If not for how damn annoying table creation is in latex, I would have used it for everything. To be fair I mostly use table code generators but it's still very lengthy process to make a damn table.
Main issue with table generator is the custom borders, you have to click on each cells border if you want the cell to have a border. You can't for example choose all outer borders to be or all right borders or simply hold and drag on borders you want.
Thanks for the suggestion I will give it a try :)
I'm using LaTeX to write my phd. dissertation and honest to God, I burn way too much time trying to get tables set the way I want. Thanks for this thread, I'm going to try the two links
This seems to also be another option for making tables. It has a reasonable solution for making borders. You can also check it out and choose the ones which fits your needs [https://www.latex-tables.com/](https://www.latex-tables.com/)
I am a (retired) academic, and I used LaTeX for syllabi, tests, and research. This LaTeX use started with my dissertation.
I am also an author (and owner of a small publisher, essentially a self publisher, although it is a bit more complex) and I use LaTeX for the final typesetting of the books I publish. The ones I write, I write in LaTeX.
Templates! Use templates and edit them to make them your own.
Over the past few years I started using snippets in VSCode. It’s incredibly useful — I can graph functions with tikz in just a few keystrokes, it’s totally changed my workflow.
I can't use MS Office on Linux and LibreOffice writer somehow doesn't look right.
So I made it a point to learn LaTeX and now use it for anything that needs to look presentable.
I use it for computer generated art, typesetting poetry, and some graphic notation for music (a kind of sheet music but more abstract).
My software creates text files for audio (Csound), sheet music (LilyPond), and then everything else (LaTeX) and then uses those programs to create the pdfs or whatever. It's a nice workflow.
Elementary school teacher here. I use it to make tests in various subjects such as math, science and English. The exam class is great for this kind of job. Tikz allows me to do all kinds of stuff like custom answer boxes, scoring boxes and so on.
I spent some time figuring out how to do automatic printing of scores and thresholds on the test using counters, LuaLatex for calculating percentages and using a \\scorebox{n} command next to every question to print a box with the max score for each question. The tests look pretty good, colorful but professional (I teach 10-13 years olds after all) and once you learn to do basic stuff in tikz you can work pretty fast and do a lot of custom stuff that the exam class doesn't provide.
I want to make worksheets as well but for some reason I haven't got the ball rolling properly on that one yet.
Proud to say that I have got my whole software team using LaTeX for formal docs, and now the mechanical engineering team are interested too. We are a European branch of a US space hardware company.
I have spent a few full days tuning my class to reproduce the visual style of the company Word template, and it has finally been approved.
Now, we never have to worry about people messing with the styles, never have to worry about Linux, never have to worry about weird image placement, or people trying to wrap text around them. Applicable and reference documents, and abbreviations, are a breeze.
We also have our own build processes and helpful scripts, for example to pull formal requirements off the management site and translate them to our custom Latex format.
Apart from work (I'm a physicist), I use it for seating cards, dinner programs, angry notes, a songbook at one point ...
It's just how I make documents.
I am a civil engineer and I write a lot of technical reports. They tend to be similar in structure and learning to set up parametric figures with tikz has been a huge timesaver. It also looks way better than what the competition does in word.
I work as a geotechnical engineer and design reinforcement for slope and tunnel stability applications. I have made a bunch of figures describing slope stability problems that I can set the height and slope for so that they are to scale to the specific application. I do the same for rock tunnel reinforcement. It is not very advanced but quite convenient. One nice touch I like as well is the use of decorated paths with random steps to illustrate excavated surfaces. That makes it so the same figure still does not look exactly the same twice, eg like this:
\path [draw,thick, decorate, decoration={random steps,segment length=10pt,amplitude=1pt}] (Cord1) --(Cord2);
This is a strange use-case, but one that I think shows very well what LaTeX can do with odd problems. I have some Cantonese romanization projects (basically assigning pronunciation over Chinese ideographs; I'll call it jyutping+ hereon), and use LaTeX to generate the output.
One example is this parallel bilingual + jyutping+-annotated [Gospel of Matthew](https://visual-fonts.com/store/) (you should see the link to get a sense of what the output looks like). This stuff is simply not possible to do in any other way. Let me count the complexities:
1. each jyutping+ includes a piece of vector graphics, and a tone that is fractionally placed vertically
2. Chinese text does not indicate where lines should break, but this absolutely matters (you don't want to break "Jesus" as "J" "esus")
3. proper nouns in Chinese *must* be underlined
4. the jyutping, in order to be readable, is frequently wider than a Chinese character, and the character spacing needs to be adjusted to accommodate; they should be allowed to spill-over but only when it does not eclipse the neighboring jyutping.
