Why LaTeX?

LaTeX is a document preparation tool often used in academia. In this video, I discuss the origins of LaTeX as well as why I still use it today.

Latex Main Site:

A Quick Introduction to LaTeX by David Richeson:

Learn LaTeX in 30 minutes:

Typography design 101:

Music Credits:

Who am I???

[flyingchicn]

In college, all my professors asked for the assignments to be in LATEX and I absolutely loved it because of the precision you get as the author. Being able to write freely and not have to deal with all the formatting quirks with word is a blessing. Now I mostly use Markdown, especially as the documents i create nowadays are wayyy less formal. Its super cool to learn the history of it! I always wondered where it came from.

[fredriklundborg]

I'm currently getting my masters degree in engineering, we were introduced too Latex during the first year, it wasnt mandatory at the time but HIGHLY encouraged since it would make it easier in later years. Oh my god I love it so much now. My fiance wrote her entire bachelors thesis in Google docs, and then moved it too Words (she's not in any form of STEM field). She had to spend so much time with checking every citation, Every inline etc etc to make sure they followed whatever system they were supposed to use. Meanwhile all we had to do was to specify our rules in the beginning of the document and then just write on. So nice

[warrengibson]

I’m totally devoted to LaTeX but I must admit there was a steep learning curve, especially when it came to diagnosing errors.

[frzer]

People who write their grocery lists in LaTeX are truly a different breed

[ResearchByDesign]

Eitan: this was excellent. Love the care and precision you put into constructing the video. I will be posting the link for my students to use this as their introduction to LaTeX. Beautiful work!

[gracenotes]

This was very well done! IIRC, TeX and LaTeX predate PDFs, so the system originally came with its own "electronic paper" in the form of device-independent output files (.DVI) files. In those days, we used DVI viewers (e.g., dvipage, divout) to proof read our formatted documents and various programs to convert .DVI files to different printer languages (e.g., dvi2ps, dvi2lj).

[HansBezemer]

Don't forget LyX! The "ease" of Word combined with the beauty of LaTeX. Personally, I save a LOT of time using this program. It's just define your properties and let's go! No need to struggle with your layout, it's just typing the thing you want to say.

[Yupppi]

I started learning latex at some point and fell in love: suddenly you didn't have to keep jumping between keyboard and mouse, you didn't have to click 100 things on graphical UI to get a single line of equation, and things behaved like I ordered or thought I ordered them to behave. Nothing exploded when I changed a thing in the code document. It was a pleasure to use because you could focus on creating the work instead of battling with Word. And it looks professional print instead of your personal memo notes.

[robertdixon]

I used TEX at a company in 1989, where we made user manuals for software we had developed. Initially, all work was done on VT100 terminals, on a micro-VAX, and output direct to a Postscript laser printer. The boss had developed a strict set of macros, that standardised font, paragraph formats, etc. Once learned, all our documents read exactly the same, and errors were immediately obvious. Later, we got a few sun workstations, which gave us a graphical preview, and sped up the process. Very powerful. Word is powerful too, but only when you take the time to correctly build style-sheets, and FORCE people to use them properly. Reformatting broken word files into a style-sheet is a painful process. Also, word is notorious for version to version differences.

[zorkan]

It's crazy to think that during my entire education (high school, university - mechanical engineering) no one ever told me this. I kind of stumbled across LaTeX somewhere along the way, but there was no effort on the part of the education system to introduce me to it.

[jimdiroffii]

I made it all the way to Linear Algebra only having heard of LaTeX. After a week of painstakingly writing systems and matrices, I said to myself, there is NO way this is how this subject should be studied. I found someone using Vim and Latex to write math notes live, made an account on Overleaf and never looked back. The speed at which you can take notes is astounding. It took about a day just to figure out how to make a document and produce some equations, another day to learn formatting, and by the third day, I had 19 pages of notes. Amazing software.

[NikolajLepka]

LaTeX also has a bunch of neat built-in environments you can use.
Article (the default one) is fairly simply laid out
Book gives you chapters and shapes the margins so they make sense in a book
Beamer gives you Power-Point-esque slines
(and many more)

All of these are additionally packed to the brim with presets and options to make them virtually fully customiseable

[ccc]

In my position as a quantitative analyst, I used a pipeline consisting of Vim, R, and LaTEX. I used Vim as my text editor. I used R for data manipulation, statistical analysis, and to produce graphics. I put the report in an Rnw file and compiled it with LaTEX. Gat wonderful results.

[splatman]

I had to learn LaTeX for a paper in one of my classes in college, and while at first I had the reaction of “Why can’t we just use Word?”, as I continued learning how to use it, I began to appreciate the ability to just write, and then check formatting later when my content was done.

[jussiklemetti]

I once participated in a math course the notes for which were transcribed by hand during lecture and asked why wasn't the transcription done with LaTeX. Got a really snippy answer of "If it's so easy, why don't you do it yourself?". Admittedly I sometimes had to take pictures of the last thing on the chalkboard and transcribe it after lecture, but not every lecture.

[EgeTemizkan]

This is hands down one of the best video presentations I have ever seen in my entire life. You should do more of this.

[doofynetgraouw]

The other huge advantage LaTeX has over any other program is that, because you deal with a plain-text file, you have no issue with very large documents with loads of references or figures. I've seen Word crash or bug countless times even with small documents. You never experience that with LaTeX. Plus, dealing with bibliography, cross reference, citation style is just ridiculously easy.

[jonweinraub]

I did all of my physics and chemistry lab reports in LaTeX and only one of my professors immediately asked me if that’s how I did it. He was so keen about it he wanted to see the source file too. It’s interesting how that look is so recognisable!

[Pompomatic]

Switching from Word to LaTeX was a really good decision, as the time I spent on headaches caused by cites/references disappeared.

[TrillBast]

Life vibrates through the work and existence of the many amazing people birthed on this earth, the creator of this video and the overall pupils of knowledge are a primary exhibit.