Re: [orca-list] ot: what to use to write technical documents (no math)



Well, its a tough call. As I said, I use latex even to format a letter to my Congressman. I was working on a proposal for a grant from the local Lions Club and I wrote that in latex. Latex is a really nice thing to know if you are blind because you can easily make really nice looking documents. But would it be worth the effort for you? I can't say. I am glad I already know it though.



On 3/10/20 9:59 AM, Michał Zegan wrote:
What about non technical stuff?

W dniu 10.03.2020 o 15:03, John G Heim pisze:
I think given that you're writing your thesis, most people would say
just write it in latex. I write everything in latex, even when I'm
writing my Congressman. I don't send my Congressman a latex document, of
course. I either print it or convert it to pdf. Even if you could see,
there would be good reasons for writing a thesis in latex. But latex has
a huge advantage for blind people in that you can make a really nice
looking document fairly easily.

It is a really tough call though. A lot of people will tell you latex is
dead. Most academic journals still prefer latex although they accept
almost anything these days. If you are going to continue in a technical
field, you will find more opportunities to use your knowledge of latex.
On the other hand, a lot of people in technical parts of academia never
learn latex.

Personally, I think the deciding factor is that with latex, a blind
person can make really nice looking documents. I frequently write grant
proposals that go to dozens of pages and when I asked a sighted person
to help me make it look nice, they almost never have anything major to
correct. I cannot see what the documents look like but apparently, they
look pretty good.

If you decide to teach yourself latex, start with the wikibook.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX



On 3/10/20 8:21 AM, Michał Zegan wrote:
I could likely use markdown, and convert to latex. however the problem
probably starts when you actually need to tweak this thing. Pandoc
allows tweaks to be made, but things like some polish specific
conventions for example? whaaaat? I am not sure how to do things like
that when using markdown as source.

W dniu 10.03.2020 o 14:11, John G Heim via orca-list pisze:
I do all my writing in latex with gedit. The main reason is that I can
easily make documents that look normal to sighted people. There is a
tool to convert latex to pdf so when I email someone an article I have
written, I usually  send them a pdf. Gedit has a plugin for latex but I
don't use it much.



On 3/10/20 7:35 AM, Jason White via orca-list wrote:
Michał Zegan <webczat_200 poczta onet pl> wrote:
I have the following question: (note that for the purpose of this
question libre office and word are treated as one thing, as in, I have
both and can use both).
What would you use to write documents like theses?

Although you could use Markdown, LaTeX offers more control over
presentation.
I have written in both. For writing papers, though, I usually find
that I need
features that Pandoc Markdown doesn't offer, so I just write it in
LaTeX
instead. My work does not involve mathematics. I think the idea that
LaTeX is
primarily intended for mathematical writing is a misconception. I tend
to use
Markdown for simpler documents such as slide presentations.

Of course, you can use whatever editing environment you prefer. Emacs
works
well in a terminal or console. For use with Orca, I'm not sure what
would be
best - perhaps gedit? I haven't had much experience with it.

The better editing environments automatically check the markup for
errors, and
provide keyboard commands to insert it automatically (e.g., to add a
section,
to create a list or table, etc.).

Are there any good editors, accessible with Orca, that support HTML,
LaTeX,
Markdown, etc. beyond basic text editing capabilities? That is, besides
running Emacs or Vim in a terminal.

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