5/13    I always hear this LaTeX thing being some great tool for writing
        papers.  Where's a good introduction URL for this?
        \_ Unless you're doing lots of math equations, don't do it.
        \_ Good LaTeX references online are more or less non-existent.
           The closest I've found after quite a lot of searching is:
           http://www.emerson.emory.edu/services/latex/latex_toc.html
           http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html
                \-TeX/LaTeX have a reasonably steep learning curve. I dont
                think it is so easy to learn from scratch on a web page.
                Get the TeXbook or th eLamport book to start. The hardback
                TeXbook is pretty cheap. --psb
        \_ Can find info from the people who use it a lot:
           http://www.math.berkeley.edu/fom-serve/cache/63.html
           http://emlab.berkeley.edu/eml/emltutorials.html
        \_ http://turbo.che.ncsu.edu/latex/ltx-2.html
        \_ Plenty of introductory: search http://google.com for "latex tutorial"
        \_ By the way, this is a stupid question, but how do
           \_ Knuth, the father of TeX has insisted that it be pronounced
              like "tek". Consequently, most LaTeX people have continued
              this tradition and LaTeX is normally pronounced "lay-tek" or,
              by some, "lah-tek"
           you pronounce "LaTex?
           \_ lay-tech.
                \_ i thought it was lah-tech
                   \_ this is the correct one.
                   \_ these are both equally valid
        \_ Has anyone tried LyX?  How good is it exactly?  A GUI frontend
           could make the process much less painful than the teeth-pulling
           TeX experience.  -- alice
                \_ I don't think I would want to use any more of a
                   GUI frontend to TeX than emacs tex-mode. If you
                   want a GUI, you probably don't want or need the
                   underlying TeX complexity layer; run Applix or
                   StarOffice or Netscape Composer or MS Word for
                   Windows. (Or Amaya with MathML). But then again,
                   I dunno about LaTeX; I just use TeX. -brg
                \- a gui is antithetical to a lot of what TeX is about.
                but then again i dont use LaTeX either. --psb
                   \_ When it's two more hours until sunrise and I'm battling
                      with overfull boxes in TeX, I'd rather the tool care
                      about what I'm about instead of the other way around.
                      I agree that having TeX/LaTeX fu is important, but
                      such skills are to be honed at one's leisure, and I
                      can't think of instances where I sit down in front of
                      a terminal and start writing papers in TeX for fun.
                      So do the experienced CSUA LyX users find the tradeoff
                      between speed and flexibility to be favorable?  -- alice
                      \_ I tried LyX once, and quit when I realized it
                         output LaTeX that was useless outside of LyX.  -mikeh
                                \-well that's my point ... you are using LyX.
                                The fact that it generates LaTeX is basically
                                irrelevant. tex isnt for most people. two
                                reasons to use tex: 1. you do a lot of math
                                2. you dont know how to use any non-unix
                                platforms. --psb
                                  \_ What kind of math functionalities does
                                     LaTeX take away from TeX?  I've always
                                     used TeX but am considering LaTeX. --alice
                         \_ Show me a WYSIWYG editor that is supposed to
                            output in any kind of language meant to be
                            generated by humans (TeX, HTML, whatever) and
                            actually outputs something marginally useable,
                            and I'll show you.... a coherent motd thread,
                            for instance.
                            \_ Well, I didn't care so much about readable
                               LaTeX source, but it didn't output anything
                               that would compile with the normal tools.