Technical Writing Tools for Engineers and Scientists

Technical writing poses specific challenges; to meet them, LaTeX goes beyond business-oriented word processors and makes it easier to create complex documents. Here, I´ll compare a typical LaTeX installation to a generic business-oriented word processor-specifically, Microsoft Word (part of the Office suite), but it could just as easily be Corel WordPerfect or OpenOffice Writer (a free software package). This isn´t an exhaustive list of word processors, nor is it intended to be due to space limitations. Some of the newer free online writing tools-such as Google Docs or Zoho Writer-are basically online variations of more traditional business-oriented word processors, and they´re not specifically aimed at technical writing. Finally, it´s not my intention here to disparage business-oriented word processors; they´re sophisticated tools that are very good at their intended purpose: producing business documents.