[nfbcs] latex benefits

Wed Jan 25 14:11:34 UTC 2017

Latex is really heavily used in math in college. I am no where near 
expert enough to teach a whole ccourse on latex but I used to teach a 
beginners class. However, the need for it is gone because most math 
students know enough just to get started by the time they get here (the 
University Of Wisconsin).

On 01/24/2017 10:11 PM, Jude DaShiell via nfbcs wrote:
> These Tex/LaTex messages really ought to be cross-posted to whatever
> blind-students list or lists nfb has running.  If I had learned about
> Tex/LaTex while in College even with the learning curve it would have
> made my work lots better.
>
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2017, Greg Kearney via nfbcs wrote:
>
>> Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 19:21:02
>> From: Greg Kearney via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>> Cc: Greg Kearney <gkearney at gmail.com>, Doug Lee <dgl at dlee.org>
>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] latex benefits
>>
>> TeX and LATex have been around since the late 1960's it was well
>> developed when I was using it in the mid to late 1970's.
>>
>> A funny story. When I wrote my thesis in college I had a professor who
>> was a bit of a crank. He was known for telling students that they
>> needed to resubmit their work with the citations done in what ever
>> style they had not used. This being the days of typewriters this would
>> cause a near panic.
>>
>> Using TeX I printed out my thesis in every citation style I could
>> think of. I put all the copies into my bag and went off for my review.
>> The old coot looked it over and then decided I needed my citations in
>> some other form or another. I reached into my bag and handed him the
>> whole thesis done in that citation style and informed him I had it all
>> in a dozen other citation styles if he cared to have a look at them.
>>
>> I'm sure he thought I must have spent forever typing up all these
>> copies when all I really did was change one line of code at the start
>> of the document and tell TeX to reprocess the file over and over again.
>>
>> Greg
>>
>>> On Jan 24, 2017, at 5:59 PM, Doug Lee via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> 1970's? Wow! I learned about it in the late 80's and loved it; used
>>> it for college coursework and got some profs that used it to send me
>>> homeworks in LaTeX files instead of hard copy or images. PicTeX was
>>> hard to use then
>>> because of how much memory it required, but I may have used that
>>> module a time or two to generate graphs and such. I think I stopped
>>> using LaTeX soon after the conversion from \documentstyle to
>>> \documentclass though, so I'm
>>> sure there's a lot I'd have to relearn were I to have occasion to use
>>> it again. Still, when I updated a four-year-old Cygwin installation
>>> earlier this week, I consciously made sure to include TeX/LaTeX in
>>> the set of installed
>>> packages.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 05:42:32PM -0600, NFBCS mailing list wrote:
>>> LaTex is a complex document processing and typesetting application
>>> that is uniquely suited for blind users in my opinion. While the
>>> learning curve is steep the results you will get out of LaTex and
>>> it's parent TeX are without equal in quality.
>>>
>>> It is perfectly possible to generate database diagrams, math
>>> expression or even music scores in LaTeX/TeX. There are addin modules
>>> to do all that and more. IT is suited for blind users because it is a
>>> code based system in which one composes the work in a text editor and
>>> then processes the code to generate the PDF typeset file.
>>>
>>> I have used LaTex since the 1970's and it has never failed me yet.
>>> HArd to learn but well worth the effort.
>>>
>>> Greg Kearney
>>>> On Jan 24, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Andy B. via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Someone recommended that I should start using latex. Is this true,
>>>> and if
>>>> so, what are the benefits?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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>>> --
>>> Doug Lee                 dgl at dlee.org                http://www.dlee.org
>>> SSB BART Group           doug.lee at ssbbartgroup.com
>>> http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
>>> "If you refuse to be made straight when you are green,
>>> you will not be made straight when you are dry." {African}
>>>
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>>
>>
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>