What about LaTeX or Typst?

johannesrexx 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

A proper single-pane WYSIWYG editor that uses Typst under the hood would be able to stop the MSWord train by matching the features end users need.

- Small caps, no problem. - Multilevel heading numbering, no problem - Table of Authority, no problem - Line numbers, no problem. - Paragraph numbers, no problem. - For missing features the community is more than capable of providing extensions to fill the gap. Redlining would be an example.

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jkartchner 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It works but produces pdfs. That becomes a problem. More importantly, you spend FAR more time writing documents using latex than word. The friction is enough to make writing legal stuff with it not worth the pain.

	▲	sam_lowry_ 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Writing long documents in Word is painful to the point that people prefer to stick to old tools like FrameMaker. It's also painful in a different way than LaTeX. While LaTeX is complex but deterministic, Word just eludes your efforts in a way that does not build a coherent mental model but rather a loose set of fuzzy rules learned via frustration. I deeply believe that this was by design and is in general part of Microsoft culture, creating a separation between programmers and users to make them suffer in their own ways. No wonder Bill Gates became a philanthropist in his later years. He knows better than anyone that future historians will figure out all the evil he expertly inflicted on the world.

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jpbryan 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The same arguments of this essay apply to LaTeX and Typst

	▲	MillironX 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The first argument actually leans in favor of LaTeX or Typst as a better replacement for Docx. A LaTeX or Typst document can contain both the content and formatting together within the same file. This isn't idiomatic for either language, and my experience is that this is more common for Typst than LaTeX, but both can do so. All of those formatting rules like small caps, table widths, margins, page numbering, etc.? Those can be rigidly defined in either LaTeX or Typst and are better guarded aginst accidental formatting rules breaches from double click, copy/paste, or table cell insertion than in Word. I'm more sympathetic to the network effect argument. It's hard to envision a reasonable redline system compatible with both Docx and LaTeX/Typst.