CAUTION
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Working with Words and Images 21
Scientific notation is supported. With the geqn command, you can create complex equations.
LaTeX and TeX are suited for technical notation, and some math publications
require LaTeX.
Editing can be faster because traditional Linux documents are created with a text editor.
You usually get better performance out of a text editor than a word processor.
Simple page layouts work well with Linux documentation tools. For example, a technical book
with a few flow charts and images can be easily produced and maintained using Groff or TeX documentation
tools. Letters and memos are also easy to do with these tools. And, of course, Linux man
pages are created with text-based tools.
Additionally, Linux likes PostScript. Although people think of PostScript as a printing language, it
is really more of a programming language (you could write PostScript code directly). Most Linux
document-processing software includes print drivers for PostScript. Some documents on the Web
are distributed in PostScript (.ps).
The drawback to the traditional Linux document tools is that they are not intuitive. Although there
are some easier front ends to LaTeX (see the description of LyX later in this chapter), if you are creating
documents in a text editor, you need to learn what macros to type into your documents and
which formatting and print commands to use.
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