I need some advices/guidelines before start writing my PhD thesis
Hi, I need some advices/guidelines before start writing my PhD thesis. I'm completely new to TeX and of course to Context but I'm convinced that Microsoft Word is far away from being the right tool for writing a long document. Well, in the past I had some big big headaches. At this moment I've to make a choice: continue using Word or start learning a new tool, which will probably consume much of my time. So, I'm in a dilemma. That's why I'm asking for help. Is it really worth learning Context? I mean, does this package deal efficiently with some important things like TOC, cross-references, bibliography, figures, math, .? Is it too hard to learn (for a mere mortal, of course)? What about support for different languages, in particular for Portuguese? If I choose Context, can some somebody give me some guidelines/advices? I've already downloaded mswincontext.zip and I'll start studying/testing Context. Thank you. Alex alex.r@netcabo.pt
Alexandra Ribeiro wrote:
At this moment I’ve to make a choice: continue using Word or start learning a new tool, which will probably consume much of my time. So, I’m in a dilemma. That’s why I’m asking for help.
Off the top of my head, I'd say you have to ask yourself at least the following questions: - How much time are you willing to spend on a tool? - How much do you *really* bother about the final appearance? - What formats is your PhD advisor happy with? - Assuming you would like to reuse some parts of your thesis for independent publications, what formats do the journals in your field accept? - How much help do you need when learning? How much of this can come from a mailing list (and its archives), how much must be presented in book format and how much face-to-face introduction do you need? What do people around you know and use?
Is it really worth learning Context? I mean, does this package deal
It depends. For me, definitely, but I've long reached the area in LaTeX where doing what I want to do means hacking around the design limitations of that system – and that probably implies that I'll have a hard time being satisfied by InDesign, OOo or whatever program limited by the WYSIWYG approach.
efficiently with some important things like TOC, cross-references, bibliography, figures, math, …?
Certainly. (You did not mention footnotes and multiple indices, but I regard those as crucial in any typesetting tool, too.)
Is it too hard to learn (for a mere mortal, of course)?
It depends. The worst thing about ConTeXt is its almost complete lack of error diagnostics. Forget a curly brace somewhere or mistype the name of an option and you'll probably spend hours looking for it, the first couple of times. It certainly helps to have some programming experience.
What about support for different languages, in particular for Portuguese?
I don't know any Portuguese, but multiple languages are supported.
If I choose Context, can some somebody give me some guidelines/advices?
Do read the manual. Print it and have it next to your computer. Make notes in there. After reading the manual, go to contextgarden.net and click on “Random Page” a couple of times. Do this every morning – you will find a lot of things which are completely irrelevant to you (and solve problems of others, which is why they are there), but the occasional gem is worth the time. Christopher
Hi Alex, I am in a similar situation, just a few months ahead of you. I am writing a textbook and decided to do that in Context, without having had any experience with TeX or LaTeX. So far, I am pleased with my decision (my experience covers figures, math, tables, footnotes, text and figures in margin - a lot of it default stuff - but not yet bibliography, index, fonts (except greek) and table of contents). The discussion group helped me when necessary and politely ignored some premature idiotic questions. However, the level of the discussions is way above my head, and I at times get the feeling of being an obnoxious intruder. The most important thing: it is fun and often a welcome change from writing. It reminds me of old-style photography, where you exposed the film and then had to wait, wondering whether the picture would come out as hoped or not. But if one doesn't like that, the effort is probably too much for a PhD thesis. Cheers, Jörg. Prof. Dr.med. Jörg Hagmann-Zanolari Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics DKBW, University of Basel Mattenstrasse 28 CH-4058 Basel Switzerland Phone +41 (0)61 6953049 On Jun 17, 2005, at 11:49 AM, Alexandra Ribeiro wrote:
Hi, I need some advices/guidelines before start writing my PhD thesis. I’m completely new to TeX and of course to Context but I’m convinced that Microsoft Word is far away from being the right tool for writing a long document. Well, in the past I had some big big headaches… At this moment I’ve to make a choice: continue using Word or start learning a new tool, which will probably consume much of my time. So, I’m in a dilemma. That’s why I’m asking for help. Is it really worth learning Context? I mean, does this package deal efficiently with some important things like TOC, cross-references, bibliography, figures, math, …? Is it too hard to learn (for a mere mortal, of course)? What about support for different languages, in particular for Portuguese? If I choose Context, can some somebody give me some guidelines/advices? I’ve already downloaded mswincontext.zip and I’ll start studying/testing Context. Thank you. Alex alex.r@netcabo.pt_______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
Alexandra Ribeiro wrote:
Hi,
I need some advices/guidelines before start writing my PhD thesis.
