[lewis500]

Latex lets you write equations quickly. Whether that makes it worthwhile to learn depends on how many equations you write and how quickly you want to be able to change them.

I also like being able to write my papers in vscode, with all the shortcuts and vim settings that I’ve gotten used to from coding. If Vim is second nature to you, it’s frustrating to have to switch over to ms word. Vscode has a good latex plugin.

That said, it did take some getting used to. Anything hard and potentially useful can become a “fetish” whereby we fool ourselves it’s the usefulness that motivates us but really it’s the hardness. I recall a time when I tried to use matplotlib to format all my plots, with labels and such. Horrible experience but I was really proud of these ugly graphs I’d make entirely from code. Then one day i just started saving them and opening them in illustrator for all the bells and whistles. Haven’t looked back.

[wenc]

> Latex lets you write equations quickly.

This is often underestimated. It is possible to write complicated equations more quickly in LaTeX than in handwriting. I have done it.

However, to achieve this, there are provisos: 1) Macros already defined for commonly used structures; 2) Lots of repeated elements that can be copy-pasted; 3) Fast typer with a good text editor. 4) Keywords from amsmath, etc. committed to memory.

[singhrac]

In college I sometimes livetex'd a class, i.e. wrote (full, not terse) notes for a course while the professor was drawing on the board. The above is all necessary, but this is easier than it sounds because speakers pause to let words sink in and to write on chalkboards.

The only thing I've found missing from the Word equation editor is: 1) macros, and 2) the output just looks less nice than in PDF form. To be fair I've never exported but I still think Computer Modern has better glyphs.

[wirrbel]

I really don't like the Cambria Math font, alternative ones are

* XITS https://github.com/alif-type/xits (port of STIX, kind of looks like Times New Romans which is not my preferred style but still better than Cambria Math) * https://github.com/firamath/firamath for Sans Math font

In generally I think Computer Modern is okay, I am not enthusiastic about it.