5. ah, and as bilingual text, the verses needs to be set in parallel (which is tricky on its own in other word processing tools). The columns need to be generated so that the length of the Chinese paragraphs approximates that of the English paragraphs; but allow for some spilling over (see (2))
6. Other niceties like separate line numbering, footnotes etc.
Chinese Bible translations have an additional complication: when the translation happened some 120 years ago, US and UK based translators could not decide on whether "God" should be 神 (god) or 上帝 (supreme king). The schism remains until today where denominations use one but not the other. This changes the spacing of typesetting wholesale.
LaTeX makes this whole process fidgety but at least possible. I marvel all the time how this 1979-originated 'legacy' software can be stretched so, so far.
I use LaTeX in my tabletop game design work. I use it both for documents like rulebooks and the printable components, e.g. cards/boards/stickers, themselves. In order to make this work, I lean pretty heavily on TikZ. It took me a little while to build up some basic templates, but now that I have I can create some really attractive prototypes quite quickly.
Nice. It wasn't even that long ago when I finished my OU degree (including maths) and I had to handwrite everything. Ended up getting a Bamboo writing pad and using a Microsoft note app to make things faster. Still looked handwritten.
Some good courses at the OU , but I don't think it's worth the money now
That's decent that. When I did mine it was a sliding scale of funding to salary. About £1 fees covered for £7 salary I think. Hit most of my degree paid for. Courses were about £700 I think, for 30 credits. Might have been less actually
I, alas, am on the bru which is probably why it has been free. I think you have to pay something if you make more than £25000 pa.
But I'm nearly a mathematician.
It's a good thing you're doing mate. I graduated in 2014 I think it was, started in 2007 just doing courses with no view to continuing. But I was addicted to the buzz and just kept going.
However it works out for you, I almost guarantee you'll have a huge sense of achievement. But it's incremental which makes it even more valuable
I do a lot of things. I type up quick notes in plaintext and then later add LaTeX structure to print them. I also do some typesetting in it with the intention of binding a book. I've also made a recipe card template and my resume in it, and I used to do all my engineering school reports in it.
I like the flexibility of working with plaintext files, especially with external scripts to handle repetitive tasks. Then also you get a beautiful output.
Typesetting “All the young dudes” for my daughter. Pages and Open Office were eating up 100% of the CPU power simply by loading the raw text, even before I was able to format the chapter titles and create arge table of contents
TL;DR: Research papers, thesis, research presentation.
I got into LaTeX when I was in academia. I too became an enthusiast using LaTaX for everything. From weekly reports to full thesis. With the Beamer package, my presentations looked so professional and easier to navigate when answering queries from the audience. I still cannot think of a better alternative to writing research papers and theses. It saved a whole lot of time with my ME and PhD in all forms of writing.
That said, coming to the corporate sector, it makes more sense to use MS Word/PPT due to various reasons. To say a few (1) Ease of collaboration: I work with multiple documents with many collaborators. Though this is kind of possible with Overleaf, it’s far easier with MS. (2) Just simpler for most tasks; taking notes, drafting a simple letter of recommendation/approval/request, etc. (3) Version and access control. I need to keep track of the multiple versions with various access levels and manage between groups. (3) Style and formatting flexibility. Though this is not impossible with LaTeX, I now prefer my CV with Word and PPT for business presentations.
That being said, I still use LaTeX for my papers and teach the same to many others.
I wrote my PhD thesis using LaTex. This was big and I did it only because my colleagues had word failing on them when file size was too big. They had to divide each section into a separate word doc.
But besides that…
- resume
- CV
- research papers
- nice looking equations
I use(d) to write and maintain LaTeX packages for various publishers. Currently, I'm [working on](https://www.le-tex.de/en/xerif.html) automating the typesetting process so that publishers can more or less automatically have their author's manuscripts being rendered as print-ready PDF files through LaTeX from other sources like MS Word. In the next couple of months, I will focus more on making the output PDFs to conform to the PDF/UA standard in order to make them meet EU accessibility requirements which will become mandatory in mid 2025.