I'm completely new to TeX and of course to Context but I'm convinced that Microsoft Word is far away from being the right tool for writing a long document. Well, in the past I had some big big headaches.
Here some useful pdfs : 1. mp-cb-en.pdf: a first guide to commands; 2. cont-enp.pdf: The manual; 3. metafun-p.pdf: a beautiful book on graphics. * mtexexec.pdf: explain at least how to make pdf from your tex document; * mtexfont.pdf: how to install new fonts; * mtexutil.pdf: sometimes I need it to make some works. You can find them starting from http://mirror.contextgarden.net/document-1.htm luigi
Hi Alexandra, I would say that Christopher and Jörg showed a good deal of the implications you will encounter when you start using Context. Still I believe, that it is really worthwhile to give it a try. - I do not know which OS you are using. Whatever, I strongly recommend you to install a minimal distribution from the Pragma site. Those distributions are working out of the box and this prevents you from dealing with a lot of hassels other distributions might cause. As a next step print the beginners manual (mp-cb-en.pdf). Try to setup some simple texts while working through these pages. Hereafter if your appetite grows you will find more and detailed info in the main manual (cont-enp.pdf). The mailinglist is always willing to help you getting started. The Wiki on Context (http://contextgarden.net/Main_Page) contains a lot of helpful information. Personally I started to use Context a couple of years ago when I had to get a large number of figures typeset in a long text. Yes, it took me some time to get it all setup. In the meantime I hardly use any other typsetting software. I prepare letters, labels, invoices, articles, presentations, books, greeting-cards etc. all with this great tool. Kind regards Willi Alexandra Ribeiro wrote:
Hi,
I need some advices/guidelines before start writing my PhD thesis.
I'm completely new to TeX and of course to Context but I'm convinced that Microsoft Word is far away from being the right tool for writing a long document. Well, in the past I had some big big headaches.
At this moment I've to make a choice: continue using Word or start learning a new tool, which will probably consume much of my time. So, I'm in a dilemma. That's why I'm asking for help.
Is it really worth learning Context? I mean, does this package deal efficiently with some important things like TOC, cross-references, bibliography, figures, math, .? Is it too hard to learn (for a mere mortal, of course)? What about support for different languages, in particular for Portuguese?
If I choose Context, can some somebody give me some guidelines/advices?
I've already downloaded mswincontext.zip and I'll start studying/testing Context.
Thank you.
Alex
alex.r@netcabo.pt
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_______________________________________________ ntg-context mailing list ntg-context@ntg.nl http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
On Fri, 17 Jun 2005, Alexandra Ribeiro wrote:
At this moment I've to make a choice: continue using Word or start learning a new tool, which will probably consume much of my time. So, I'm in a dilemma. That's why I'm asking for help.
Hi Alex, I don't know MS-Word very well, but *all* of my colleagues use it. I can see how they use it, the resulting documents and how much time they spend. With this experience I'm quite sure, that ConTeXt is much easier to use for a thesis, than MS-Word. After about 4 or 5 days reading the documentation, you should be able to write a thesis with a standard layout and all the automatically generated lists (table of contents, of figures, of tables, of bibliography and so on), automatic references, automatic placement of figures and much more. None of my colleagues, even those with several years of experience with MS-Word, is able to do that. Another important thing: *only* MS-Word can read your Word-document, and of course only the right version (M$ won't guarantee, that Word-2005 prints out your document the same way as Word-2000). Cheers, Peter -- http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/
Am 18.06.2005 um 18:06 schrieb Peter Münster:
With this experience I'm quite sure, that ConTeXt is much easier to use for a thesis, than MS-Word. After about 4 or 5 days reading the
Don't know if it's easier (for a programmer, sure), but much more reliable - MSW is famous for destroying huge works like books or theses. A German computer magazine (I think it was c't) recently tested the ability of different word processors to process big documents with footnotes, registers, lists etc, and MSW became bad grades - if you choose to use a word processor, use OpenOffice.org!
None of my colleagues, even those with several years of experience with MS-Word, is able to do that.
It *is* possible if you know how and are very careful (split the text in chapters, safe and backup often etc.), but OpenOffice.org is better for that - besides any TeX, of course. ;-)
Another important thing: *only* MS-Word can read your Word- document, and of course only the right version (M$ won't guarantee, that Word-2005 prints out your document the same way as Word-2000).
