Re: Context, LaTeX, or an XML for academic writing?

[Tobias Burnus <burnus@net-b.de>]

Hello,

Tobias Wolf wrote:

>today I went to work to make up my mind about whether it would be a
>good idea to go ahead and produce my BSc. Thesis with ConTeXt.
>It's clear, I'm very much attracted to it's approach, I do like the
>syntax and the focus on PDF output (I never used DVI before) et cetera
>pp.
>  
>
As John already pointed out: Using "pdflatex" this is also possible with 
LaTeX (well, both use PDFTeX behind the scenes).

>I've seen Hrabans' ciee juxtaposition of ConTeXt and LaTeX, and after
>searching the list I am not sure whether going for a KOMA class
>wouldn't be better considering that I definitely don't have time
>develop my own ConTeXt environment this time.
>  
>
Well, the question is how much you want to change; I think one can (in 
both cases) live with the defaults provided (plus some minor changes). 
The defaults in LaTeX are arguably better, ConTeXt on the other hand 
allows changes much easier. I have also the feeling that ConTeXt's 
figure placement is better - at least I had so far not as much problems 
as with LaTeX. (In LaTeX frequently all figures are collected at the 
very end of the document -- or in between when one does a \clearpage.)

>I've also seen the MS thesis of Han The Thanh. It's good. But I would
>need something more suited for natural sciences that accomodates
>plenty of figures and references. Also I would like to "cloak" my
>thesis by avoiding Computer Modern.
>Do ready-made "academic templates" by one of you experts exist - or
>do you dissuade me from "just using" ConTeXt for for writing academic
>literature?
>  
>
One reason to favour LaTeX is that many publishing houses are accepting 
LaTeX submission, while for ConTeXt less so. This is maybe less a 
problem for BSc/MSc theses, but for PhD theses, where one frequently 
includes some (own, published) papers, this means extra work. Having 
said that, I have written my diploma (~ MSc) thesis in physics using 
ConTeXt and I do plan to do so for my PhD as well.
I can send you the environment I used;¹ the layout could probably done 
better, but I think (hope) that it looks quite ok; I used Latin 
Modern/Computer Modern at 12pt on A4. (For my PhD theses I'll use 
probably use octavo/A5.) Changing the used font is easy, but one has to 
find one which contains all characters needed (incl. maths symbols, 
small caps [if needed], AMS Math symbols [or the font should fit to 
those AMS fonts], etc.)

Tobias

¹ http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~tburnus/thesis/thesis.pdf, 5.6 MiB