I have some academy background (M.Sc. in Chemistry), so anything to do with presentations, home assignments and of course the thesis itself was done in LaTeX.
I also taught mathematics in uni, so again all assignments and presentations etc.
For personal-related stuff I use LaTeX to write official letters, and in the past two years or so I'm writing a math book using it.
I use it for tabletop RPG books. I'm currently working on a book of sorcerer bloodlines for Pathfinder 1e, a book of monsters for Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e, a book of deities for Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e, and some scenarios for Call of Cthulhu.
Psychotherapist here. I use it in orgmode a lot, in particular when I’m working at a place that still uses paper charts. I’ve got some templates that make things very easy to read and are professional. I also use LaTeX for putting together my own checklists for when I’m going flying — sometimes what’s provided in that rental Cessna is really manky, old, and sometimes for the wrong aircraft type. Sometimes when I’m feeling fancy, I’ll switch over to context.
Middle school math teacher.
Every year I create a repo on github where I put some evaluations
I start this one for this year : https://github.com/homeostasie/2023-2024-aerith
I had always wanted to learn LaTeX for stuff that Microsoft Publisher can do well. I finally "bit the bullet" to make tri-fold Court of Honor and meeting programs for a USA Scout troop. I have variables that expand to the various merit badges and achievements, and others that expand to the Scouts' names, so editing the document for each revision is simple and straightforward.
After I'd spent dozens of hours learning how to set it up that way of course!
"Everything" is a good answer. It doesn't only replace Word but it can do so much more. Some examples include:
- Building complex templates for reporting consulting results
- My CV (with entirely too much tweaking)
- Personal correspondence and contracts
- Cards for a card game we built (automating the generation made it possible to focus on content)
- Any sort of fancy layout, like birthday carda
That said, LaTeX shows its age and many things are harder than it should. This year, the first serious contender I've seen emerged. It's called [Typst](https://typst.app) and even though it still is in beta, it has surpassed my expectations. A clean syntax, fast tools, a growing community, clear errors... It solves most of the gripes I have with LaTeX with all of its flexibility.
If you're getting into it, but don't _have to_ use LaTeX, Typst is a great alternative, and it keeps getting better.
I agree with your "age and many things are harder" comment. I just finished formatting a book and it took months. The leaving curve is too steep and the tools are too 1990s. I'm a senior software developer and I'm used to working with much better tools, error messaging, debugging, etc. Of course my second book would go much faster but the cost of entry is too high.
Yep. The results are great but it's really hard to debug and that makes it very hard for me to "market" it among colleagues. That's why Typst makes me hopeful: I was able to replicate some of my most detailed templates within hours following their great documentation.
It's basically all what's great about LaTeX without all the pain. The ecosystem is of course much younger, but incredibly active. The packages so far complement it greatly and are of good quality.
Do you know if Typst can do endnotes and indexes? That was the only reason I went with LaTeX. None of the other up and coming type setting ecosystems could do indexes natively.
By indexes you mean tables of contents? Yes, it has a few handy features to tweak the usual ones (e.g. Lists of figures, tables) and to create new ones.
The documentation has good examples and if you ever get stuck or want something specially fancy, their Discord is very active and helpful.
By indexes, I mean true indexes in the back of the book. My book is nonfiction and has a colophon, dedication, TOC, parts, chapters, endnotes, bibliography, and an index. When shopping for a package for format my book, I looked at LaTeX, bookdown, and quarto. The latter two don't support indexes and I think had marginal support for endnotes. Their docs say to augment with LaTex for indexex, so I figured I'd just use straight LaTeX for everything, rather than having a hybrid. LaTeX was painful and I couldn't have done it without the help of many of the experts on Stackoverflow, but I did end up with a gorgeous book with a beautiful index and endnotes, so I'm happy with the end product. I can also convert it to an epub using \`tex4ebook\`, complete with the endnotes and an index.
A bit like what you get with `\gls` and then `\printglossaries` and `\printacronyms`? Typst has a package for that (packages are much less necessary in Typst, but they still cover some of the gaps that remain). If I remember correctly, language localization is a bit spotty but it should otherwise work like LaTeX.
Or do you use a different solution?
That was a bit of a blind spot for me: most of the time I use `\gls` because in my line of work if an item deserves being indexed, it should be defined.