That's not true since about Word 98; and there are a lot of other word processors that can import MSW-Docs (e.g. OOo again). Grüßlis vom Hraban! --- http://www.fiee.net/texnique/ http://contextgarden.net
On Sun, 19 Jun 2005, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
Am 18.06.2005 um 18:06 schrieb Peter Münster:
With this experience I'm quite sure, that ConTeXt is much easier to use for a thesis, than MS-Word. After about 4 or 5 days reading the
Don't know if it's easier (for a programmer, sure), but much more reliable -
Hello Hraban, imagine someone with a one week Word-experience producing a document with 200 pages, dozens of citations, figures and so on. I can hardly believe, that the result would be similar to a ConTeXt-document. About 3 years ago, my fellow students wrote their thesis with Word, each chapter in one file. At the end they lived about 10 days of night-mares because of wrong figure placements, problems with the bibliography and so on. I didn't try it myself, but it seemed to me very very difficult, and they spent a lot of time with these problems.
MSW is famous for destroying huge works like books or theses.
I can confirm. My fellow students had also such problems.
None of my colleagues, even those with several years of experience with MS-Word, is able to do that.
It *is* possible if you know how and are very careful (split the text in chapters, safe and backup often etc.),
Of course it's possible, but the question is, with how much effort?
Another important thing: *only* MS-Word can read your Word- document, and of course only the right version (M$ won't guarantee, that Word-2005 prints out your document the same way as Word-2000).
That's not true since about Word 98; and there are a lot of other word processors that can import MSW-Docs (e.g. OOo again).
It's in the details. At my job I have to read each day some Word-documents, and I open them always at first with OOo. But often, I have to start a M$-system, because of wrong fonts, wrong figures and other problems with OOo. And unfortunately, it's still true, that different Word-versions print out the pages differently: sometimes I find a section title on another page, than the guy, who wrote the document and other things. It's quite possible, that working with OOo is more pleasant, than working with M$-Word. But when speaking only about M$-Word: the only guys I know, who are happy with Word, have never known anything else. So, for the original poster, Alex: if you want to compare Word with ConTeXt, then count the people who have switched from Word to ConTeXt without regrets, and those who have switched from ConTeXt to Word (if you find them...). This is one reason, why I've switched from LaTeX to ConTeXt: I found a lot of people, who have switched the same direction, but nobody the opposite way. Of course, Hraban is right: OOo could be an alternative for you. Cheers, Peter -- http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/
It *is* possible if you know how and are very careful (split the text in chapters, safe and backup often etc.), but OpenOffice.org is better for that - besides any TeX, of course. ;-)
I like the idea of OO, but I have to say I have always found strange behaviour in OO. I switched to latex (and then very probably to context) because on Macosx in the version I tried of OO I wrote italics, I printed italics, but I didn't see on the screen italics. So, if I have to use a non-wysysyg, oh well, I use TeX. As a word processor AbiWord is interesting.
Another important thing: *only* MS-Word can read your Word-document, and of course only the right version (M$ won't guarantee, that Word-2005 prints out your document the same way as Word-2000).
That's not true since about Word 98; and there are a lot of other word processors that can import MSW-Docs (e.g. OOo again).
I do not agree. Microsoft always changes in some unpredictable and bad-documented way their file format. I've *always* found enormous difficulties in opening with other word processors M$ files, even when they should be rtf. It is simply not possible, if you want to retain the exact document information. So, I switched to latex... Question: One of the main feature I appreciated in latex was a very simple but effective latex2rtf converter. It is very useful if you have simple document to be shared with other non-tex people, especially during preliminary work on a project. You write the context (with structure: section, subsection, etc,), share it, modify it, and finally control the typographic stuff in details. Is anything similar for context? Best -a- Andrea Valle Laboratorio multimediale "G. Quazza" Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione Università degli Studi di Torino andrea.valle@unito.it
On Fri, 17 Jun 2005, Alexandra Ribeiro wrote:
At this moment I've to make a choice: continue using Word or start learning a new tool, which will probably consume much of my time. So, I'm in a dilemma. That's why I'm asking for help.
Another point, that you should perhaps consider when choosing between something like Word/OOo and LaTeX/ConTeXt: It's often a great advantage to have plain text files instead of binary format! With versioning systems such as SVN you can merge changes, you can process your files with simple scripts, you can use database-backends, you can make a lot of automatisations and a lot more, that's impossible or difficult with binary files. Or just: you would have more control with plain text files! Cheers, Peter -- http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/
participants (8)
-
Alexandra Ribeiro -
andrea valle -
Christopher Creutzig -
Henning Hraban Ramm -
Jörg Hagmann -
luigi.scarso -
Peter Münster -
Willi Egger