InDesign vs. LaTeX

[jshamoomarx]

What is the difference between InDesign and LaTeX? Is it just user interface and ease of use?

I'm working on two projects; one was originally written in XMLmind and the other in LaTeX. I know how to use XMLmind but I don't yet know how to use LaTeX. I know how to use InDesign. I know I can import the xml into InDesign and just map the tags to specific styles but I need to know the advantages and disadvantages of using InDesign to layout and format these documents into a book and the advantages and disadvantages of using  LaTex to layout and format these documents into a book.

Thanks.

[jshamoomarx]

Another note--I need to be able to export these documents back and forth between xml and non-xml documents. Also, these documents will undergo editing.

[Joel Cherney]

Another note--I need to be able to export these documents back and forth between xml and non-xml documents. Also, these documents will undergo editing.

You would need to go into a great detail concerning your plans here if you wanted reasonable & useful resposes. You could be talking about a DITA workflow, or a TM/MT workflow, or a web/print publishing workflow, or a variety of other possibilities. Perhaps your editors are technical writers with lots of experience with tagged text or structured authoring, or perhaps your editors are technophobes going to scream when they discover that you are going to ask them to use a tool that's not MS Word to contribute edits. We can't guess, so any advice you get is going to be necessarily limited.

But, in general: I've started up LaTeX maybe 5 times in the last 5 years. It was indispensable a decade ago, and now the only people whom I advise to use it are math majors who can't afford commercial tools. Since you've never used either app, I'll contribute a few suggestions. Brand-new users of ID are less obvious, typographically speaking, than brand-new users of LaTeX. Something about the generic text composition in LaTeX screams "I am a sophmore math major." If you are working on documents for print and expect them to look good to people who aren't tech wonks (and you have no background in layout or typography), go with ID. Also, given that it sounds like you're doing some sort of structured authoring workflow, have you considered FrameMaker? That's another application that I don't really use anymore, but I do know that my DITA-usin' friends spend a great deal of time in Frame.

(minor edits for clarity)

[jshamoomarx]

It's for a print publication of a book. I'm a technical editor (I also handle layout) and I'm working with computational linguists who wrote the documents in XMLmind and LaTex. The book is intended for linguists and computer scientists. We're dealing with elements like interlinear text and Bangla and Arabic scripts. After discussion with the authors it looks like I'll probably be defining all of the styles and layout and they'll be writing the code to get it to turn out the way I describe. They're also figuring out how to merge XMLmind documents so that we can track version changes. It may be worth my time to learn LaTex. Any advice or suggestions will be extremely helpful. Thanks.

I use InDesign all the time. I know how to use XMLmind but I just really prefer to work with InDesign. My knowledge of computer languages is limited--I know how to use XMLmind well but I don't know how to write the style sheets that it uses.

[Joel Cherney]

Hmm. This one is tough. This phrase in particular:

They're also figuring out how to merge XMLmind documents so that we can track version changes.

makes me very, very nervous. But hey, maybe they're all top-notch developers in addition to being computational linguists.

I use InDesign all the time. I know how to use XMLmind but I just really prefer to work with InDesign. My knowledge of computer languages is limited--I know how to use XMLmind well but I don't know how to write the style sheets that it uses.

If your collaborators are already intermediate-to-advanced users of LaTeX, then I'd say that it'd be worth it to try to scramble up that steep, steep learning curve. You will know a lot more about writing style sheets in raw text editors by the time you're done. If no one involved knows any LaTeX (if you are the only publications guy on board for this project), then I'd advise sticking with ID.

But I really hope for your sake that I'm not the only person to post in this thread. I'm pretty familiar with complex-script layout (e.g. Arabic) but your subject matter might require advanced techniques I know nothing about; I don't do much typesetting for computer scientists.

[jshamoomarx]

I already know that ID cannot handle Arabic script well. Right now I'm dealing with a left to right script so I'm not as worried about it. The authors I'm working with are in-house and very well versed in LaTeX; I, on the other hand, have never used it. No one in our publications department has ever used LaTeX. We lay everything out in ID--except in this case I guess.

[Jongware]

Joel daintily side-stepped around the Most Important Question ...

What is the difference between InDesign and LaTeX?

