LinuxPlanet: Word to the Wise… A Few Others Worth Considering: Emacs, LaTeX, and Vigor

[ Thanks to Kevin
Reichard for this link. ]

“The Linux word processing and editing scene is as rich and
diverse as the rest of the Linux world. We looked at a few other
packages worth your consideration.”

“If you need to prepare heavily formatted documents without
using a markup language, Xemacs and Emacs aren’t very good choices.
On the other hand, if you work in an environment where you need to
prepare text efficiently and with good support features, they
excel. If you work in a fairly heterogeneous environment where you
share basic text with coworkers, they may also be worth a
look.”

“LyX (and its KDE port KLyX) is a graphical front-end to LaTeX,
which allows users the sort of GUI controls they might prefer, as
well as more immediate feedback on the appearance of their
document. …once you learn to stop fighting their control of
appearance and start appreciating the time you have to simply write
content, you may find they beat the word processor you’ve been
using hands down.”

“Unfortunately, KWord (and the rest of KOffice) is still of
alpha quality right now. The FAQ on the software’s Web site is
careful to point out that KWord isn’t suitable for much more than
writing letters or other small projects. Getting KWord isn’t quite
as simple, either. Having a working installation of KDE 2 is
necessary to use the binary releases that have been made
available.”

“…the UNIX world vigor… manages to provide the sort of
functionality Linux users have been missing all along. If
StarOffice just doesn’t have that extra “oomph,” if Emacs seems
lightweight; or if Applix Words just feels skimpy… fire up vigor:
it’s faster than dual-booting.”

Complete
Story