技术写作与文档2008oestrem.com
LaTeX、Word 与 Writer 之比较
LaTeX vs. Word vs. Writer
导读
这是一篇比较 LaTeX、Word 与 OpenOffice Writer 的排版工具讨论，作者与评论者围绕"成品美观度"和"写作效率"展开拉锯。对写作者的价值在于：它把"选工具"从审美偏好变成了一个可权衡的问题——你愿意为排版质量付出多少时间与学习成本。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把排版质量和写作速度分开评估：LaTeX 成品更精美，但成文时间明显更长，先想清楚这篇稿子更缺哪一头。
- 02
优先选择开箱即用就能排出专业效果的默认设置，别让字体、对齐这类琐事消耗写作注意力。
- 03
把正文存成纯文本，方便用版本控制做 diff 与合并，修改历史比排版格式更值得保留。
- 04
先用所见即所得的方式快速成稿，再对关键部分做精细调校，这种混合流程比全程手写标记语言更省力。
HN 评论精选
LaTeX 的自由度以写作时间为代价，工具选择要算时间账。
LaTeX 排出的文档确实漂亮，但说实话用起来很痛苦——用它排版一份文档比用 Word 或 OOo Writer 花的时间长得多。你在 LaTeX 里或许有更大的自由度，但它用自己的那套语法来排版，导致写文档的时间显著增加。另外我不认为 Times New Roman 是特别差的字体：它确实被到处滥用、看多了刺眼，但字体本身是严肃的，在很多领域是标准，所以它是我第二喜欢的字体（仅次于 Helvetica）。
markbao查看英文原文
Although LaTeX typesets beautiful documents, using it is frankly a pain as it takes far longer to typeset a document in LaTeX than in Word or OOo Writer. You arguably have more flexibility in LaTeX, but its nature to typeset using its own sort of syntax makes documents take significantly longer to write. And I don't think Times New Roman is a particularly bad font. Although it is overused everywhere and may cause eyesores due to this fact, the font itself is serious and a standard in many areas and thus is my second favourite font (after Helvetica.)
多数人需要的是开箱即用的专业默认值，而不是额外的学习成本。
毫无疑问，即使改掉 Word 的默认设置，LaTeX 产出的文档也比 Word 漂亮得多。问题在于，人们需要的是开箱即带专业字体和良好对齐参数的文字处理器；他们肯定不想要一个求着你下载模糊字体、从网页粘贴文字后还得重新排版一遍的软件。人们也不想为了写点东西去学一门语言，不想花几个小时去找那个能在页眉下画一条漂亮横线的宏包。Apple Pages 是个不错的替代品，是我做专业文档的选择（相信我，我是个十足的字体洁癖），又不用在 LaTeX 上浪费时间。
KevinBongart查看英文原文
There is no doubt that LaTeX produces way more beautiful documents than Microsoft Word, even if Word defaults settings are changed. The thing is people need a word processor that comes out of the box with professional fonts, nice alignment parameters. They sure don't want a piece of software that begs them to download fuzzy fonts and paste text from a web page without reformatting all of this... People don't want to learn a language for writing text either. They don't want to spend hours to find this package that would looks so great drawing a horizontal line under the header. Apple Pages is a good alternative, it's my choice for creating professional documents (and believe me, I'm a real typomaniac) without losing time with LaTeX.
先用所见即所得快速成稿、再对细节做精细调校，是兼顾速度与质量的折中路线。
我很惊讶还没人提到 TeXmacs。它是一个所见即所得编辑器，能导入 TeX（效果尚可），也能完美导出到 TeX。用它你可以像用 MS Word 一样快地做事，之后再在懂 LaTeX 的前提下精调细节。每当我遇到觉得用 LaTeX 很痛苦的事（比如复杂的嵌套表格），我就走这条路线，对我来说效果很好。这里有些人可能还会喜欢它是完全用 Scheme 写的。
igorhvr查看英文原文
I am surprised no one mentioned TeXmacs ( http://www.texmacs.org/ ) yet. It is a WYSIWYG editor that can both import from (works reasonably well) and export (works perfecly) to TeX. By using it you can always do things nearly as quickly as you would using MS Word, and then fine tune things later if you know LaTeX. Every time I want to do something I think it is painful using LaTeX (like complex nested tables) that's the route I take - it works really great for me. Some folks here might also like the fact that it is entirely written in Scheme.
纯文本加键盘流编辑便于版本控制，学会辅助工具后长期收益很高。
为写学校作业，我找系统时有两个要求：一是文本能用 vim 编辑，至少要有类似 vi 的键位；二是存储格式是纯文本，这样任何版本控制系统都能高效地存储、diff 和合并。OpenOffice 可以基于单个 XML 文件工作，但 XML 的 diff 和逐行 diff 代码不是一回事，而且误按一次 ^W 仍会被解释成"关闭文档"。HTML 勉强可行，但缺少太多排版和文档创建功能，用 CSS 修补又变得繁琐。我玩过一阵 TeXmacs 和 Lyx，最后咬牙学了 LaTeX 和 vim-latex。结论：如果你愿意在 emacs 或 vim 上投入时间，学 LaTeX 的感觉类似但更容易；多花一点时间学 vim-latex 或 AUCTeX 这类辅助包，真的很值得。
etal查看英文原文
For writing school assignments, I looked for a system that would meet two requirements: 1. The text can be edited using vim, or at least vi-like keybindings. 2. The storage format is plain text, so any version-control system can efficiently store, diff and merge it. OpenOffice can work on top of a single XML file, but XML diffing is not like diffing lines of code, and every accidental ^W is still interpreted as "close document". HTML kind of works, but lacks too many typesetting and document-creation features and fixing it with CSS becomes tedious. I played with Texmacs and Lyx for a little while, but eventually bit the bullet and learned LaTeX and vim-latex. Verdict: If you were willing to invest your time in emacs or vim, learning LaTeX feel similar but easier; spending a little extra time to learn a helper package like vim-latex or AUCTeX really makes it worthwhile.
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