[tomjen3]

I don't know, I have two old dip pens (as well as ink for them) and yet whenever I use them it seems I just smear ink everywhere and make huge blubs on the paper.

Anyway LaTeX has beautiful fonts, so I wouldn't worry too much about it yet.

[gchpaco]

Dip pens can be really touchy. I use a fountain pen a lot. Paper quality becomes extremely important; a ballpoint will skip over rough weaves in poorly made paper, but a pen with a nib will catch on them.

Why, then, would anybody use anything other than a ballpoint? For me the writing experience is smoother with a good nib pen on decent paper, and I hate cheap paper anyway. Even good ballpoints aren't great here; the only exception I've ever seen are these ceramic tipped ones: http://www.leevalley.com/US/gifts/page.aspx?p=70130&cat=4,53... As a result of poor-to-mediocre ability to write, my cursive degenerated terribly for years, becoming a terrible illiterate scrawl that even I couldn't read. After I started playing about with fountain pens, I discovered that it was actually a legitimate way of writing, and faster than printing everything everywhere.

[stevewillows]

I've been using disposable fountain pens from Bic for a while since I lost my nice one. A good place to start for people who want to casually try it out before dropping a few hundred dollars. :)