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content/post/2007-09-01-science-and-microsoft-word.markdown

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+---
+author: einar
+categories:
+- Linux
+- Science
+comments: true
+date: "2007-09-01T12:45:57Z"
+header:
+  image_fullwidth: banner_other.jpg
+slug: science-and-microsoft-word
+title: Science and Microsoft Word
+disable_share: true
+wordpress_id: 283
+---
+
+At the time of writing, a lot of people (even in bioinformatics) uses Microsoft Word to write their papers. I personally think it's not a good idea, and not just for the file formats (like Microsoft lobbying semi-legally to get OOXML approved by ISO), but because for scientific papers the WYSIWYG paradigm is not appropriate.
+
+<!--more-->Scientific papers describe content, and a scientist should not be concerned with formatting, spacing, and similar things. The same applies to handling references (I still see a lot of people who label them **manually!**). Not to mention the problems with using a binary format which changes between releases and is not interoperable with non-Windows OSes (90% of our bioinformatics people, me included, uses Linux).
+
+The solution? Using a document preparation system which handles all the formatting and the author needs only to focus on content. Personally I'm rather fond of [LaTeX](http://www.latex-project.org) despite its seemingly odd syntax. Some critics may say that "it's like a programming language" but that's  no excuse: programs like [LyX](http://www.lyx.org) (which wrap LaTeX around a GUI) make LaTeX much more user friendly and are useful also to less computer-savy people. LaTeX also handles references to tables and figures, numbers them automatically and handles the bibliography using text-based bibliography files (and unlike Endnote, it's free). The output is a high-quality PDF that can also be supplied to most journals without hassle. I'm using LaTeX to write [my fiction books](http://www.stealsaga.net) and also for my Ph.D. thesis.
+
+So why keep using Microsoft Word? People who do science should not be scared of trying something new, especially if  it will increase their productivity.
+  *[WYSIWYG]: What You See Is What You Get