, and how much time do you have to devote to learning a new language? But I use LaTeX mainly because the resulting documents simply look better, and I imagine that’s a major selling point for many.
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