this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
413 points (98.4% liked)

Science Memes

11081 readers
3511 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 41 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It by default places them more intelligently than word. This frustrates people that want it to be placed where they want it.

Word doesn't place images intelligently, but it makes it easier to move images for novice users. This makes word simpler and may initially seem better. However, if your document gets large and has more content added. Word can alter the locations of images erratically and you may find yourself constantly fixing them. If you understand how latex works and accept it methods, it can be a whole lot less stressful when working on larger documents.

[–] pufferfisherpowder@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I have no experience with latex but I would argue that if you're proficient in using word you can set up even a large document effectively. Most people just don't bother. But things like page break, as a basic example, exist.

This isn't to say that word is better than latex, again I have no experience with the latter, but word in 2023 is better than it's reputation imo.

[–] rainerloeten@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

First, many people don't know how to use WYSIWYG word processing programs, you'revery right about that!

Second, both systems have overlapping use cases which makes it difficult to differentiate between "technically better" and "better in my opinion", i.e. objectively vs. subjectively.

Finally, use what tool you're nist comfortable with. But you may want to invest time to get more comfortable with another tool, if your current one isn't suitable for your job.

PS: things I do repeatedly, I do best in LaTeX. Because for other things I've already forgotten how to do them and have to re-learn them each time, which might be more time consuming than using other tools (or just Markdown with LaTeX support hehe)

[–] psud@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Sure you can make it work, for example large mixed documents I have worked on have a section break - new page right before the diagram that each has which takes 20 - 100% of a page. What looks good as a right aligned image with text to the left is fine in that scenario, but if the break is deleted the format becomes terrible