Luca Beltrame
64b24842b8
All checks were successful
continuous-integration/drone/push Build is passing
24 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
24 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
---
|
||
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
|
||
omit_header_text: true
|
||
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
|