If you have no clue at all: the difference is between moving a mouse and typing commands -- a GUI vs a command line tool. InDesign is not your typical GUI; unlike moving stuff around on your desktop, you are supposed to create something as well. TeX (of which LaTeX is a descendant/sibling/cousin) is not your typical command line tool either. You type in your text, just as I'm doing now in this forum's blasted editor -- but you cannot use the editor's handy Bold button, or (tee-hee) its Underline text or Color text buttons. That's not because the editor sucks (although it does), but because the input for a LaTeX document must be a plain text file. To get bold (underline, color, etc.) you must enter the right commands, like this: \b a bold text \b. Or like this: \b{some more bold text}. Or even like this: \bf{this might also be bold -- I dunno}.

Imagine what you have to enter for a mediocre complicated table.

My office has a golden rule concerning people who want to hand us TeX documents to print, and that is: "Hey, it's a free world, and you chose TeX. Congratulations. By the way, your images are in RGB and we would like to have them in CMYK or grayscale. And you don't have crop marks either. Please change this and send a new PDF."

To be able to handle RTL languages (and the associated fonts and scripts) in both InDesign and TeX needs quite some knowledge. The Good Thing is that if you can get it set up right in a modern version of InDesign, you can actually see what you are doing. The Good Thing about TeX is that if you get it set up correctly, it might even be handier -- I don't know for sure, but TeX's macro system ought to do wonders for linguistic alignments.

If you can find a TeXnician to have it set up for you (and you may well expect a thick manual to go with it), you might be able to edit your TeX text. And I bet there are dedicated user groups out there who know how to wrangle XML into TeX as well.

[Joel Cherney]

[Jongware] wrote:

Joel daintily side-stepped around the Most Important Question ...What is the difference between InDesign and LaTeX?

Guilty as charged.  I know that there are some GUI tools available for TeX, but I've never used 'em.

To be able to handle RTL languages (and the associated fonts and scripts) in both InDesign and TeX needs quite some knowledge. The Good Thing is that if you can get it set up right in a modern version of InDesign, you can actually see what you are doing. The Good Thing about TeX is that if you get it set up correctly, it might even be handier -- I don't know for sure, but TeX's macro system ought to do wonders for linguistic alignments.

If you can find a TeXnician to have it set up for you (and you may well expect a thick manual to go with it), you might be able to edit your TeX text. And I bet there are dedicated user groups out there who know how to wrangle XML into TeX as well.

RTL support was why I used LaTeX in the first place, and once I got my mitts on InDesign, I jobbed everything out to people who had Middle East versions of InDesign. When the World-Ready Composer (Google it!) first appeared in CS4, I did a dance of joy.

My office has a golden rule concerning people who want to hand us TeX documents to print, and that is: "Hey, it's a free world, and you chose TeX. Congratulations. By the way, your images are in RGB and we would like to have them in CMYK or grayscale. And you don't have crop marks either. Please change this and send a new PDF."

You left out the emoji, sir. What Mr. Jongware left out here is this: performing these fixes is extremely annoying. Once again, even when ID had no support for complex scripts, I still backconverted Unicode text to crappy early-90s fonts in order to do my layout in ID instead of wrestling with LaTeX.

but because the input for a LaTeX document must be a plain text file. To get bold (underline, color, etc.) you must enter the right commands, like this: \b a bold text \b. Or like this: \b{some more bold text}. Or even like this: \bf{this might also be bold -- I dunno}.

Imagine what you have to enter for a mediocre complicated table.

The chestnut we used back in the old days was that LaTeX was not a WYSIWYG ("What you see is what you get") editor, but a WYSIWYW ("what you see is what you want") editor. And the way you inform TeX what you want is by editing rawtext stylesheets by hand - essentially, exactly what you (the OP, I mean) said when you pointed out that you don't know how to write your own stylesheets in the XML editor under discussion. And if it doesn't give you what you want, you nudge & fiddle with & otherwise coax that code until your output looks right.

To wrap up, let me share with you my current emotional state: when my grandfather told me tales of the Depression, he'd joke "Oh, it was terrible. Abysmal. Worst times of my life. Can't for the life of me figure out why I feel nostalgia when I tell you stories about it." I feel like grampa, right now.

[Jongware]

Mind you, I'd shave my head bald out of pure joy

if Adobe managed to add something like TeX macro's in InDesign. Those are powerful beasts -- which is why I suggest to sublet that part of the job to a TeXnician.

Including my one foot pony tail. Honestly. I would.

[jshamoomarx]

LaTeX does do wonders with interlinear text. That's one reason the authors went with it.  I'd never heard of a WYSIWYW before--that's funny. By the way, do all  computer geeks have ponytails, because the author of these documents  also has a ponytail