Proficiency in LaTeX - How long does in take?

Question

How long does it take to get good enough with this language to write a professional looking paper/graduate thesis in physics or math?

I've been working at it for a while, and it seems like there's on awful lot to learn. Yet, it seems that there is no undergraduate course dedicated to teaching the system.

I imagine it will be integrated into a senior level laboratory, but I'd like to have some TeX skills by then. How can I acquire them? It seems like learning how to swim by reading a book!

Answer 1

It's like they say about poker -- minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.



Basically, practice is what does it. This might sound like much, but I got the hang of it by typing up the problems to a GR class. It made the algebra, especially keeping track of sub- and super-scripts, much easier.



I'd have to disagree with likewhat on the point of where TeX is appropriate. I have found LaTeX to be much more useful for a long document, especially once you get the hang of BibTeX. I have counter examples of people fighting with Word to make certain changes that are a line or two in the LaTeX header.



Plus, for me, a document produced by LaTeX looks like science.

Answer 2

I use word 2007 and I like it just fine. It also takes some learning, but there are a lot more resources for it. I feel like I can do just about anything in word and it only took writing a few school papers to learn it. Everyone I know who typed their thesis in LateX said it wasnt worth it because they spent most of their time trying to get the formating correct. Every journal accepts word files, so why kill yourself. I think it has its place, but if you need write something very long like a thesis LaTeX is going to be painful. The places where I see latex as being useful is mostly in computer codes that can output into latex so your code can directly make pdfs, other than that I will stick to word.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

My university offers a 4 hour seminar on this - so I'm thinking at least 4 hours.

Answer 5

For ever, believe me.

As Sheen says, but even longer than summer school.



The further you go, the more you'll get. The format you need will have weird formatting, you'll have to adopt more stuff, ...



For ever!