Vim + LaTeX > Word

Do you hate having to write out bibliographies each time you write an essay? Do you think the proprietary Microsoft Office Suite is frustrating and too expensive? Well you're in luck. There's something called LaTeXPronounced "lah-tech" or "lay-tech" — never "lay-teks". The X is the Greek letter chi (χ). Knuth estimated building TeX would take six months. It took ten years. that scholars have been using for years to beautifully format their papers. And now you can be one of those elites who have complete control over every little aspect of their paper and don't let bad formatting ruin their GPA.

I'll also introduce you to Vim and why the synthesis of Vim and LaTeX is totally superior to the Word workflow and GUI.

Introduction§

Imagine you're writing a term paper for some Gen Ed you don't really care about and your teacher asks you to make a bibliography in some format you've never even used that you were "supposed to have learned in High School". Well, you're screwed. Oh wait, you can use EasyBib to get the citation in the right format and just copy and paste the citations into your essay's final page.The Chicago Manual of Style is over 1,000 pages long and includes a section on how to cite a tweet.

However, as soon as you paste your bibliography, you notice that the font is all messed up and you have to manually highlight the text, change the font, and then fix whatever you just inevitably screwed up. Oh, you want to move an image to the side and wrap text around it? Well behold as your essay gets literally decapitated and the body goes flying down two pages.

Did you want to add another section or reference to your essay? Well get ready to completely change the formatting by hand, because you'll inevitably forget something and look like a fool.

Oh, and on top of that, you have to pay an expensive subscription to use buggy software that changes the GUI every two years for no discernible reason.

Why Word Sucks§

Invasive Formatting§

If you can't already tell, I loathe Microsoft Word and the rest of the Office Suite. OneNote is alright I guess because it's unique and useful enough to be likeable. Word is just so unwieldy because of its bloated features and overwhelming GUI. I personally don't like having a ton of buttons all over the place because it's distracting. I just want to be able to sit down and write what I want to say, and THEN worry about how it'll look in a clean non-invasive manner. What do I mean by non-invasive? I mean a way of formatting text that doesn't intrude on the actual WRITING process. I think it's important to clearly divide the informational and aesthetic workflow when writing an essay.

But if I care so much about workflow division, why don't I just write the text, and THEN click all the formatting buttons? Well, it's impossible to do that effectively because by default Word sticks you with a format: Arial 12pt. Word doesn't care if you're writing a section, subsection, or making a title, because for all it knows, you're writing a wall of text in Arial 12pt. Microsoft Word was made in a time when formatting in text editors was very limited and the typical 1983 computer user didn't really need to make a specially formatted essay.The first version of Word was released in 1983 and was one of the first word processors to rely on a mouse. It also crashed constantly. Some things are timeless. Graphical text editors were hip and cool, nobody wanted to type on a terminal anymore, it was all about the GUI. That's completely understandable. However, although it made word processing accessible for the average person, it also required a lot of buttons to do things for the user that they can't be bothered to do manually. As cool as this is, it inherently takes away a level of control over the text.

So basically, not only are you stuck with a format to begin with, but now part of your attention span is devoted to working against the default format. What you see is what you get, and you never 100% like what you see.

Bloat§

Bloat is defined (according to Wikipedia) as "a process whereby successive versions of a computer program become perceptively slower, use more memory, disk space, or processing power". Basically, a program will require a beefier computer and give you less bang for your buck, while never really offering a notable improvement to justify the higher requirements.

Word is notorious for this — it's like the program never really changes except for the GUI, which gives the illusion of a sleeker feel. I don't know what the case is for everyone else, but for the most part, I don't really notice anything new. It's messed up because people are paying a subscription for a modern-looking version of what basically boils down to Word 2003.When Microsoft introduced the ribbon in Word 2007, the backlash spawned third-party add-ons whose sole purpose was restoring the old toolbar. A cottage industry built entirely on resistance to change.

Proprietary§

Proprietary software is complicated. On one hand, competition between software designers can lead to really awesome products. On the other hand, it can come with some pretty nasty vulnerabilities and closed-source code. It's definitely not right to say that all proprietary software is bad, because some programs are honestly great. I think that in Word's case it's bad because you're sticking a majority of the workforce and student population with a program that they can't modify to their liking — and then it becomes the industry standard to use the Office Suite for literally everything. The only thing that keeps you tied to it is the fear of not having it and looking poor or unprofessional.

"What the hell is that weird-looking LaTeX thing? Looks hard dude, just use Word."

"LibreOffice? Probably not as reliable or good as Word. Word is safer, comfortable, and more mainstream. Just use it dude."

Why LaTeX and Vim are Better§

LaTeX is cool. The whole paradigm is: content first, formatting second. You can define sections and subsections, and LaTeX will automatically number them and keep tabs on things that you define. You don't have to highlight text at all to change its formatting. I usually just write whatever it is I want to say and then compile the file to see the raw text on paper — then I add formatting in the preamble to see what it looks like all formatted.

Formatting§

I can customize everything about my paper. It's all text-based editing. I define structures and write commands that take input in the form of text, and it outputs my info to a cleanly formatted template that I made. The point is, I can change the structure of a piece of text with a simple command and configure it such that all sections or subsections follow that format. Not only that, but I can change the format at any time and it affects everything I want it to.

My résumé is one example of what LaTeX can produce.

Flexibility§

I can make external files that hold citations and useful information to import into the file I'll compile. I can have every section of the essay in its own file if I wanted to, and I can change each piece individually without having to cram everything into one wall of text. LaTeX is as flexible as you are willing to stretch it.

LaTeX can literally do your bibliographies for you. I have not had to write a bibliography since I started using it — I just have a file where I hold all my references and call on them in my essay.

@book{knuth1984,
  author    = {Donald E. Knuth},
  title     = {The TeXbook},
  year      = {1984},
  publisher = {Addison-Wesley}
}

Combining With Vim§

Vim is my favorite text editor for one reason: no clicking.The question "how do I exit Vim?" has over 2.5 million views on Stack Overflow. The answer is :q!. Sure, sometimes I will use VSCode when working on something collaborative or when I have to show things to people who aren't familiar with the terminal. But for the most part, Vim is my preferred environment.

The cool thing about Vim is that it's command-based and modular. There are different modes for editing text and navigation, and you can replace pieces of text using regular expressions. Let's say I have to list a bunch of links to different sites — I could copy and paste an HTML link template over and over, or I could have a text file with the links listed in front of me, open it in Vim, write a command to surround each line with a link template, clear up any whitespace with a regex, and write the link text myself. Sure, maybe there are only five links — that's manageable. But what if you have 10,000?

Are you in the middle of a line and want to delete it? Don't double-click and delete. Just press dd. Are you in the middle of an HTML tag and want to change the text? Don't touch your mouse. Just press cit.

The whole point is to not use your mouse at all. The only limiting factor on your productivity becomes your typing speed and knowledge of shortcuts. Combine this with the power of LaTeX, and you have an essay-writing power couple.

Conclusion§

If your occupation or hobbies rely on writing beautiful-looking text, getting an Overleaf account will make you regret ever using Word.