[OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hi there,

two questions for people using LaTeX (possibly only as Org-mode
backend).

1. Did you know about the savetrees package by Scott Pakin
(http://www.ctan.org/pkg/savetrees)?  From the description:

,----
| The goal of the savetrees package is to pack as much text as
| possible onto each page of a LaTeX document. Admittedly, this
| makes the document far less attractive. Nevertheless,
| savetrees is a simple way to save paper when printing draft copies
| of a document.
`----

2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?

(Note: I explained the rationale behind this survey in another post
I sent to the list a few minutes ago in the thread about the #+SUBTITLE
keyword.)

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[Rasmus]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> two questions for people using LaTeX (possibly only as Org-mode
> backend).
>
> 1. Did you know about the savetrees package by Scott Pakin
> (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/savetrees)?  From the description:

Yes.

> ,----
> | The goal of the savetrees package is to pack as much text as
> | possible onto each page of a LaTeX document. Admittedly, this
> | makes the document far less attractive. Nevertheless,
> | savetrees is a simple way to save paper when printing draft copies
> | of a document.
> `----
>
> 2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
> scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?

No.  I find the output too ugly.

Regards,
Rasmus "the tree-cutter"

-- 
To err is human. To screw up 10⁶ times per second, you need a computer

Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[John Williams]

>>>>> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

    > Hi there, two questions for people using LaTeX (possibly only as
    > Org-mode backend).

    > 1. Did you know about the savetrees package by Scott Pakin
    > (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/savetrees)?  From the description:
Yes.
    > ,---- | The goal of the savetrees package is to pack as much text
    > as | possible onto each page of a LaTeX document. Admittedly, this
    > | makes the document far less attractive. Nevertheless, |
    > savetrees is a simple way to save paper when printing draft copies
    > | of a document.  `----

    > 2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
    > scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?
Yes
    > (Note: I explained the rationale behind this survey in another
    > post I sent to the list a few minutes ago in the thread about the
    > #+SUBTITLE keyword.)

    > Best,

    > -- Marcin Borkowski http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
    > Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science Adam Mickiewicz
    > University

Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[Samuel Loury]

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Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> 1. Did you know about the savetrees package by Scott Pakin
> (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/savetrees)?  From the description:

No.

> 2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
> scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?

Yes
-- 
Konubinix
GPG Key    : 7439106A
Fingerprint: 5993 BE7A DA65 E2D9 06CE  5C36 75D2 3CED 7439 106A

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
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Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[Michael Strey]

Hi Marcin,

On So, 2015-03-22, Marcin Borkowski wrote:

[...]

> 1. Did you know about the savetrees package by Scott Pakin
> (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/savetrees)?

I've heard about it but never used it.


> 2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
> scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?

Yes.  I'm currently using Orgmode LaTeX export for sales activity
reports, letters, Beamer presentations, minutes, and check lists.  In
the past I've been using LaTeX (without Orgmode) for manuals and even
for data sheets.

Best regards
Michael

-- 
Michael Strey
http://www.strey.biz * https://twitter.com/michaelstrey

Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[Stefan Nobis]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> 1. Did you know about the savetrees package by Scott Pakin

Yes.

> 2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
> scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?

No. I use org-mode mostly for documentation and even documentation
should look nice (the whitespace in a document is there for a reason;
IIRC in the documentation of koma-script there is some rationale for
the layout).

There are many other ways to influence the layout and save
whitespace on paper. Personally, I use the koma-script classes and
playing with parameters like DIV IMHO give more appealing results. For
controlling the body there are also quite some good packages (like
enumitem), that allow more fine grained control.

With a simple "#+LATEX_HEADER_EXTRA: \usepackage[extreme]{savetrees}"
it's very easy to get this special effect. But maybe we should make
this easier with a special option like "uglyandcompressed:t" (pun
intended)?

I'm not against a more compact and cleaned up preamble and maybe a
special orgmode package for LaTeX may be a good idea. But fiddling
with the layout of a document should never be the default and only be
enabled via explicit options, as quite some classes out there do a
really good job.

BTW: If producing PDF for screenreading is important, we should think
about an easy option to switch to A5 with a sane layout. A5 is much
better for screenreading than A4 and even 2 pages A5 printed on a
single A4 looks quite good and readable. The main benefit: With A5
there is much less whitespace (see documentation of koma-script for an
example). Maybe A5 output should be the default setting?

