MS Word 2010 Takes On TeX 674
alphabetsoup writes "Office 2010 Technology preview was leaked a few days back. With its leak, a feature which was rumored to be present can now be confirmed. Office 2010 finally adds support for Advanced Typographic features (ligatures, number forms, alternates, etc.) of OpenType, allowing one to create documents so far possible only in TeX or InDesign. Between this, the new equation editor and styles, what are the chances of Word replacing LaTeX as the editor of choice in academia?"
Oh I'm switching now.... (Score:1, Funny)
yeah, right.
because digging through a GUI (that changes with every release) to find what I want is soooo much easier than just \whatever{x}.
I give it... (Score:1, Funny)
Badness 10000.
Re:Word replace Tex (Score:1, Funny)
Fixed that for ya. The odds of something occurring, when that something has already occurred, is exactly one.
Can I use my LaTex packages? (Score:5, Funny)
And does it run on *nix?
No? Then it's still useless to me.
Closed Source FTW (Score:1, Funny)
what are the chances of Word replacing LaTeX as the editor of choice in academia?
Hate to break it to you, but it already has, like 10 or 15 years ago. It is only some very zealous math people who still use TeX for anything important, and only even more zealous Linux or BSD users that do so on open source operating systems. In the last 10 years, closed source software has leapfrogged open source in every conceivable way. Windows 7 and OS X make Linux look like the crap that it is. Office 2010 puts POWER into the hands of both everyday users and power users like nothing else in history.
Admit it folks, open source software has failed miserably. Closed source has demonstrated, once and for all, that there is no real benefit to opening up software.
I await my downward moderation simply for telling the truth.
Re:Not only that (Score:4, Funny)
Aaaand I screw up the <p> tag. Go me!
Re:I'll bid this (Score:5, Funny)
Trying to pound the square peg of MS Word into the round hole LaTeX fills is most likely impossible.
Did this sound naughty to anyone else?
Re:LaTeX the editor of choice?! (Score:5, Funny)
To the hardcore CS, math, and physics folks, those other areas are not academia. They're pop culture.
Re:Low (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'll bid this (Score:5, Funny)
That only means you aren't using a big enough sledgehammer. Trust me, with enough force any peg can get into any hole.
The state of the hole afterwords is a problem for the end user.
Re:Low (Score:3, Funny)
... or like playing tetris in emacs?
Did I go too far?
Re:"What's a scientest?" (Score:2, Funny)
Usually a kid with nothing much to do.
Re:Low (Score:5, Funny)
What's a scientest?
A scientest is someone who works in a scients departmint, duh.
Re:Biology (Score:3, Funny)
Luckally, I haven't done anything (yet!) worth being submitted to Nature.
You know, that's one sentence I didn't think I'd *EVER* hear.
Good news (Score:4, Funny)
I have several really good "patentapplication.sty" and "litigationpleading.sty" files.
The bad news is that I used them to patent "A method for generating really good .sty files".
The good news is that no sane court would ever find the patents valid.
The bad news is that I am posting from East Texas.
The good news is that you'll be receiving some very nicely formatted letters in the mail.
The bad news... I could keep this up all day.
The good news is I won't.
Re:TeX vs. Office (Score:3, Funny)
normal human beings
Academics aren't normal human beings. ;)