Re: Large LaTeX project in single file or using publishing

[Andreas Leha <andreas.leha@med.uni-goettingen.de>]

Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu> writes:
> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:
>
>> Also, Richard's post made me realize why I prefer to stay with LaTeX: I
>> know it way better than Elisp (even though I'm making progress), and in
>> case of troubles, I can more easily deal with them in LaTeX (though
>> vertical positioning of things on the page - especially trying to
>> typeset on a grid - still beats me).
>
> Yes, that's a good point: if you already know LaTeX well, but are less
> comfortable hacking on Org, that would probably change my advice.
>
> I have accumulated about 600 lines of custom Elisp that is required to
> export my thesis from Org to LaTeX and PDF.  (The bulk of this, 471
> lines, is a custom export backend derived from the latex backend.  It
> deals with exporting certain Org lists as non-standard LaTeX
> environments.  Most of the rest deals with exporting my reading list to
> .bib and defining various custom link types, etc. to make the Org side
> more pleasant.)
>
> By contrast, I have only written about 100 lines in custom LaTeX style
> files (so far -- I might need to do more of this when it comes time to
> get the final styling right for filing my dissertation).  I also rely on
> other packages from CTAN, but I don't have to maintain those myself.

Just as a second data point.  (Well, I did not measure any of this
really.  Only guesswork)

Of all the elisp dealing with orgmode in my .emacs only the lines
enabling babel for some languages and and the lines loading the
exporters -- I think -- are strictly necessary to compile my thesis.
Which are less then 10 lines (and could be set via customize).
Ahh, and a few lines from Nicolas enabling :ignoreheading:


All the real work is done in a LaTeX cls file.


For the process of writing I had some more convenience code (enabling
reftex, mapping of inlinetasks to LaTeX todonotes and the kind).




As for the lists: Org can export lists do different LaTeX lists via
something like

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8-
#+ATTR_LATEX: :environment enumerate*
- foo
- bar
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8-

or more general (with the definition of myownlist in the cls file)

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8-
#+ATTR_LATEX: :environment myownlist :options [with options]
- foo
- bar
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8-


In summary, I'd say it is quite possible to do the 'work' in LaTeX but
still use org for the actual writing.

It is a little more work to set up, as org is another layer that has to
be connected to LaTeX correctly which can be tricky to get right.

But in my opinion the advantages are numerous (babel, agenda,
navigation) and outweigh the limitations when it comes to supporting
LaTeX (as compared to what auctex offers, that is).


Regards,
Andreas