Lets talk about TeX for a second, I learned the basics a few

>>62182008
>never hear people using it, not even for university papers and such
What the fuck?
In hard science, computing and mathematics it's the de facto standard. I don't know about engineering.

>>62182040
That's why I'm asking, I know it's very popular in some field and totally irrelevant in others.

Can anyone comment on TeX use in engineering, especially electro?

I see it recommended for my journal submissions occasionally. If they forced me to use it then I wouldn't mind learning but they typically offer more normie alternatives like a ms word template which works fine.

I think in more math / science heavy fields it's needed because of graph formatting or something.

>>62182289
even if it is not the standard, which I highly doubt, you should learn to use it anyway, it's not difficult and really convenient

just use overleaf and stick to default styles

>>62182289

Used in EE extensively. Still use it for my CV, with the source code in git.

Even if you decided it's not worth it, be familiar with equations. LibreOffice supports equation input in LaTeX format, there is MathJax javascript that can handle rendering on websites/jupiter notebook and more, it's handy and well supported.

>>62182040
you literally would of got kicked of if you used other than TeX (or similar) for university where i was in engineering

>>62182519
and what university would that be?

Physics PhD student here
More or less everyone uses it, there's no decent alternative when it comes to writing equations. It also provides a lot of useful tools if you use the right packages : graphs, schemas, bibliographies, customisation etc.

I do know some people using MS Word but they're rare, and the output is mostly terrible. Try reading a thesis written with word, the equations are so all over the place it's a major pain in the ass.

molecular biology/genetics: nobody uses it. most people don't even know what it is. that said, we also rarely need complex typesetting like for equations.

most of the biology journals prefer word manuscript submissions

>>62182289
ME/EE here:

- For collaboration, it's as good as essential because word documents cannot be used with git/whatever CVS properly. Maybe you can get away with using pandoc
- Word is all fun until you need something automated (like graphs updating after a code run), non-standard equations or huge tables
- Some journals want TeX because they can easily put it in their formatting, even in EE and ME. As long as you're on uni you're going to 'hard science' anyway
- Stick to default style. Defining your own huge template/style package is just not worth the time and will make the old people frown

In the end, you may get away with never learning any of it. But really the part that you 'learn' is actually pretty little, the basics are really easy if you have a good source. The times you spent 1hr+ in Word trying to find how to get something right make up for it

>>62183498
a small one in scandinavia

>>62183658
maybe not kicked of but some professors put *TeX as a requirement and failed any submission that wasnt

>>62183653
>- Word is all fun until you need something automated (like graphs updating after a code run)
This. There is absolutely no way I could have written my master thesis in Word and lived to tell the tale. Updating things at scale after they are part of the document is just too impractical to bother.

>- For collaboration, it's as good as essential because word documents cannot be used with git/whatever CVS properly.
This too.

>non-standard equations or huge tables
Honestly, even doing math, I find this a secondary consideration. I could live with Word and shitty equation editors. It's the two points above that are the real killer.

Im considering going into electrical eingineering. I want to do a mix of programming while also learning how to put circuits and shit together. Is electro good for that?

>>62183704
>>62183653
docx files are unlocked, zipped packages of xml documents. if you really wanted to you set up git to manage them.

see: https://tante.cc/2010/06/23/managing-zip-based-file-formats-in-git/

>>62183735
Yes, and if it weren't it's probably the only thing so it still is.
Uni may be kinda theoretical and mathematical tho so be prepared

File: thesis.png (233KB, 2023x927px) Image search: [Google]

233KB, 2023x927px

>>62183585
Also just for reference, MSWord (left) versus TeX (right).
MSWord is literally getting BTFO in terms of aesthetics and ease of reading.

>>62183811
Yeah -- if you want to resolve merge conflicts by manually merging the docx XML. Good luck with that.

>>62183811
I (>>62183653) know, but having worked with the XML interpretation of .docx's, really small changes in Word can cause huge differences in the resulting XML output, so it will never merge correctly, plus causes issues with the metadata and fingerprints and stuff

Well as you can see if you got the .pdf
>door busts open. "IM BEDDUR THAN U!!!!!!!! IM BEDDUR THAN U!!!!!!!!!"
Just pretend he isn't there. Me maths. Me sciences.
>"IMMAMBED-DUR THEN U!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Me psuedo mc-acadaamica mc-shit
>"MMMAMBBEBBEDU!!!!!!!!!"
Muh nobel prize. muh shitty pdfs that people only read 60 years later only citing some shitty meme. Me typography!!!!
>"HUHUHFUHFUHFDDURUURU YOU!!!!!!!!!!!! FUUUUUUUCKKK UUUUUUU!!!!!!! GULULUGULGUUG"
-Every latex (fuk u, *TeX, fuk u) super-shit ever thread. You may now post.

>>62185065
>(fuk u, *TeX, fuk u)
xelatex and lualatex are objectively better than latex though

Many of our local shitty physics journals only accept Word 2003. Well it's not like I'll be writing to Nature, so whatever, one less useless thing to learn.

>>62183859
1. The Word equations are not centred.
2. Spacing on the partial diff. equations' delta and the following letters is too small.
3. French punctuation spacing is still a thing? Looks terrible.
4. Coloured citation and equation links look terrible.
5. the " in the middle of, and 2/3 down, the page needs to be `` instead.
6. The equations in the line beginning 'La vitesse' need to be on their own lines; they're messing up the line spacing.

>>62182040
This. All the conferences & journals I've submitted to provided a TeX template

LaTeX gives you a lot more control over the layout if you need it.

But the biggest benefits are that you normally don't need to worry about the layout; you focus on the content and the compiler will handle most of the layout for you.

Compared to Word, the benefit is that it's a plain-text format so you can version control it.
This is absolutely essential if you're working with multiple people or if it's a large project that is dozens or hundreds of pages.

>not just using the font and exporting to pdf

Best intro to *TeX?