: Re: Using LaTex medium to enhance writing I asked my Calculus Professor for a recommendation. He said, "Sure. No problem. But write me an essay about yourself and since you're a computer guy,

@Cugini967

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Using LaTeX is unlikely to enhance your writing (or to detract either, as long as you start out with a complete and properly-formatted example LaTeX file and merely add your paragraphs separated by two linefeeds). Generally the LaTeX process should have little effect on the writing quality, but if you aren't familiar with LaTeX commands you may initially spend quite a while web-searching for answers. Note that if you plan to publish mathematics papers, or in some cases computer science papers, knowledge of LaTeX is valuable and for some journals is essential.

Commonly, LaTeX systems are not WYSIWYG and do not include an editor. Some LaTeX systems are WYSIWYG, and if you have to see how your text looks on the page as you type it, you may need to seek out such a system. That aside, the editor that you use is likely to have the most impact on how you feel about the process, because after the initial learning speed bumps you will spend most of your time interacting with the editor rather than with LaTeX itself.

While LaTeX can emphasize text via boldface and italics, underlining is problematic. LaTeX also can be used for fancy formatting but that is best left for people with years or decades of experience, or for people who don't mind begging in tex.stackexchange or at other LaTeX sites.

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