Non- "WYSIWYG" Text Editing?

GrouchoMarxist

What is the best non-WYSIWYG editor for writing a technical manual or a book? I would love to begin committing to paper several ideas which have been on my to-do list for some time. Thanks to anyone in advance for help!

mfillpot

My favorite non-wysiwyg editor for documentation is texmaker (http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/) , it will make it a little bit easier to make clean LaTeX document for postscript or PDF output.

Goineasy9

Deleted post, never mind, Matt got it, I didn't.

marc

Vimlatex?

http://vim-latex.sourceforge.net/

jabirali

LaTeX is probably what you want for such a project. There is a certain learning curve, but once you get past that, you've mastered a text processing framework that's quite flexible, and basically the industry standard in many fields (e.g. mathematics and physics). It can be used with any editor, but I second mfillpot's suggestion of Texmaker if this is your first time trying LaTeX, since it features a graphical user interface for generating preambles, including graphics and tables, inserting symbols etc. That makes the learning curve more gentle.

Once you've mastered LaTeX somewhat, any editor will do; I personally prefer Vim, but I have to admit that the preview-latex package for Emacs is quite awesome. If you want something semi-wysiwig, Gummi is also a bit interesting.

Depending on your needs, you might also want to consider something like LyX or txt2tags. Both of them has the ability to generate TeX output for you, which can be compiled into the same professional-looking output that using LaTeX directly would offer.

GrouchoMarxist

mfillpot wrote:

My favorite non-wysiwyg editor for documentation is texmaker (http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/) , it will make it a little bit easier to make clean LaTeX document for postscript or PDF output.

Thank you for posting this link! I am currently su apt-getting it right now.

Would LaTeX also be advisable for non-technical works as well? I ask because I would like to compose several non-Linux related works, such as a science fiction book? Thank you for your help in this matter.

mfillpot

GrouchoMarxist wrote:

mfillpot wrote:

My favorite non-wysiwyg editor for documentation is texmaker (http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/) , it will make it a little bit easier to make clean LaTeX document for postscript or PDF output.

Thank you for posting this link! I am currently su apt-getting it right now.

Would LaTeX also be advisable for non-technical works as well? I ask because I would like to compose several non-Linux related works, such as a science fiction book? Thank you for your help in this matter.

LaTeX is commonly used for most professional documentations such as books and mathematic uses. The language syntax can be a little difficult since it is a markup language, but the resulting professional output will be well worth the effort.

But to answer your questions clearly, yes it can be used for any writing you wish. I personally use LaTeX for my resume, personal manuals other read-only documents that I wish to share.

jabirali

GrouchoMarxist wrote:

Would LaTeX also be advisable for non-technical works as well? I ask because I would like to compose several non-Linux related works, such as a science fiction book? Thank you for your help in this matter.

For non-technical works, LaTeX still has the advantage of separating the content from the formatting. You can write your entire book without having to care about how the document looks, and just focus on the content.

When you're done, you can then tweak the appearance of the document by modifying your "preamble". You can of course play with fonts, margins and section headings - but there's a lot more available, like proper ligatures and smallcaps by default, and support for microtypography. If you ever wonder how to make the document look exactly how you want it, someone has probably made a TeX package that lets you do it.

marc

jabirali wrote:

GrouchoMarxist wrote:

Would LaTeX also be advisable for non-technical works as well? I ask because I would like to compose several non-Linux related works, such as a science fiction book? Thank you for your help in this matter.

For non-technical works, LaTeX still has the advantage of separating the content from the formatting. You can write your entire book without having to care about how the document looks, and just focus on the content.

When you're done, you can then tweak the appearance of the document by modifying your "preamble". You can of course play with fonts, margins and section headings - but there's a lot more available, like proper ligatures and smallcaps by default, and support for microtypography. If you ever wonder how to make the document look exactly how you want it, someone has probably made a TeX package that lets you do it.

I've seen very powerfull things with LateX. It is one of the things on my ToDo list...

Someday...

Regards