What programs do you use for creating technical documents???.....

[Conrad Hoffman]

Very nice! Reminds me that I use Gnuplot for some graphs. We have wizards with Solidworks and when I need 3D I just go to them. No way could I learn that in any reasonable amount of time. For 2D I like Visual CADD better than Autocad. Drawings can be tweaked for excellent presentation, something I find more difficult with other programs. Because there are various 2D programs available for free, I think the price is a bit high, but they probably still have an "upgrade" offer to get you from Autocad or other programs, to Visual CADD. IMO, commercial use of 2D is winding down, as everybody is or has migrated to Solidworks or similar programs.
http://www.tritools.com/
http://www.gnuplot.info/

[PKTKS]

Very nice! Reminds me that I use Gnuplot for some graphs. We have wizards with Solidworks and when I need 3D I just go to them. No way could I learn that in any reasonable amount of time. For 2D I like Visual CADD better than Autocad. Drawings can be tweaked for excellent presentation, something I find more difficult with other programs. Because there are various 2D programs available for free, I think the price is a bit high, but they probably still have an "upgrade" offer to get you from Autocad or other programs, to Visual CADD. IMO, commercial use of 2D is winding down, as everybody is or has migrated to Solidworks or similar programs.
http://www.tritools.com/
http://www.gnuplot.info/

Yep very nice .. I would risk saying the capabilities of TeX are unpaired..

To complete the demo TeX can interpret embed GNUPlot code directly..

e.g. instead of plotting gnuplot onto a LaTeX terminal ( or TikZ terminal )

you can just put gnuplot inside TeX and interpret via latex.

Try

Code: [Select]

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{gnuplottex}

\begin{document}
\begin{figure}%
  \centering%
   \begin{gnuplot}[terminal=epslatex, terminaloptions=color]
  FIT_LIMIT = 1e-25
set datafile missing 'NaN'
set samples 1e3
set isosamples 1e2
set   title font "Arial,14,bold,iso8859"   enhanced
set  xlabel font "Arial,12,medium,iso8859" enhanced
set  ylabel font "Arial,12,medium,iso8859" enhanced
set x2label font "Arial,12,medium,iso8859" enhanced
set y2label font "Arial,12,medium,iso8859" enhanced
set   label font "Arial,12,medium,iso8859" enhanced at 1,1
set angles radians
set nopolar
set zeroaxis lw 2 lt 0
set style function lines
set nokey
set tics out
set border front ls 3 lw 1 lt 8
set grid back    xtics   ytics nox2tics  y2tics ls 7 lw 0.100, ls 15 lw 0.100
set grid back   mxtics  mytics  mx2tics my2tics ls 8 lw 0.100, ls 15 lw 0.100
set arrow filled ls 7 from 1,1 to 1,1
show tics
show mxtics
show mx2tics
show mytics
show my2tics
show label
show border
show title
            set xr [-5:5]
            set yr [-1:1]
            set xlabel '$x$'
            set ylabel '$y$'
            plot sin(x) w l lc 1 t '$\sin(x)$',\
              cos(x) w l lc 2 t '$\cos(x)$',\
              tan(x) w l lc 3 t '$\tan(x)$',\
              tanh(x) w l lc 4 t '$\tanh(x)$'
        \end{gnuplot}
   \caption{This is a simple example using the latex-terminal.}%
   \label{pic:latex}%
\end{figure}%
\end{document}


absolute worth saving in generating complex documentation..
GNUPlot and  other packages can not do direct inline math like TeX.
(although some tricks allow embedding stuff results are far from good)

Paul

[PKTKS]

Here another most interesting gem about TeX..

The Circuit and Chemical symbols packages allows arbitrary high quality circuit documentation almost effortless.. all your created library can be reused as well

Try:

Code: [Select]

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{circuitikz}

\begin{document}
\begin{center}
\begin{circuitikz} \draw
(0,0) to[ variable cute inductor ] (2,0);
\end{circuitikz}
\end{center}

\begin{center}
\begin{circuitikz}[american voltages]
\draw
  (0,0) to [short, *-] (6,0)
  to [V, l_=$\mathrm{j}{\omega}_m \underline{\psi}^s_R$] (6,2)
  to [R, l_=$R_R$] (6,4)
  to [short, i_=$\underline{i}^s_R$] (5,4)
  (0,0) to [open, v^>=$\underline{u}^s_s$] (0,4)
  to [short, *- ,i=$\underline{i}^s_s$] (1,4)
  to [R, l=$R_s$] (3,4)
  to [L, l=$L_{\sigma}$] (5,4)
  to [short, i_=$\underline{i}^s_M$] (5,3)
  to [L, l_=$L_M$] (5,0);
  \end{circuitikz}
\end{center}
\end{document}

I like this one very much among TeX packages
Any arbitrary high quality format can be used as terminal output

Paul

[SiliconWizard]

Once you know LaTeX all the rest is just noise.

Oh, I agree. But doing everything in LaTeX is not easy though when you work in a company, because anyone else potentially having to edit your documents has to know LaTeX as well... this is particularly problematic for manuals - for which marketing departments often want to have the final say, be able to edit appearance, etc. Try having a marketing person use LaTeX... 

[Bassman59]

Come back Ventura Publisher all is forgiven - I never forgave Corel for ditching it.

D.

Come back Lotus Manuscript!!!

[PKTKS]

Once you know LaTeX all the rest is just noise.

Oh, I agree. But doing everything in LaTeX is not easy though when you work in a company, because anyone else potentially having to edit your documents has to know LaTeX as well... this is particularly problematic for manuals - for which marketing departments often want to have the final say, be able to edit appearance, etc. Try having a marketing person use LaTeX... 

Yep YOU DO HAVE A POINT HERE.. 

TeX learning curve is  steep ..

but the capabilities are far more strong.
Best of all also free of charge as in OSS

Total final cost must be a weight factor.

Nevertheless PostScript is far more difficult to learn than TeX

Paul

[emece67]

.

[TheUnnamedNewbie]

I have to use Latex a lot, and similarly to linux, I never really understood all the hype.

I feel like both of them 'seem' better because you are more forced to do things 'the right way' or you are forced to learn the insides because it just has that steep a learning curve.

I think if people spent as much time learning to use MS Word, InDesign, or similar tools as they do learning LaTeX, it wouldn't be anywhere near as popular as it is.



Myself, I use InDesign a lot. Heck, I even cloned my place-of-work's powerpoint template into InDesign so I can use InDesign for presentations too. My graphics are all made in Illustrator. Graphs I have a workflow of standard-plot-scripts that I use to produce the raw graph in Matlab, and then do some postprocessing (sometimes) in Illustrator too. What I love about the Illustrator+indesign flow is the use of multiple layers in Illustrator, which I can toggle in Indesign. Makes it very nice to 'add' traces to graphs across a number of slides, or 'build up' a figure gradually.
Papers I find myself being forced to use LaTeX often simply because the organizers only offer a (mandatory) LaTeX template, sometimes even requireing you to send in the plaintext latex file along with a PDF for their internal typesetting flow.