[lug] LaTeX to Word Doc/RTF

[Ed Hill]

On Tue, 2002-02-19 at 09:40, J. Wayde Allen wrote:
> 
> I would agree from the point of view of a resume that most of this should
> be reasonably moot.  After all, a LaTeX documents source form is pure
> ASCII and could simply be loaded into MSWord, Star Office, etc., and
> relatively quickly formated any way one desires.  If this takes a long
> time, the resume is either too long or there is too much special
> formating.  For larger documents, the conversion from LaTeX to MSWord is a
> bit more problematic.

true.


> I do think that there is a definite interest in being able to convert
> LaTeX documents to MSWord form.  This is getting to be a more common
> request, and even surprisingly I've seen it coming from some magazine
> publishers lately.  One of the nice features of using a document
> processing system such as LaTeX, is the ability to process the source to
> create the target form needed (dvips, pdfelatex, etc.).  Unfortunately
> I've yet to find a good way of processing LaTeX to MSWord.  This makes it
> increasingly difficult to defend my use of LaTeX in an environment
> dominated by the word processor.  (By the way, LaTex -> HTML -> MSWord is
> NOT a good way to go.)
>
> This has also raised a number of questions in my mind:
> 
>    - Is LaTeX simply getting to be too old?  

Its still just as good (better!) than it ever was.  ;-) 


>    - Is Docbook a better choice today?

Having used both, I'd say that they are just different tools suited to
different purposes.  Docbook is great for manuals, HOWTOs, etc. since it
supports so many display formats.  But if you need to do extensive
mathematical notation or if you need fine-grained control of formatting
and are fine with just PDF or PS output then I think LaTeX is hard to
beat.

I would love to see an XML/SGML toolkit appear that has *all* the
type-setting functionality of LaTeX *and* outputs to many of the major
formats (eg. PDF, PS, HTML, RTF, ASCII, MS WORD, etc.).  I'm afraid its
not going to happen since targeting so many formats would probably
result in a least-common-denominator situation regarding formatting and
you'd essentially have Docbook again (which is very nice IMHO for what
it does).


>    - What about SGML and/or XML based systems?  

See above.


>    - Are the word processors moving towards the adoption of an SGML based
>      storage format?  If so, what are the Linux options (docbook, jade,
>      etc.)?

AFAIK, MS appears to be moving towards XML.  *BUT* do understand that
its only being used as a wrapper for proprietary MS data formats through
XML's "reference" capabilities (eg. it merely includes the MSExcel,
MSWord, etc. data files).  So really its still proprietary crap, not
platform-independent XML.  :-/


> I've been juggling these questions a bit lately since I need to start
> working on another research paper, and am debating whether to use LaTeX as
> I'm inclined to do, or to consider moving to a new format.

I use:

  - TeX/LaTeX for math and/or specific/precise formatting needs  
    with only PDF, PS, or hardcopy output.

  - Docbook for basic formatting needs and many output formats.

Ed


-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
Post-Doctoral Researcher   |  Email:       ed at eh3.com, ehill at mines.edu
Division of ESE            |  URL:         http://www.eh3.com
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