Today I handed in my Project Proposal, which is the starting point for the massive final year project I am embarking on that will eventually end in my dissertation. The proposal itself was fairly easy to write content-wise (I’m doing something that I’m interested in and had already started the research). Producing the thing in the right format though was a different story.
Essentially, everyone I have spoken to has recommended that I choose LaTeX for writing up my dissertation. Having seen how wonderful LaTeX docs tend to look when cast against the unholy offspring of other options, I thought this was a fantastic idea. Following my recent revelations about how to really get good at using something rather than just trying it and giving up, I decided that there was no time like the present and that I’d prepare my Project Proposal in LaTeX too.
This, ladies & gentlemen, is why writing a five page document just took me 15 hours.
On the one hand, I really wish that this wasn’t my 33rd consecutive waking hour (I had to work yesterday so didn’t start until the evening), but on the other I have learnt so much. I have also discovered that there are some mighty fine bits of software out there that can be really good. So I thought I’d post a little thank you here.
What I ended up using was LyX on my newly installed Debian Sarge desktop (different machine to the server previously discussed). LyX is a WYSIWYM editor that runs off a LaTeX engine and lets you produce PostScript output that prints beautifully.
[Well, it does if your printer is working. Truth be told, I haven’t gotten around to installing the drivers and working out how to run CUPS yet, so I had a slight problem: no way to print out my beautifully formatted Project Proposal. Then I remembered the WinXP laptop had already been set up for the printer, so reconnected it to that and moved the file over to that machine.
Ah, slight problem. WinXP can’t do PostScript. This was when I discovered GhostScript and GSView. They installed in minutes … and they just worked. So Proposal printed, problems sorted and my heartfelt thanks to all the developers and their families.]
Reflecting on the whole episode, this is one of my Linux experiences that has really shone. The LyX package is a really great way to get the power of LaTeX quickly. I know it’s a bit of a cheat and don’t worry, I have ordered the LaTeX bible and will be learning it properly, but it really is a great bit of software. I’d also heard all about how useful BibTeX could be, but then I discovered Pybliographic, which integrated seamlessly with LyX and handled all my citations in a very smooth manner. All in all it all worked very well and I got a much more professional looking document than I deserved, even having put 15 hours into it. Anyone else doing dissertations this year, I’d heartily recommend you look into it!
Comments (5) Permalink
October 21st, 2004 at 9:24 PM
Also of use in producing output that Windows can more easily handle is ps2pdf. I commonly use TeX to produce DVI files, run those through dvips to get Postscript and then use ps2pdf if necessary.
The idea of using a graphical editor to produce LaTeX seems slightly odd to me. I think it would probably be much faster just to use a regular text editor, at least if you’re typesetting equations (or, in my case, lots of commutative diagrams) or defining your own macros.
October 21st, 2004 at 11:04 PM
Well I decided to install LaTeX today having done project proposal in Word! MiKTeX for Windows is really good, and I’ve found that TeXnicCenter is a great editor with a really usable GUI (this is having tried out Vim and getting annoyed when it outputted my files into some random directory)
Anyway, I can recommend the aforementioned (ooh – long words) programs for Windows users.
October 22nd, 2004 at 10:51 AM
On the converting to PDF comment: I find you don’t need to convert to PostScipt at all. dvipdfm is your friend and produces really nice clean PDF (unlike dvipdf which sucks).
I know exactly what you mean about taking 15 hours to produce a 5-page piece. While my first LaTeX experience was fairly painless, when I first started using BibTex, I spent about two days trying to beat it into submission for a 2-page piece. It is, however, really worth learning for a big project like a dissertation or if you’re writing more than one piece that feeds off the same sources because you only need to put each citation into your database once and that’s it.
Of course, you’ll need to compile your document at least three times before you get usable output. You may wish so set HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth in your .bashrc if you wish your bash history to remain usable. 🙂
I miss LaTeX…
October 22nd, 2004 at 9:02 PM
I have just surprised myself by finding that I actually have dvipdfm installed as part of MiKTeX. When I next resume work on my thesis I will certainly make use of it. Thanks for pointing it out, Mili.
On a related note, has anybody used DocBook for anything substantial? Eric Raymond says nice things about it in The Art of Unix Programming, and I’m starting to think that I should get my popular physics book out of Word and into something more structured as soon as possible. The obvious choice would be LaTeX but I’m always tempted by shiny new things…
October 25th, 2004 at 6:50 AM
Also, consider using CVS to manage your .tex files during development. It’s remarkably useful to be able to snapshot your source files (e.g. when delivering to your supervisor). I found, two years into my PhD, that I should have been using it two years ago. 🙂 It should be installed as standard in your distro (cvs –help).