Gremmie
12-05-2004, 10:35 PM
So, I've been disappointed by Pocket Word (aka, Notepad Lite). The main disappointment is the loss of formating when you open it on the Pocket PC. For awhile, I've used LaTeX for some scientific research on my PC. LaTeX is an open-source document creation program that acts as a mark-up language to create consistency throughout a document and allows an easier creation of forumla's.
Lately, I've started to use LaTeX on my Pocket PC. It's easy because it only requires Pocket Word on the Pocket PC.
LaTeX can use notepad, Word, or any text editor. The actual document looks like an HTML document. It's primarially composed of words with an occassional markup; for instance, to make something italic, it is \textit{italic}. There is no formatting in the document itself until it is compiled in DOS or a front end LaTeX program.
Since it doesn't use formatting in the document, it can be easily typed on the Pocket PC without running into typical problems. It can be transferred to the PC and compiled on the machine.
For the PC, I would recommend two things: you need the actual LaTeX packages, I would recommend MikTex (http://www.miktex.org/). Also, I would recommend a front end program. It makes it look like a word processing program, but it resembles Eclipse or JBuilderX. I recommend TeXnicCenter (http://www.toolscenter.org/front_content.php?idcat=26)
The finished documents can be easily made into PDF's on the PC (w/o having the actual Adobe program).
I think anyone who is familiar with HTML or programming should easily pick this up. I don't think there is much of a learning curve for others.
Lately, I've started to use LaTeX on my Pocket PC. It's easy because it only requires Pocket Word on the Pocket PC.
LaTeX can use notepad, Word, or any text editor. The actual document looks like an HTML document. It's primarially composed of words with an occassional markup; for instance, to make something italic, it is \textit{italic}. There is no formatting in the document itself until it is compiled in DOS or a front end LaTeX program.
Since it doesn't use formatting in the document, it can be easily typed on the Pocket PC without running into typical problems. It can be transferred to the PC and compiled on the machine.
For the PC, I would recommend two things: you need the actual LaTeX packages, I would recommend MikTex (http://www.miktex.org/). Also, I would recommend a front end program. It makes it look like a word processing program, but it resembles Eclipse or JBuilderX. I recommend TeXnicCenter (http://www.toolscenter.org/front_content.php?idcat=26)
The finished documents can be easily made into PDF's on the PC (w/o having the actual Adobe program).
I think anyone who is familiar with HTML or programming should easily pick this up. I don't think there is much of a learning curve for others.