I was just wondering how many of you actually use Latex. I used Latex in my computer science graduation project, but I saw that it had quite a few shortcomings (such as the number of sections you can have (eg. Chapter, .., Section, Subsection, ..). At a certain point (I think Subsubsection or something along these lines), you could not go in another indentation level. Also, when I came to write up my resume, I tried to find a good resume sample make with Latex but failed. I've searched extensively on the web but couldn't find much, although I did find several books and tutorials. Any ideas? Thanks for your time.

PS. Is there a repository of some type with sample papers written using Latex and the Latex source for them?

Maybe you want to check www.lyx.org

I use LaTeX or TeX. There's a great archive www.ctan.org, with docs, exampes, programs etc.

But do you actually use it for all your word-processing needs? Also, do you know if it supports UTF-8 or not? Thanks again...

PS. Also, how do you get around things such as the limitted number of layers (ex. Chapter, .., Section, Subsection, ...)?

I'm not using UTF-8, so I don't know...
I prefer TeX/LaTeX over other methods of creating documents. I usually work in a console editing files in joe, so it's much easier to type a plaing text file and add some extra characters than to switch to X and type it in an graphical text editor. Of course, I've got OpenOffice.org and sometimes I even use it (some people prefer .doc documents over .pdfs ). But all longer things - LaTeX.
If you get deeper, you can create your own layers. But in most cases you don't need them. Isn't the 5 level - format enough for you?

I use latex for all my word processing (but it's called text processing here!) needs.

If I need more parts I use a different document style. Have you noticed that you normally have \paragraph and \subparagraph as well? If you use a \documentstyle{book} you will have \part and \chapter as well.

This will give you a total of 8 levels. Are you sure you should use that many?

If I ever had the need of more, I would open the document class (search for "article.cls" or "book.cls" in your latex installation), take a copy and edit as necessary. You can customize this to suit all your needs.

I use LaTeX everywhere, maybe except for desktop publishing. This can get hard without a WYSIWYG sometimes. (LaTeX is in this respect much like HTML.) I have done very advanced magazine layout with LaTeX but that was very time consuming and I would not choose that tool for that purpose if I did it profesionally.

I use LaTeX, and I love it
I like it because...
1) it's "similar" to programming, and I love programming
2) You have full control, converse than with word-like programs
3) You can write your documents just with a text editor (well, later you have to LaTeX it, and will need the whole LaTeX system), so you can create professional documents and don't need a great computing power to do it.
4) it's the only way to write scientific documents (I mean, it is the best way, and far away from other possibilities)
5) You can learn LaTeX. It may be more or less difficult, but it's possible to learn how to do anything that can be done
I have a couple more of reasons... but these 5 suffices
In fact, i discovered LaTeX no long time ago, but I use it for everything I'm able to. I must more.

Regards

The truth is:

LaTeX is the best text editor for scientific purposes. I'm currently writing a book for IEEE using it.

LaTeX uses a programming language and lots of package that you'll have to research on the internet, forums, books. You'll waste a lot of time with it.

Formatting is excellent.
Programming is boring.

Is it better than Word? Yes, if you have the time and patience for it.

I used to use plain TeX. Talk about fun! LaTeX is useful, and allows for a great deal of portability and formatting niftiness, but I found it difficult to use. Because of this, I went one level lower on the higherarchy of language and started using TeX.

have you ever tried to do a complex table in TeX? A simple six column by eight row table can easily take up a hundred lines of TeX code.

These days, I don't really use TeX for much other than longer projects, such as stories and the like. TeX allows me to free myself from the issues of formatting and funky control sequences, since a simple markup will allow me to create section breaks, chapter breaks, comments, etc. The nice thing is that I can make these markups up on the fly, and then define them later.

I have done resumes and laboratory reports using TeX. Send me an email at (remove all instances of ?, and replace words with symbols) hcgernhardt?at?hotmail?dot?com if you'd like to see them. It may take me a little while to dredge them up, as they are stored on a defunct computer.

Viel Glueck,

Henry