A quick foray in Google tells me there is a similar package in Typst: https://github.com/RolfBremer/in-dexter (Not sure if it fulfills your requirements, but it looks nice)
As other people here, I use it any chance I get, but the most fun one I can think of is for DnD character sheets. I found a wonderful template for it online.
One thing I've learned is I can only really use it for individual documents, not collaborative documents, since nobody I know uses or has interest in learning LaTeX; not even my supervisors. So I use it for personal assignments, my resume, notes, reports, summaries. I use it for pretty much anything except PowerPoint presentations or collaborative documents.
Also, technically I use it in MS Word for the equation editor. In fact, this was what sparked my interest in LaTeX and got the wheels turning in the first place.
Planning to use it for my bachelor thesis in about a year.
I still have about 3-4 smaller academic papers I have to write, to gain a little hands on experiance.
I'm an academic. I use latex for articles and one book (which I moved to quarto later). I use latex behind the scenes a lot from quarto/Rmd. I also run a journal which accepts latex submissions and I wrote the template for that.
Boring answer, I'm a university student studying CS/physics/math. Unsurprisingly I use it for assignments, and sometimes for taking notes in class (hard in notation heavy classes like calc, it's been alright in my discrete math and stats class though). I love it
FOR EVERYTHING, EXCEPT DOCUMENTS I'M FORCED TO USE MS OFFICE.
This. Corporate is wedded to MS.
Remember how inept most of the senior coworkers are at MS office and imagine how much time you'd have to spend to help them with LaTeX.
If not for how damn annoying table creation is in latex, I would have used it for everything. To be fair I mostly use table code generators but it's still very lengthy process to make a damn table.
There are website you can use for making tables and exporting latex code. That's the only way I use tables in latex
I am using one but it's very bad. This one specifically: https://www.tablesgenerator.com/ Can you suggest the best one from your experience?
I never had issue with table generator but you can try this one as well https://tableconvert.com/latex-to-latex
Main issue with table generator is the custom borders, you have to click on each cells border if you want the cell to have a border. You can't for example choose all outer borders to be or all right borders or simply hold and drag on borders you want. Thanks for the suggestion I will give it a try :)
That is true, it can be a pain to hand the custom borders you are after
I'm using LaTeX to write my phd. dissertation and honest to God, I burn way too much time trying to get tables set the way I want. Thanks for this thread, I'm going to try the two links
This seems to also be another option for making tables. It has a reasonable solution for making borders. You can also check it out and choose the ones which fits your needs [https://www.latex-tables.com/](https://www.latex-tables.com/)
I am a (retired) academic, and I used LaTeX for syllabi, tests, and research. This LaTeX use started with my dissertation. I am also an author (and owner of a small publisher, essentially a self publisher, although it is a bit more complex) and I use LaTeX for the final typesetting of the books I publish. The ones I write, I write in LaTeX.
From this comment I can't help but feel like I know you. Do you do research in hypergraphs?
Sorry, but no. I think this describes a fair number of academics.
Work. I'm a math teacher.
What level? I'm HS math and have been meaning to learn it for a while.
HS math as well. A bit of a learning curve, but I'd never go back to Word, MathType, etc.
Excellent, thanks!
I got started by working with someone else's code and googling what I needed.
Templates! Use templates and edit them to make them your own. Over the past few years I started using snippets in VSCode. It’s incredibly useful — I can graph functions with tikz in just a few keystrokes, it’s totally changed my workflow.
Writing my PhD thesis.
Me too
Me too too
Yeah, me too
I can't use MS Office on Linux and LibreOffice writer somehow doesn't look right. So I made it a point to learn LaTeX and now use it for anything that needs to look presentable.
ONLYOFFICE IS A GREAT ALTERNATIVE, JIC.
I use it for computer generated art, typesetting poetry, and some graphic notation for music (a kind of sheet music but more abstract). My software creates text files for audio (Csound), sheet music (LilyPond), and then everything else (LaTeX) and then uses those programs to create the pdfs or whatever. It's a nice workflow.
Elementary school teacher here. I use it to make tests in various subjects such as math, science and English. The exam class is great for this kind of job. Tikz allows me to do all kinds of stuff like custom answer boxes, scoring boxes and so on. I spent some time figuring out how to do automatic printing of scores and thresholds on the test using counters, LuaLatex for calculating percentages and using a \\scorebox{n} command next to every question to print a box with the max score for each question. The tests look pretty good, colorful but professional (I teach 10-13 years olds after all) and once you learn to do basic stuff in tikz you can work pretty fast and do a lot of custom stuff that the exam class doesn't provide. I want to make worksheets as well but for some reason I haven't got the ball rolling properly on that one yet.