-- 
Until the next mail...,
Stefan.

Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[Sebastien Vauban]

Marcin Borkowski wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> two questions for people using LaTeX (possibly only as Org-mode
> backend).
>
> 1. Did you know about the savetrees package by Scott Pakin
> (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/savetrees)?  From the description:
>
> ,----
> | The goal of the savetrees package is to pack as much text as
> | possible onto each page of a LaTeX document. Admittedly, this
> | makes the document far less attractive. Nevertheless,
> | savetrees is a simple way to save paper when printing draft copies
> | of a document.
> `----

Yes.

> 2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
> scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?

Not sure about that. All my work reports are made in Org mode and
exported to PDF. They never are "scientific" reports (they're discussion
notes with TODO items, etc.), and I must adhere to the format others use
when writing in Word.

Best regards,
  Seb

-- 
Sebastien Vauban

Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[Grant Rettke]

No. Yes.

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 4:04 PM, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> two questions for people using LaTeX (possibly only as Org-mode
> backend).
>
> 1. Did you know about the savetrees package by Scott Pakin
> (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/savetrees)?  From the description:
>
> ,----
> | The goal of the savetrees package is to pack as much text as
> | possible onto each page of a LaTeX document. Admittedly, this
> | makes the document far less attractive. Nevertheless,
> | savetrees is a simple way to save paper when printing draft copies
> | of a document.
> `----
>
> 2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
> scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?
>
> (Note: I explained the rationale behind this survey in another post
> I sent to the list a few minutes ago in the thread about the #+SUBTITLE
> keyword.)
>
> Best,
>
> --
> Marcin Borkowski
> http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
> Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
> Adam Mickiewicz University
>



-- 
Grant Rettke
gcr@wisdomandwonder.com | http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/
“Wisdom begins in wonder.” --Socrates
((λ (x) (x x)) (λ (x) (x x)))
“Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop
taking it seriously.” --Thompson

Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[hymie!]

In our last episode, the evil Dr. Lacto had captured our hero,
  Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>, who said:
>,----
>| The goal of the savetrees package is to pack as much text as
>| possible onto each page of a LaTeX document. Admittedly, this
>| makes the document far less attractive. Nevertheless,
>| savetrees is a simple way to save paper when printing draft copies
>| of a document.
>`----

I typically want my draft to look like my finished copy will look, so

>2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
>scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?

No.

--hymie!    http://lactose.homelinux.net/~hymie    hymie@lactose.homelinux.net
My fitbit says I've walked 3381 steps today (as of 10:58).

Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[hymie!]

In our last episode, the evil Dr. Lacto had captured our hero,
  hymie@lactose.homelinux.net (hymie!), who said:
>In our last episode, the evil Dr. Lacto had captured our hero,
>  Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>, who said:
>>,----
>>| The goal of the savetrees package is to pack as much text as
>>| possible onto each page of a LaTeX document. Admittedly, this
>>| makes the document far less attractive. Nevertheless,
>>| savetrees is a simple way to save paper when printing draft copies
>>| of a document.
>>`----
>
>I typically want my draft to look like my finished copy will look, so

I just realized that I mis-read the original question, so I will just
echo what somebody else said.

I use Org for writing and maintaining documentation, and my documentation
has to be readable to be usable.

>>2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
>>scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?

Still no.

--hymie!    http://lactose.homelinux.net/~hymie    hymie@lactose.homelinux.net
My fitbit says I've walked 3381 steps today (as of 10:58).

Re: [OT] A short (less than a minute), informal survey about LaTeX

[Richard Lawrence]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:

> 1. Did you know about the savetrees package by Scott Pakin
> (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/savetrees)?  From the description:

Only vaguely.

> 2. Would you find it useful when producing PDF files other that
> scientific articles (using Org-mode or not)?

Yes.  I often produce PDFs from Org of things like lecture notes,
handouts, etc. where it is more important to get more infomation onto
fewer pages than to have publication-quality output.  (Normally, I do
this with \usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}.)  

(However, I just tried to build one of my handouts with the savetrees
package, and was unsuccessful.  I didn't do anything besides loading
savetrees instead of geometry.  Is savetrees incompatible with other
packages Org loads by default?)

Best,
Richard