Re: [dev] Usable typesetting system?

On Sun, 22 Aug 2010, Martin Kopta wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I wrote my bachelor thesis using LaTeX and now I am going to write my
> master thesis. I would rather avoid TeX and everything TeX based this time.

Why everything TeX based? Give ConTeXt a shot:
http://www.contextgarden.net

> Overhelming compilation output completely
> hides any warnings and errors, which are too fuzzy and useless anyway.

For LaTeX, filtering useless information is easy. There are plenty of
scripts and editor plugins that do that.

> Also, work with images is pretty much impossible

Can you elaborate? Do you mean that it is hard to draw an image or it is
hard to include an image or it is hard to predict where the image will end
up in the document?

> and texlive package is too big in size.

For ConTeXt you can download context minimals. The install size is around
200MB (most of which is fonts), which is much smaller than TeXLive that
can be around 1GB.

> I am currently looking for some replacement with:
>
> * input as plain text (NOT xml)
> * simple syntax/commands/language
> * output as PDF (acceptable as thesis), may be indirectly
> * usable compilator (readable overall output, warnings and errors)
> * overall good design
>
> I guess my demands are too high, but if you know about something interesting,
> please, let me know.

ConTeXt fits all points. The error messages in ConTeXt are more readable
than plain TeX/LaTeX, but still somewhat cryptic if you are not used to
TeX error messages.

Aditya
Received on Sun Aug 22 2010 - 17:37:04 CEST