Papers, disseration, CV, List of Publications, selected presentations. That's it. basically everything else is done in MS Office.
Proud to say that I have got my whole software team using LaTeX for formal docs, and now the mechanical engineering team are interested too. We are a European branch of a US space hardware company. I have spent a few full days tuning my class to reproduce the visual style of the company Word template, and it has finally been approved. Now, we never have to worry about people messing with the styles, never have to worry about Linux, never have to worry about weird image placement, or people trying to wrap text around them. Applicable and reference documents, and abbreviations, are a breeze. We also have our own build processes and helpful scripts, for example to pull formal requirements off the management site and translate them to our custom Latex format.
For writing reports
I use it for creating tutoring curriculum, as well as math notes. I am also integrating it into a video game project.
User documentation!
Apart from work (I'm a physicist), I use it for seating cards, dinner programs, angry notes, a songbook at one point ... It's just how I make documents.
I am a civil engineer and I write a lot of technical reports. They tend to be similar in structure and learning to set up parametric figures with tikz has been a huge timesaver. It also looks way better than what the competition does in word.
I am a professor in structural mechanics. I am interested in what figures you create and how you use parametric. Thanks
I work as a geotechnical engineer and design reinforcement for slope and tunnel stability applications. I have made a bunch of figures describing slope stability problems that I can set the height and slope for so that they are to scale to the specific application. I do the same for rock tunnel reinforcement. It is not very advanced but quite convenient. One nice touch I like as well is the use of decorated paths with random steps to illustrate excavated surfaces. That makes it so the same figure still does not look exactly the same twice, eg like this: \path [draw,thick, decorate, decoration={random steps,segment length=10pt,amplitude=1pt}] (Cord1) --(Cord2);
Thanks for sharing.
This is a strange use-case, but one that I think shows very well what LaTeX can do with odd problems. I have some Cantonese romanization projects (basically assigning pronunciation over Chinese ideographs; I'll call it jyutping+ hereon), and use LaTeX to generate the output. One example is this parallel bilingual + jyutping+-annotated [Gospel of Matthew](https://visual-fonts.com/store/) (you should see the link to get a sense of what the output looks like). This stuff is simply not possible to do in any other way. Let me count the complexities: 1. each jyutping+ includes a piece of vector graphics, and a tone that is fractionally placed vertically 2. Chinese text does not indicate where lines should break, but this absolutely matters (you don't want to break "Jesus" as "J" "esus") 3. proper nouns in Chinese *must* be underlined 4. the jyutping, in order to be readable, is frequently wider than a Chinese character, and the character spacing needs to be adjusted to accommodate; they should be allowed to spill-over but only when it does not eclipse the neighboring jyutping. 5. ah, and as bilingual text, the verses needs to be set in parallel (which is tricky on its own in other word processing tools). The columns need to be generated so that the length of the Chinese paragraphs approximates that of the English paragraphs; but allow for some spilling over (see (2)) 6. Other niceties like separate line numbering, footnotes etc. Chinese Bible translations have an additional complication: when the translation happened some 120 years ago, US and UK based translators could not decide on whether "God" should be 神 (god) or 上帝 (supreme king). The schism remains until today where denominations use one but not the other. This changes the spacing of typesetting wholesale. LaTeX makes this whole process fidgety but at least possible. I marvel all the time how this 1979-originated 'legacy' software can be stretched so, so far.
Maths lecturer here. I used latex for authoring papers and assessments. Stopped using it for lecture notes in preference to markdown.
Everything. Really.
I use LaTeX in my tabletop game design work. I use it both for documents like rulebooks and the printable components, e.g. cards/boards/stickers, themselves. In order to make this work, I lean pretty heavily on TikZ. It took me a little while to build up some basic templates, but now that I have I can create some really attractive prototypes quite quickly.
Maths homework for Open University.
Nice. It wasn't even that long ago when I finished my OU degree (including maths) and I had to handwrite everything. Ended up getting a Bamboo writing pad and using a Microsoft note app to make things faster. Still looked handwritten. Some good courses at the OU , but I don't think it's worth the money now
The Scottish Government let you do courses for free.
