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On Wednesday 12 November 2008 21:53, Aaron Trevena wrote: > 2008/11/12 Paul Sutton <zleap@xxxxxxxxx>: > > With plain text there are issues with doing chemical formula, such as > > CH4 where the 4 needs to be sub script, and even with word processing > > packages that is a pain, if you want to show both atomic number and > > atomic mass correctly then LaTeX works really well, as those two values > > are on top of each other, next to the letter representing the atom, > > The uni are specific in how they want things presented, (if you are > > going to type formula they expect it done properly), short of hand > > writing formulas in to documents, i am not sure if plain text is the > > answer, however LaTeX would classify as plain text, as it simply needs > > compiling in to say PDF, I am sure with tools such as text2tags then > > this is possible to go from LaTeX to html, not sure how things would > > look though; > > > > I agree with tom here, so either should be acceptable format, LaTeX, > > or HTML depending on the situation. LaTeX can also handle images and > > drawing of chemical structures, chemtool should export as LaTeX but it > > failed when I last tried it, now I have some time between courses I can > > perhaps look in to this more as to why it failed. > > But if you specify postscript or pdf as the document standard it > doesn't matter what you prepare it in. > > You can use LaTex, I can use OpenOffice Formula or even Scribus and > then export to PDF - both LaTex and HTML can be converted to PDF > trivially (as can word, etc) and you can be sure that your document > looks the same to you as whoever is marking it. But the problem can be 'looking the same'. Which doesn't work any better than simple image formats anyway - it only 'looks' the same if your printer has exactly the same properties as the printer the person used to print it. Putting text into PDF is just pointless - text has its own natural delimitation and punctuation and grammar and to add another level of restriction takes us back to the days of teleprinters. Putting images into PDF is just another pointless level of encapsulation with the annoyance of forcing it onto a paper size. In html/firefox with a few extensions I can size images on the fly, text on the fly without half my screen taken up by a pdf viewer and its options. > > > Word processing is not always the best tool, and is not always used, > > LaTeX is very popular in the science community, and i think could be > > promoted more or at least be seen as an acceptable format. > > LaTeX is an acceptable format for working in, but if you're preparing > a final document then you want something print oriented and looks the > same to anybody reading / marking it. I practically only ever do printing with PDF documents - its the only format that forces me to use my computer as a piece of insentient hardware that I cant interact with. Or to put it another way I only print documents that are useless to a computer. And if I choose to print them to my A5 dot matrix printer - and who are you to say I have to buy the same printer as you - they are not going to look like your originals. PDF doesn't do anything it says on the tin. Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html