[flother]

A common solution is to use LaTeX, but to use it indirectly: write in Markdown and convert to PDF using Pandoc [1], which uses LaTeX in the background. This is (part of) the process used in RMarkdown [2], for example. That way, you get all the benefits of TeX and LaTeX but without most of the pain.

[1]: https://pandoc.org/index.html [2]: http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/

[curiousgal]

I just use Atom with the markdown-preview-plus package for live preview.

[gravypod]

I've seen some people do org-mode -> TeX -> research paper. It's very impressive. I just wish there was something like that with a more GUI/polished feel.