LaTeX Rules [LWN.net]

LaTeX Rules

Posted Jan 3, 2006 15:12 UTC (Tue) by nicku (subscriber, #777)
In reply to: LaTeX Rules by Zenith
Parent article: Presentations with Pylize (Linux.com)

Why I like beamer:

I can get nice handouts and nice presentation slides from the same source
I can move towards my goal of integrating practical workshops in the same file that contains the presentation.
it is as flexible as I want, and it makes me happy to use it.
I am already very familiar with LaTeX.
the auctex package makes it easy to edit in emacs.

I have written a lot of teaching material using Beamer, all available under GPL at nicku.org.

I would say pstricks and pgf have steep learning curves, but xfig?

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LaTeX Rules

Posted Jan 3, 2006 23:23 UTC (Tue) by Zenith (subscriber, #24899) [Link]

As another comment points out, the "steep learning curve" mainly relates to the fact that Xfig is so different from anything I have ever tried before, and thus seems quite arcane (B/W, ugly interface - although very effecient once you get to know it).

Also, it has some really strange problems with switching the "units" setting, or the orientation (landscape/portrait), which messes with the grid settings, sometimes making it impossible to do proper aligns afterwards, and also the lines starts snapping to a grid that is some pixels off.
I have also problems understanding the way that it colours the fonts sometimes, if you choose to use LaTeX fonts, and their colour is *not* black (often the case with the beamer theme I use), in the way that sometimes the font is black, sometimes the colour of the fonts that the theme has.

All in all, though, I like Xfig a lot, now that I know its quirks.