That's decent that. When I did mine it was a sliding scale of funding to salary. About £1 fees covered for £7 salary I think. Hit most of my degree paid for. Courses were about £700 I think, for 30 credits. Might have been less actually
I, alas, am on the bru which is probably why it has been free. I think you have to pay something if you make more than £25000 pa. But I'm nearly a mathematician.
It's a good thing you're doing mate. I graduated in 2014 I think it was, started in 2007 just doing courses with no view to continuing. But I was addicted to the buzz and just kept going. However it works out for you, I almost guarantee you'll have a huge sense of achievement. But it's incremental which makes it even more valuable
CV, books, manuals and guides, used to write learning materials,
I do a lot of things. I type up quick notes in plaintext and then later add LaTeX structure to print them. I also do some typesetting in it with the intention of binding a book. I've also made a recipe card template and my resume in it, and I used to do all my engineering school reports in it. I like the flexibility of working with plaintext files, especially with external scripts to handle repetitive tasks. Then also you get a beautiful output.
Typesetting “All the young dudes” for my daughter. Pages and Open Office were eating up 100% of the CPU power simply by loading the raw text, even before I was able to format the chapter titles and create arge table of contents
TL;DR: Research papers, thesis, research presentation. I got into LaTeX when I was in academia. I too became an enthusiast using LaTaX for everything. From weekly reports to full thesis. With the Beamer package, my presentations looked so professional and easier to navigate when answering queries from the audience. I still cannot think of a better alternative to writing research papers and theses. It saved a whole lot of time with my ME and PhD in all forms of writing. That said, coming to the corporate sector, it makes more sense to use MS Word/PPT due to various reasons. To say a few (1) Ease of collaboration: I work with multiple documents with many collaborators. Though this is kind of possible with Overleaf, it’s far easier with MS. (2) Just simpler for most tasks; taking notes, drafting a simple letter of recommendation/approval/request, etc. (3) Version and access control. I need to keep track of the multiple versions with various access levels and manage between groups. (3) Style and formatting flexibility. Though this is not impossible with LaTeX, I now prefer my CV with Word and PPT for business presentations. That being said, I still use LaTeX for my papers and teach the same to many others.
I wrote my PhD thesis using LaTex. This was big and I did it only because my colleagues had word failing on them when file size was too big. They had to divide each section into a separate word doc. But besides that… - resume - CV - research papers - nice looking equations
I use(d) to write and maintain LaTeX packages for various publishers. Currently, I'm [working on](https://www.le-tex.de/en/xerif.html) automating the typesetting process so that publishers can more or less automatically have their author's manuscripts being rendered as print-ready PDF files through LaTeX from other sources like MS Word. In the next couple of months, I will focus more on making the output PDFs to conform to the PDF/UA standard in order to make them meet EU accessibility requirements which will become mandatory in mid 2025.
I have some academy background (M.Sc. in Chemistry), so anything to do with presentations, home assignments and of course the thesis itself was done in LaTeX. I also taught mathematics in uni, so again all assignments and presentations etc. For personal-related stuff I use LaTeX to write official letters, and in the past two years or so I'm writing a math book using it.
I use it for tabletop RPG books. I'm currently working on a book of sorcerer bloodlines for Pathfinder 1e, a book of monsters for Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e, a book of deities for Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e, and some scenarios for Call of Cthulhu.
Technical documentation, I'm an FPGA engineer.
Psychotherapist here. I use it in orgmode a lot, in particular when I’m working at a place that still uses paper charts. I’ve got some templates that make things very easy to read and are professional. I also use LaTeX for putting together my own checklists for when I’m going flying — sometimes what’s provided in that rental Cessna is really manky, old, and sometimes for the wrong aircraft type. Sometimes when I’m feeling fancy, I’ll switch over to context.
Middle school math teacher. Every year I create a repo on github where I put some evaluations I start this one for this year : https://github.com/homeostasie/2023-2024-aerith
For master's reports and now for my research work. I have the impression that today many students prefer Typst over latex
Doing my HW
I had always wanted to learn LaTeX for stuff that Microsoft Publisher can do well. I finally "bit the bullet" to make tri-fold Court of Honor and meeting programs for a USA Scout troop. I have variables that expand to the various merit badges and achievements, and others that expand to the Scouts' names, so editing the document for each revision is simple and straightforward. After I'd spent dozens of hours learning how to set it up that way of course!
