{"id":304,"date":"2013-10-24T22:34:55","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T22:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/?p=304"},"modified":"2013-10-25T23:10:22","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T23:10:22","slug":"editing-documents-in-latex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/editing-documents-in-latex\/","title":{"rendered":"Editing Documents in LaTeX"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Do you ever have to edit a document written in LaTeX<\/a>? There\u2019s recently been some discussion on Copyediting-L<\/a> about how to do this. I know of three methods.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Method 1: Work in raw LaTeX<\/h3>\n

LaTeX looks like this:<\/p>\n

chapter[On the Origin and Design of Government]{On the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise\n Remarks on the English Constitution}\n Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave\n little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only\n different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our\n wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our\n happiness emph{positively} by uniting our affections, the latter\n emph{negatively} by restraining our vices. The one encourages\n intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the\n last a punisher.<\/span><\/pre>\n
As you can see, formatting and document structure are implemented with codes. That's okay; just don't mess with the codes unless you know what you're doing. You can open a LaTeX document in any text editor and start editing. When you're finished, save the file and return it to the authors.<\/p>\n
But what if your authors need to see your revisions? In that case, a text editor isn't going to work. But Microsoft Word has revision tracking . . .<\/p>\n
Method 2: Edit in Microsoft Word<\/h3>\n
There are ways<\/a> to turn a LaTeX file into a Word document, but that's probably not what your authors want. Nevertheless, you can still edit in Word, using revision tracking. Here's how:<\/p>\n
    \n
  1. Open the LaTeX file (extension .tex) in Word.<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. Save the file as a Word file (extension .doc or .docx).<\/li>\n
  3. Turn on Track Changes.<\/li>\n
  4. Edit the text, being careful not to change any of the LaTeX coding.<\/li>\n
  5. Don't use any of Word's formatting features (paragraph styles, italic, bold, and so on), which will be lost when the document is changed back to a text file (which, later, it will be).<\/li>\n
  6. Save the Word file and send it back to your authors, who should review the file in Word<\/em> so they can accept or reject your changes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    After<\/em> all of the changes have been either (1) accepted or (2) rejected (in other words, so that all tracked changes have been taken care of), the authors should do this:<\/p>\n
      \n
    1. Save the file as a text file (extension .txt).<\/li>\n
    2. Change the .txt extension to .tex.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      At that point, they should be able to compile the LaTeX file as usual.<\/p>\n
      \n
      Method 3: Edit in LyX<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
      LyX<\/a> is a graphical user interface for LaTeX, with its own version of revision tracking. Here's the procedure:<\/p>\n
      \n
        \n
      1. You (the editor) install LyX. Unless you're planning to use LyX for typesetting, you just need the simple installer<\/a> rather than the bundled version.<\/li>\n
      2. Import the authors' LaTeX file into LyX (File > Import > LaTeX).<\/li>\n
      3. Do your editing in LyX, using its revision-tracking feature (Document > Change Tracking > Track Changes).<\/li>\n
      4. Ask your authors to review your changes in LyX and accept or reject as needed.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
        At that point, your authors can (1) export the file as LaTeX (File > Export > LaTeX) or (2) process the file from within LyX. If you want to use this method, you should do some back-and-forth testing with your authors before starting work on an actual manuscript.<\/p>\n
        If you find that you like working in LyX (I do), you may sometimes need a way to convert a Word document into a LyX document, which is not an easy task\u2014unless you use my new Microsoft Word add-in, LyXConverter<\/a>. I do not, however, recommend trying to round-trip a document\u2014that is, convert a Word document into LyX and then back into Word. Again, there are ways<\/a> to do it (via OpenOffice.org<\/a> Writer), but how reliable the final conversion might be is open to question.<\/p>\n
        How about you? Do you get manuscripts in formats other than Word? If so, how do you handle them? Please let me know!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
        Do you ever have to edit a document written in LaTeX? There\u2019s recently been some discussion on Copyediting-L about how to do this. I know of three methods. Method 1: Work in raw LaTeX LaTeX looks like this: chapter[On the Origin and Design of Government]{On the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editing","7":"category-programs","8":"h-entry","9":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3gfno-4U","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":779,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorium.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}