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LaTeX and XML

Hello,

Most of us use LaTeX + BibTeX for writing papers and research reports. Personally, I use MS Word for other document types but not for research papers and reports---even if I mostly use Windows. In case it matters: I use MikTeX v. 2.4 as the main TeX technology platform; TeXnicCenter v. 1 Beta 6.21 or Texmaker v. 1.5 for editing; and JabRef v. 2.2 for the management of the BibTeX database, all on Win2K Pro.

By and large, I am happy with this setup. However, I also find that LaTeX technology itself is a bit dated. It does look a bit arcane. (Just try editing a style file!). Ideally, I wanted software of the following characteristics:

(i) XML-based, for ease of extensibility as well as for effecting a cleaner separation of (a) content, (b) structure and (c) formatting or presentation.

LaTeX does deliever on the first two counts (ease of imposing a structure on contents), but not all three. Most of the complexity of using LaTeX in fact arises out of the fact that, basically, it was not at all designed to tackle the third aspect. For instance, see the bugs that come to light as soon as you change even such a simple presentation-related thing as the page margins---section headings then no longer flush well (because the boxes for them are processed before the instructions for the change in margins are executed). As other example, consider the url package. It splits lengthy URLs quite alright, but then, the associated hyperlinks it generates in the PDF document also get split up! This means that if you open the PDF document and click on the URL, only a part of the complete URL gets transferred to the browser window. Etc. Etc. Etc.

(ii) WYSIWYG editing, with a simultaneous display of the real code in a second (splitter) window.

This will be especially useful for mathematical equations. (I do like keyboard-only typing of equations. But I also do think that today's editors make the LaTeX document look very messy.)

Also, for putting graphics at the places the *user* himself wanted....

Having to convert a document to PDF or DVI just to see how it is going to look is a messy process: You find a small typo in the PDF document, and you can't just click there and correct it. You have to close the PDF (or switch the windows), hunt for the place of the error in the main editor, make the correction, again build, and finally find the place of correction once again in PDF. Come on, that's like being taken for a ride, given today's advances in software technology, isn't it? (Think IntelliSense in Microsoft's IDEs, here, for comparison.)

(iii) A separate tool for easily editing styles or the information about how the formatted document should ultimately look. (MS Word has good style editor but unfortunately, it is integrated too tightly with a particular document.) The styling capabilities need not be as full-fledged as in CSS and XML styles. They should be easily understandable. (CSS spec no longer is.)

(iv) Support for mathematics like MathML.

(v) A more seamless integration with BibTeX databases, which allows references and editings to be made while working from within the same environment. The BibTeX databases also, of course, should be in the human readable XML format.

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I wanted to know if anyone has used any XML-based software that might fulfill one or more requirements such as the above, and if yes, how the user experience in general has been. (Any form of software will do---commercial, shareware or freeware)

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Also, can you recommend good converters between: MS Word, LaTeX, and XML? (Esp., for LaTeX to XML conversion, and also for reverse conversion from a suitably done up XML, back to LaTeX.)

 

biplab's picture

i) There are several XML based documentation generation system, namely DocBook, BoostBook, etc. But their goal is to generate the documentation for software products. I'm not sure if they will fit your needs or not.

Another point to note is that XML is computationally expensive to parse. So if you've a large document to compile, you may notice the slowdown.

ii) Try any of the following,

I'll add more to this list if I find one.

"Having to convert a document to PDF or DVI just to see how it is going
to look is a messy process: You find a small typo in the PDF document,
and you can't just click there and correct it. You have to close the
PDF (or switch the windows), hunt for the place of the error in the
main editor, make the correction, again build, and finally find the
place of correction once again in PDF. Come on, that's like being taken
for a ride, given today's advances in software technology, isn't it?
(Think IntelliSense in Microsoft's IDEs, here, for comparison.)"

PDF file is a separate output file and if you can edit the PDF file (which you can do in Acrobat) you definitely correct the typo. But that would not change the source automatically.

Consider this. You write a program and then you find that the program has one logical error. Theoretically you can edit the exe file in a Hex-editor and correct it. But that won't affect the original source. And thus we just edit the source and recompile. Most of the compilers work only in one direction, from a Source to a Binary, not the other way around.

Another point is that the Intellisense works only for the defined keywords and objects. It doesn't check the syntax of content of any string.

If you wish to have such auto-complete feature for LaTeX, consider using LaTeX Editor (http://www.latexeditor.org/). 

Best Regards,

Biplab 

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