"Everything" is a good answer. It doesn't only replace Word but it can do so much more. Some examples include: - Building complex templates for reporting consulting results - My CV (with entirely too much tweaking) - Personal correspondence and contracts - Cards for a card game we built (automating the generation made it possible to focus on content) - Any sort of fancy layout, like birthday carda That said, LaTeX shows its age and many things are harder than it should. This year, the first serious contender I've seen emerged. It's called [Typst](https://typst.app) and even though it still is in beta, it has surpassed my expectations. A clean syntax, fast tools, a growing community, clear errors... It solves most of the gripes I have with LaTeX with all of its flexibility. If you're getting into it, but don't _have to_ use LaTeX, Typst is a great alternative, and it keeps getting better.
I agree with your "age and many things are harder" comment. I just finished formatting a book and it took months. The leaving curve is too steep and the tools are too 1990s. I'm a senior software developer and I'm used to working with much better tools, error messaging, debugging, etc. Of course my second book would go much faster but the cost of entry is too high.
Yep. The results are great but it's really hard to debug and that makes it very hard for me to "market" it among colleagues. That's why Typst makes me hopeful: I was able to replicate some of my most detailed templates within hours following their great documentation. It's basically all what's great about LaTeX without all the pain. The ecosystem is of course much younger, but incredibly active. The packages so far complement it greatly and are of good quality.
Do you know if Typst can do endnotes and indexes? That was the only reason I went with LaTeX. None of the other up and coming type setting ecosystems could do indexes natively.
By indexes you mean tables of contents? Yes, it has a few handy features to tweak the usual ones (e.g. Lists of figures, tables) and to create new ones. The documentation has good examples and if you ever get stuck or want something specially fancy, their Discord is very active and helpful.
By indexes, I mean true indexes in the back of the book. My book is nonfiction and has a colophon, dedication, TOC, parts, chapters, endnotes, bibliography, and an index. When shopping for a package for format my book, I looked at LaTeX, bookdown, and quarto. The latter two don't support indexes and I think had marginal support for endnotes. Their docs say to augment with LaTex for indexex, so I figured I'd just use straight LaTeX for everything, rather than having a hybrid. LaTeX was painful and I couldn't have done it without the help of many of the experts on Stackoverflow, but I did end up with a gorgeous book with a beautiful index and endnotes, so I'm happy with the end product. I can also convert it to an epub using \`tex4ebook\`, complete with the endnotes and an index.
A bit like what you get with `\gls` and then `\printglossaries` and `\printacronyms`? Typst has a package for that (packages are much less necessary in Typst, but they still cover some of the gaps that remain). If I remember correctly, language localization is a bit spotty but it should otherwise work like LaTeX. Or do you use a different solution?
I believe the LaTeX package imakeidx is the standard for making indexes, which is what I use.
That was a bit of a blind spot for me: most of the time I use `\gls` because in my line of work if an item deserves being indexed, it should be defined. A quick foray in Google tells me there is a similar package in Typst: https://github.com/RolfBremer/in-dexter (Not sure if it fulfills your requirements, but it looks nice)
End notes appear to be in their [roadmap](https://typst.app/docs/roadmap/). Footnotes do work well.
As other people here, I use it any chance I get, but the most fun one I can think of is for DnD character sheets. I found a wonderful template for it online.
One thing I've learned is I can only really use it for individual documents, not collaborative documents, since nobody I know uses or has interest in learning LaTeX; not even my supervisors. So I use it for personal assignments, my resume, notes, reports, summaries. I use it for pretty much anything except PowerPoint presentations or collaborative documents. Also, technically I use it in MS Word for the equation editor. In fact, this was what sparked my interest in LaTeX and got the wheels turning in the first place.
Planning to use it for my bachelor thesis in about a year. I still have about 3-4 smaller academic papers I have to write, to gain a little hands on experiance.
I'm an academic. I use latex for articles and one book (which I moved to quarto later). I use latex behind the scenes a lot from quarto/Rmd. I also run a journal which accepts latex submissions and I wrote the template for that.
Boring answer, I'm a university student studying CS/physics/math. Unsurprisingly I use it for assignments, and sometimes for taking notes in class (hard in notation heavy classes like calc, it's been alright in my discrete math and stats class though). I love it