General ⇒ Electric Engineering Student

[supermiguel]

So im an Electric Engineering Student, and hile doing a bit of research on what word processor to use for my Mac book pro, few people recommended Latex, MacTex for Macs.

So i installed it and it doesn't seem as straight forward as other word processing software...

Is there a book or a manual that i can read to learn how to use Latex?? I went to amazon and saw multiple books.. Can you guys recommend one? Thanks

[Montag]

Hello Miguel,

you could check out this topic:
http://latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2177 - LaTeX Resources for Beginners
What I would recommend: Check out the first listed file (named l2short.pdf). To read the first ~15 pages in this file is like a "must". You really should read them. A
If you want to, you could also check out more documents listed in the aforementioned thread.

For the bigger picture, maybe take a look at tug.org, then click on "Getting Started" on the left, under the bold term "New to TeX?" This "Getting Started"-page you should read very carefully. Maybe also click a few links.
But then, if you haven't already installed it, you need a TeX distribution for your system and an editor. But since I don't know anything about the MacOS, I can't help you there, sorry.

You should not buy a book, honestly. LaTeX is learned by doing it, that's at least the best way I heard about it. I bought the companion too, it was a great help in the beginning, but the thing is, you'll find all you need online. Also the fastest way, in my opinion.

[supermiguel]

i dont find that l2short.pdf file you referring to.. I only find http://www.ctan.org/get/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf

[Montag]

"Oops". I've always assumed there's an English adequate to this cool document. Appearently, there isn't and especially the file lshort.pdf includes a pun. It is a pun. As the title alludes. Ok ...
Well, I glanced through the pages and I would say the first chapter titled "Thing You Need To Know" sort of equals the German "l2kurz.pdf".

[supermiguel]

ok ima read it... Thanks

Also whats the biggest difference between word and latex?? do you have an example of the "same document" written in word and in latex so i can see the difference.. Thanks

[Montag]

yeah right ... so you gonna read it. cool.
latex = works with commands, but there's also LyX
word = wysiwyg

[supermiguel]

whats the difference between LyX and latex???

[localghost]

LyX uses LaTeX in the background to produce high quality documents. It considers itself as a WYSIWYM editor [1]. There is no knowledge about the LaTeX typesetting system required. However, it might be necessary to know some about LaTeX in case you want to exceed the limits.

LaTeX is a markup language that uses specific commands to structure a document. The author of a document is no longer primarily involved in the actual layout and the typesetting of the document but can focus on the content. The rest is done by the so called compiler, which produces the resulting output from the source code. Consider it as some kind of programming. Nevertheless the layout and typesetting process can be influenced in many ways.

Take the advice of enrico and have a look at the topic with resources for beginners. It will spare you a lot of time.

[1] LyX | LyX - The document processor


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten