Now is the time of year when students choose classes for their learning skills. One of the skills that will be promoted is LaTeX training. Others may come to use LaTeX for other reasons: someone wants to make a book; someone has heard that LaTeX may be related to the journal Digital Humanities; and so on. I wrote this essay as a preliminary introduction to LaTeX. It does not teach you to use the editor (I do not have the qualifications for this!), But I will try to popularly explain to those who are not using LaTeX what it is for. This will help them to understand whether LaTeX is worth the effort to study it (not to mention just making it work). Why such a great essay? Because many of the evangelists have turned LaTeX into a fetish and spread misinformation about its true virtues. I want to clarify the situation.

1. What is LaTeX?

According to the official website , LaTeX is a “high-quality typing and typesetting system” and a “de facto standard for exchanging and publishing scientific documents.” With this, no one argues.

Commercial layout of books, magazines, etc. is usually carried out in desktop WYSIWYG applications for the preparation of publications , such as InDesign , Scribus or PageMaker , the development of which has already been discontinued. LaTeX works differently: you give it a file containing text with code (i.e., with markup ), and it produces a Postscript file, which another program can convert to PDF (some options directly generate PDF). If you took some time to read (a) articles from computer science conferences, (b) free access preprints of scientific articles on arXiv.org or (c) R package documentation, then you are familiar with the appearance of these PDFs: the titles are centered (but not the headers ), indent in the first line of each paragraph, aligned lines, usually wide margins, if two columns are not used, elegant word breaks and everything is usually typed in this strange, old-fashioned font called Computer Modern .

Technically, LaTeX is based on TeX: “A special-purpose programming language, the central element of the typing system and layout, which produces math (and accompanying text) of publishing quality” ( TeX Users Group ). In the late 1970s, TeX created the legendary informatics scientist Donald Knuth , disappointed with the set and layout standards of his publisher. The first users were mathematicians, who appreciated the mathematical symbols that were inaccessible on a typewriter, and the beauty of mathematical formulas in the new system. In the early 1980s, another prominent computer scientist Leslie Lamport expanded TeX and created LaTeX (adding the first two letters of his last name to the name). Lamport added TeX macros : programs that generate TeX code for you, in the background. Very few people try to write documents directly to TeX. It is too hard. Writing in LaTeX is easier. But this does not mean that writing in LaTeX is a good idea.
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2. Fetish LaTeX

Many scientists and mathematicians write articles in the LaTeX format: they accompany words and punctuation with code snippets, computer instructions for typing and text layout such as “stylize this piece of text as a chapter title” or “insert ellipsis here.” The result (ideally) is a nice looking PDF that can be sent to a review in a scientific journal. If the magazine accepts the article, then the author or authors can download more or less the same PDF to the repository with open access, and send the LaTeX source code to the magazine, which will be re-typed and folded. LaTeX users often type other documents in it: for example, dissertations, handouts for conferences and resumes. Probably, this happens only because having mastered a specific technology for some specific purpose, they tend to apply it for all other tasks where possible. But there may be more positive reasons. The documents typed in LaTeX, as noted above, are easily recognizable. A resume formatted in LaTeX is a summary of a LaTeX user, and a LaTeX user is taken seriously in scientific fields where LaTeX is used. Etc.

Although LaTeX is not as inconvenient for a user as TeX, writing plain text in it can be considered an anomaly. LaTeX is a typing and layout system and markup language. Typing and typesetting systems are not usually used for text editing, and although markup languages ​​like XML and HTML are often used in this way, it is usually considered a bad idea. It is quite logical to say that “forcing people to edit XML is a sadism” ( Django Project ), and although for some time the online journal Digital Humanities Quarterly required that all works be sent in XML format (and a unique variety of XML documents was created specially for this purpose), now it accepts articles and in formats of popular text editors . The Wikimedia Foundation has recognized the requirement to use wikitext markup when creating or editing articles is one of the barriers for new users. However, the reform attempt was thwarted by a constantly declining community of dedicated Wikipedia volunteers, among whom “it does not go beyond the generally accepted view that facilitating the editing of documents is a waste of time ”. I write this blog in a slightly simplified version of HTML that is used in WordPress text editor, although every time an essay exceeds a certain size, I think that I wish I didn’t do it. The markup is good for machines to read and write, but not so good for people. This was well understood by the creators of text editors like Microsoft Word and LibreOffice Writer , which both store the text in the form of XML, but never force the user to deal with real XML.

Despite all this, many texts are written in LaTeX. I call the “LaTeX Fetish” the conviction that LaTeX has something special that helps to write texts in it. As we will see, the arguments in favor of LaTeX are not convincing at a rational level: LaTeX is actually quite inconvenient to write (although it could be worse, for example, it could be TeX). This does not mean that you should stop using LaTeX at all, but at least people should stop recommending it as a text editor.

3. Argument for writing text in LaTeX

LaTeX is better suited for writing texts than TeX, but it speaks a bit. Some enthusiasts make much louder statements, hinting - or directly stating - that writing texts in LaTeX is better not only TeX, but even something better than typing in a regular text editor. For example, the blog of the online editor ShareLaTeX gives such advice to students who write a dissertation: “Your dissertation may be the largest and most complex document you will ever write, which is why it would be a good idea to use LaTeX instead of a regular text processor.” A more complete argument is given by the LaTeX Project itself :

LaTeX is not a word processor! Instead, LaTeX encourages authors not to worry too much about the appearance of their documents, but to concentrate on the right content. For example, take the following document:

Cartesian closed trajectories and the cost of eggs
Jane doe
Saint Bjar 1994

Hello world!

For typing such text in most of the layout systems or word processors, the author needs to mark up the text, for example, select the Times Roman font with a size of 18 points for the headline, the Times Italic font for 12 points for the name, and so on. This leads to two results: the authors spend time on registration and there are a lot of poorly designed documents!

LaTeX is based on the idea that the design of a document is best left to designers, and let the authors concentrate on writing the text. So in LaTeX you will enter such a document as follows:

\documentclass{article} \title{Cartesian closed categories and the price of eggs} \author{Jane Doe} \date{September 1994} \begin{document} \maketitle Hello world! \end{document} 

This is quite a standard explanation for why people prefer to use LaTeX instead of a word processor. I have met many different variants of such an explanation. For example, at the time of this writing, the LaTeX Wikipedia page states the following : “LaTeX follows the philosophy of separating presentation from content, so authors can concentrate on the content of their texts, without being distracted by visual design at the same time.” In the presentation entitled “The Right Way to Create Documents, ” an MIT Research Science Institute employee unambiguously answers the question of why LaTeX should be used: “Presentation should not interfere with content” and then explains this thesis by comparing word processors and LaTeX - and in these comparisons invariably LaTeX wins:

• In a word processor, you spend precious time in agony, what font size to choose for section headings.
  In LaTeX, you simply announce the start of a new section.
• In a word processor, changing the formatting means that you have to change each element separately.
  In LaTeX, you simply override the corresponding commands.
• In a word processor, you should carefully follow all the patterns.
  In LaTeX you are always sure that you fit all the templates, and easily switch between them.

These word processors look awful, right? And LaTeX looks great, doesn't it? Now I will be honest with you. For a while, I took such arguments at face value and more or less often repeated them myself as part of the published academic literacy discussions :

While vintage mechanical typewriters find it difficult to change the appearance of characters, popular computer operating systems come with a large set of digital fonts, giving millions of users access to modern fonts such as Helvetica, Gill Sans and Calibri, as well as vintage fonts such as Garamond. Such opportunities can be considered a distraction, which is why many scientists reject text editors in favor of LaTeX: a document markup language, which helps to forget about how the text will look and concentrate on its conceptual structure.

So this is the official reason why LaTeX is considered a good editor. Word processors make you “worry too much about the appearance of [your] documents,” which is a “distraction”, while working at LaTeX allows you to “focus on what you write, without paying attention to the visual design of the document” . This is useful to “forget what the text looks like and concentrate on its conceptual structure instead.” Everyone says like that. Even me. (By the way, my co-author has nothing to do with it: I myself wrote that paragraph).

4. Criticism of the argument

I was so convinced of the arguments in favor of why scientists write texts in LaTeX, that I myself began to create my own document in LaTeX (I never finished it, it was a lesson). In the end, I realized that although this argument (as noted above) is widespread and often repeated, it is incorrect. Let's look at that example again. Seriously, anyone who thinks that getting people to type is ...

 \documentclass{article} \title{Cartesian closed categories and the price of eggs} \author{Jane Doe} \date{September 1994} \begin{document} \maketitle Hello world! \end{document} 

…instead of this…

Cartesian closed trajectories and the cost of eggs
Jane doe
Saint Bjar 1994

Hello world!

... means "to allow authors to succeed in writing documents", has (at best) a slightly unconventional understanding of the words "allow" or "writing", or, perhaps, "succeed." Does any LaTeX user really believe that this is the real reason for using LaTeX? Perhaps here one can draw parallels with what Matt Hills calls “discursive mantras” among fans of cult TV series such as Doctor Who. These mantras are standard arguments put forward by fans over and over again - according to Hills 'analysis, they are “defense mechanisms designed to give the fans emotional connection a certain rational meaning, that is, to… legitimize the fans' love for their program”. Try re-reading this by replacing “fans” with “loyal users” and “series” with “computer programs”. And that is not all. “Devoted users” use this argument to convince new generations of authors of scientific articles - especially students - to master LaTeX.

So let's take a closer look at the full argument of the LaTeX Project, cited above:

1. For typing such text in most of the layout systems or word processors, the author needs to mark up the text, for example, select the Times Roman font with a size of 18 points for the headline, the Times Italic font for 12 points for the name, and so on.
   In most systems, typing and layout - yes, no doubt. This is their meaning. But most people do not use typing and layout systems on the computer. They use text editors such as Word, Writer or Pages . And they have default settings that (in most cases) can be left to use. That is why so many documents are typed in Times New Roman font 12 points (the former default font in Word, the world leader in the text editor market) and Calibri font 12 points (the current default font is also there). If you want to tinker with the fonts and fields in the text reactor - please. But nobody forces you. And there is definitely no need to make an informed decision about fonts before starting to write. Therefore, the statement that “it is necessary to choose a font, its size, etc.” is absolutely false in order to create an example document in a word processor. It is enough to type “Cartesian closed trajectories and the cost of eggs” and so on - which is much more intuitive than the set \title{ } (not to mention the \documentclass{article} ), as the user LaTeX should do. Of course, the set of words "Cartesian closed trajectories and the cost of eggs" will not give the same beautifully designed title as \title{ } (when LaTeX magic works) - but you can solve this problem as effectively as it is solved in LaTeX, and in a much less intrusive way (we'll talk about that soon).
2. This leads to two results: the authors spend time on the design ...
   The authors have many ways to evade writing the text, including through the fuss with the design. There is no reason to assume that authors will shy away from work less if they stop using word processors. They can dodge, perfecting their LaTeX settings. I know a lot of academic authors who spend a lot of time on it. I'm not saying that it is worse, but is it really better? While there is no empirical evidence that authors in LaTeX are less distracted from work than other authors, the above quotation remains an unfounded statement that is supposed to be taken on faith.
3. ... and there are a lot of bad documents!
   Well, maybe. But there are other ways to solve the problem. For example, in all three universities where I taught, there were formal specifications for the design of student work — formal specifications that are close to the default settings in popular text editors. When it comes to not allowing students to type 28 points in purple Comic Sans font, teaching them all to use LaTeX is a much less efficient way than simply stating that you are not accepting jobs that do not fit the established style. (Teaching them how to use text editors can also help.)
4. LaTeX is based on the idea that the design of a document is best left to designers, and let the authors concentrate on writing the text.
   Think about it for a second. If the question is, how can authors succeed in writing documents, is the answer really LaTeX? Yes, LaTeX is better in this respect than TeX. But if both of them did not exist, would you really now, in 2016, suggest using a markup language?

The MIT Research Science Institute argument is not much better. If you look closely at the three comparisons, they are not really opposed to LaTeX and word processors, but to the effective use of LaTeX and the naive misuse of word processors: all three examples that, according to the Research Science Institute employee, are perfectly done in LaTeX, In fact, you can also ideally prepare it in a text editor. We will take a closer look at them in the next chapter. Now it’s enough to see that people who ineptly use a certain tool are told to study a completely different tool on the grounds that it will allow them to do things well that they could do just as well with the help of the old tool - which (if you think) is a rather unusual technique, if you really want to help people in writing texts, and not (God forbid!) just propagandize the way of writing texts accepted in the community. What is really important is to teach students the importance of writing structured text and using the functions of the tool they use to facilitate their work. Instead, we observe LaTeX evangelism with the false conclusion that word processors do not support structured text at all. If someone lays out section headings in a text editor, choosing a bold font or increasing the font size, then he incorrectly uses the functions of a text editor. A person should show the document structure mode in Microsoft Word and Navigator in LibreOffice Writer, teach automatically generate content, which both editors do at the touch of a button. Comparing the good use of LaTeX with the poor use of text editors is unfair. The maximum that can be said is that it is more likely that you will acquaint you with LaTeX a person who is really good at it, but familiarity with text editors is more likely to be superficial under informal instruction of a person who does not understand them very well. Therefore, the number of LaTeX users who do not use the document structuring functions is close to zero, and there are a huge number of users of word processors.

As a result, the argument for using LaTeX when writing texts is more than weak. TeX solved the initial problem for scientists and mathematicians, but complicated the writing of accompanying texts along with mathematical formulas; LaTeX partially mitigated this problem at a time when there were few other reliable typing systems and layouts, and none of them were intended for academic use. The creator of TeX was probably the greatest man in computer science since von Neumann. TeX and LaTeX became real, working examples of free software just at the time when the free software movement began to gain momentum and evangelicals appeared; it all started with that. These are good reasons for acceptance in the TeX and LaTeX academic circles in the late 1980s. But none of these reasons has anything to do with the assumption that LaTeX is suitable for writing texts - and the fact that most people cannot correctly use text editors also has nothing to do with the assumption of the superiority of LaTeX.

5. The argument against writing texts in LaTeX

In short, LaTeX documents are very difficult to read before layout, which makes writing and editing as ineffective. This is a thesis that should be clear to programmers: if the readability of the code is important, then the readability of the text is just as important. LaTeX documents can turn into excellent readable PDF after typing and layout, but the method of editing them, to put it mildly, is not optimal.

LaTeX, as already noted, is a markup language. Markup consists of text interspersed with code. The code is inserted into the contents of the document. Reading tagged text requires interpreting or filtering the markup in order to restore the original text in your head. This is not an advantage when writing or editing prose. I will show what I mean.

Here is a screenshot of some text marked up in LaTeX. The text is taken with a small adaptation of the article, which I published in June . In the screenshot, I edit this text in the version of Emacs that comes with OS X, this is my usual text editor on "Mac":


Editing LaTeX in Emacs 22 (with intentional error)

As you can see (click on the image to view the full-size version), the title inside the curly brackets is defined as containing the title ( \title{The IF community} ), while the section title within a pair of curly braces is defined as containing the section name ( \section{A past that it could not transcend} ). This is the essence of markup. What it does well is to define the section headings unambiguously as such, which will be useful at subsequent stages (for example, when you need to apply a specific style to all section headings). But the use of markup for this purpose (as opposed to alternative methods) destroys the perception of the text by a person (including the editor and the author himself): looking at the screenshot, we see text mixed with a large number of service characters that are not part of this text, and we must determine which words and punctuation will be seen by the end reader. This makes it difficult to understand whether we really use the correct words and punctuation. No matter how accustomed you are to this markup language, it is an unnecessary cognitive burden. This particular problem relates to the BibLaTeX markup for automatically generating citations and bibliographies, because the markup is not at all like the text that it generates in the final document.

By the way, one of the words in the screenshot is written with an error. This is a typo that I put on purpose. I know where it is, because I put it there myself, but trying to find it causes eye pain.

Next is a screenshot of the same text in the LibreOffice Writer editor. There is the same typo, but this time it is much easier to notice (you need to add that the spelling check did not notice it; again, click on the picture to enlarge):


Text editing in LibreOffice Writer (with a deliberate error)

Spoiler: typo in the word “devotes” (for “devotees”). Maybe you noticed it here, maybe not, maybe you noticed it in the markup - but I think you will agree that it was easier to look at a document with visual layout and Sans font. I should note that citations and bibliographies are generated automatically (using Zotero ), but in the form in which they appear in the final document (easy to read): where \parencite[see][]{bennett_2002} used in the LaTeX \parencite[see][]{bennett_2002} and \printbibliography , in the version of LibreOffice indicated “(see Bennett 2002)” and the actual bibliography.

I also want to note that the headings of the article and section are listed as clearly as in the LaTeX document. When I took a screenshot, the cursor was in the title of the article, although it is not visible in the screenshot. If you look in the upper left corner of the screen (right below the Zotero buttons), you will see the word “Title” in the drop-down menu. Using this drop-down menu, I indicate to LibreOffice that the line where the cursor is located contains the title of the article, and I also indicated that the line “A past that it could not transcend” is the title of the first level section (“Heading 1”, equivalent to HTML H1 ). Like LaTeX, LibreOffice concludes that the text behind the heading, which is not marked with any style, is the main text that belongs to this heading (although you can explicitly indicate that this is the main text through the same drop-down menu mentioned above ). Move the cursor from one line to another - and the value in the drop-down menu itself will change according to which style is selected for the current paragraph. If you want to change the style of headings or body text throughout the entire document, then edit the style properties — and the word processor applies the changes to the entire document. You can also save styles as templates, and then load them into any document at your discretion, changing its appearance in accordance with the template. And of course you can share templates with other users, so that all documents will be designed in the same style.

So contrary to the statements of the LaTeX Project, I don’t "have to choose which template to use." I choose neither the font, nor its size, nor style. LibreOffice does this because it knows how to make headlines, subheadings, and more. And contrary to the statements of the MIT Research Science Institute employee, I don’t have to “waste precious time in agony, what font size to choose for section headings” - I simply point out that certain text fragments are section headings, and LibreOffice selects the font size. And what would the Research Science Institute employee not try to convince the students, “changing the formatting [does not mean] that you have to change the layout of each fragment separately” - as you can “redefine the corresponding commands” in LaTeX, you can also redefine the corresponding styles in LibreOffice ( , ).Moreover, you do not “have to follow the proposed templates carefully” because you can change the LibreOffice templates as easily as in LaTeX. All this is supported in Word. In fact, now it's good to look again at the above comparisons of word processors with LaTeX, because now it is clear that they are all false: in fact, this is LaTeX propaganda.

But back to the editing process. Well, there is not such an elaborate way of reading LaTeX documents as combing a document with markup. You can impose a final document, open and read the final PDF, find all the necessary places for edits and edit the marked file accordingly, re-impose it, read it again and repeat the process.

If you are a programmer, then you can understand the analogy with the coding-compile-debug cycle. But not so most people want to write lyrics. For most of us, it’s more convenient to see a sheet of paper on the screen with words and punctuation marks that will look exactly like this in the final document, rather than looking at markup commands like \parencite[see][]{bennett_2002}. It doesn't matter \documentclass{article}if the template code starts with commands like or \begin{document}at the beginning of the document Just stumbling into something in the middle of a paragraph, \parencite[706]{lena_peterson_2008}you need to convert it in your mind to “(Lena and Peterson 2008, p. 706)”, and such a halt interrupts your flow of thoughts and makes it difficult for you to do what you really need to do: read words with signs to yourself punctuation and check that they "sound" as needed and there are no errors.

The ability to edit the document you are looking at (as opposed to viewing what is in fact the source code of the document) should be taken for granted. Obviously, to write free prose without mistakes, it is better to edit a document that has '...' at the dot, and not commands \ldotsin the appropriate places.

6. So what is LaTeX suitable for?

The main users of LaTeX are scientists. There are even some researchers in the humanities who also use LaTeX (or some variant of it). These people use LaTeX not because everybody does this, on the contrary, they go against the crowd. As a result, they probably think more about the real advantages of LaTeX - and not about the imaginary advantages listed above that LaTeX evangelists are talking about.

As far as I can tell, they choose LaTeX for a reason that opposes the stereotypical view that you need to focus on the content, not the design. For example, one of the user explainsyour choice: "The computer should allow the average user to create an elegantly folded page, but in Word this is very difficult to achieve." This turns the above arguments in favor of writing texts in LaTeX: such authors use LaTeX (or its variants), because they do not believe that “it is better to leave the design document to designers”: in fact, they use it precisely because they want to become designers themselves (in turn, the reason for this is that they are “worried ... about the appearance of documents”).

That's what LaTeX is good for: not helping people write texts, but help them to decorate them beautifully. If it matters to you, then go and look at it.

7. LaTeX: a tool for typing and layout, and not for writing texts

As an author, I want to “succeed in writing documents,” but sometimes I have reasons to play as a designer, and in these cases I want to think about design.

LaTeX provides one set of functions for such situations. Desktop publishing packages like InDesign provide a different set. In fact, there is even a richer set. Perhaps many of these functions are not needed if we are talking about the usual scientific types of documents, such as handouts for conferences and lectures. Forget all this nonsense that LaTeX is a better word processor than writing a word processor: it’s not. But he is better for typing and layout. And it doesn’t require such a careful aesthetic choice and design experience as a desktop publishing package, so in this sense LaTeX can save you time (and it doesn’t give so many opportunities to screw it up), provided that the typesetting document belongs to the type of documents that people usually typeset in LaTeX. The advantages of LaTeX for academic use arethat he produces reasonably folded documents that look good in exactly the way that academics usually like to publish documents. Outside of this comfort zone, it has few use cases: TeX is suitable for almost everything, but macros that extend TeX in LaTeX are mostly created purely for scientific use. For example, I did not run it for layout.a public report from the Valuing Electronic Music project , because it’s a public report and I didn’t want it to look like a science article.

Here are the PDF documents generated from the LaTeX file (on the left) and using the Export as PDF function in the LibreOffice editor (on the right). In both cases, I did not change any default settings (except for activating smart quotes in LibreOffice). The LaTeX version automatically contains the date, section numbers and page numbers, since this is the standard formatting of LaTeX documents; You can easily duplicate these functions in most text editors, but by default they are not included, so I decided not to include them here either.


I think you will agree that the version laid out in LaTeX looks better than that obtained by exporting from a word processor. Whether these changes are significant enough to justify additional efforts in preparing the document is up to you.

8. If we do not write in LaTeX, how do we use the advantages of layout in TeX?

The obvious solution would be to write a document in a different format, and after it, go over it and add markup. For example, I did the LaTeX version of the paragraph shown above: the published article was not written in LaTeX, but I thought that it should be styled as LaTeX for the tasks in this essay. But markup languages ​​are better suited for machines than for people, and nowadays you can save time by giving LaTeX markup to your computer. So just because the document should be folded into LaTeX does not mean that you need to write it in this program.

Here are the options for automatic text layout:

1. AbiWord , Scrivener , Emacs Org-mode Texts . AbiWord ( Windows Linux), Scrivener ( Windows Mac) Org-mode ( , Emacs) LaTeX; Org-mode Texts ( Windows Mac) LaTeX, LaTeX. AbiWord , , LaTeX. AbiWord Texts, Org-mode. , Org-mode, Emacs Mac OS X : .
2. Word LibreOffice, Pandoc LaTeX ^[1]
3. Markdown Pandoc Markdown LaTeX (, Markdown — , ; , Texts , Markdown). : citeproc Pandoc Markdown , BibLaTeX, knitr Markdown, , R . , .

Not all of the options listed are equivalent, and they all provide that you structured the text correctly, and some knowledge of LaTeX still does not hurt (especially if you want to do something like the introduction of mathematical formulas). But the fact is that these options exist because writing texts in LaTeX is not what this program was created for. LaTeX was invented so that no one had to write prose in TeX, which is too complicated for mere mortals. The above options are invented so that no one has to write prose in LaTeX, which is not so difficult for mere mortals, but still writing in it is a bad idea.

9. Layout of your own book

You can consider LaTeX as an option for independent publishing of a book for a publishing house. Academic publishers expect a similar from scientists and can also come to terms with this option from researchers in the humanities. This is what Knut originally invented TeX for. But you should consider three things before convincing your publisher to allow you to type out your own book:

1. There is already a person who is engaged in this work.
2. , , , , (, !), . — ? ? , , , ?
3. , - , .

Still not abandoned the plan? Okay, maybe the layout of your own book gives you personal satisfaction, or the typography of the book should have a certain unique look that no one but you can provide. Good; it doesn't hurt anyone in any way. (If this practice had spread not only to scientific monographs and had become standard , then it would be a different matter. All book designers would be out of work, and most books would either look horrible or be similar to each other. Nothing good).

10. A small warning about the endless inconvenience of everything related to LaTeX

As we have seen, there are few good reasons to write texts in LaTeX, but more reasons for the layout in LaTeX. I have not yet touched on related technical issues. If you are not currently using LaTeX, but are considering such a possibility for typographical purposes, then you really need to know what you are dooming to. Before I finish this essay, I have to make a few comments for the sake of people who are in this position.

Free and free software has a large propensity for difficulties in installation and operation. TeX and LaTeX are no exception. In addition, if you decide on a really wild and crazy act - like replacing the font with something other than Computer Modern - then simple basic TeX and LaTeX will not allow you to do it. (You really want to useFonts other than Computer Modern. This is not some kind of universal font for all occasions. This is just a digital version of the font that was accidentally used in the first edition of the book, for which the second edition of Knut created TeX for layout, and it is really not suitable for some of the uses I’ve seen, especially for slideshow presentations). And everything except pure TeX and LaTeX is really very, very difficult to install. It's so complicated that most people don’t cope with installing individual packages, and instead install the whole thing called TeX Live. The Tex Live package contains almost everything that a TeX or LaTeX user may ever need in one convenient distribution. A single user-friendly distribution after installation takes up more than two gigabytes per disk: to be exact, 2.4 gigabytes in the Mac version is MacTeX. For comparison, LibreOffice requires about one and a half gigabytes on a disk under Windows or Linux and less than one gigabyte on a Mac. And LibreOffice includes a word processor, spreadsheets, presentation software, a drawing package, a database, all in one. LaTeX is simply a program for typing and layout. This is crazy - especially if you have old or cheap iron. And even if you decide to install your hard drive by installing TeX Live, you will have to make a lot of effort to make everything work, and almost no question is explained clearly and clearly there. Sometimes it seems that the installation and configuration of LaTeX has become a kind of test ritual, the participants of which made a vow to suffer alone.

Here is an absolutely typical cry of despair.some user who is trying to get LaTeX to work normally with BibLaTeX and Biber (two programs from the TeX Live suite that complement LaTeX as an alternative to BibTeX , also included in the TeX Live kit, or for BibLaTeX to work with BibTeX - have you gotten confused? Is it just the beginning!):

« « » (There were undefined references) [] . Sublime Text 3 TeXStudio «», PC. …

, , SublimeText TexStudio… , . . - , , ? . .

Every time a newbie tries to launch LaTeX, a person condemns himself for several hours or several days of similar problems - plus all the time he has to deal with the freaks of TeX and LaTeX, even if (like this user) a person uses relatively “friendly” graphical applications like TeXstudio , rather than trying to cope with Emacs or vi and the command line . This user has come to such despair that he has not only changed the LaTeX program editors, but has changed computers in the hope that everything will work. And now the answer. Accepted as a suitable answer carefully outlines the solution, and then explains the cause of the problem as follows :

TeXstudio . , , :

• LaTeX
• Biber
• LaTeX

( ), . , : LaTeX, .

Hmm, how stupid was the user who did not realize that the only way to get LaTeX to work correctly with Biber is to run it twice, once before, and the second time after! And now rate the response to this (unusually clear) answer with a solution to the problem: “The details of your answer will be very useful for other neophytes like me. Other answers suggest a high level of computer / LaTeX literacy, which not everyone has. ”

This is a typical story. Take the path LaTeX - and sooner or later have to tear your hair. You were warned.

Notes

1. Converting a .odt file with a LaTeX bibliography generated in Zotero with Pandoc is slightly more complicated than it sounds. In my experience, it's best to open the .odt file in LibreOffice and save it as .docx (which turns all Zotero links and bibliography into plain text), then use Pandoc to first convert the .docx file to a Markdown file, and then convert the Markdown file to LaTeX file. ↑