Re: [Orgmode] Org-Mode Presentation Videos

[Manish]

  On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 11:32 PM, wrote:
  > Sebastian Rose wrote:
  >>
  >> Scott Randby wrote:
  >>>
  >>> One comment. I've been using LaTeX for about 15 years, Emacs for about 2
  >>> years and Org-Mode for about 8 months. My LaTeX files are
heavily customized
  >>> and I'm used to working with them without org-mode. My few, and not very
  >>> serious, attempts to move my LaTeX work to org-mode have not given
  >>> satisfactory results, so I've put off changing my work flow until I have
  >>> more time to figure out the LaTeX export features of org-mode. But, I am
  >>> using org-mode extensively for my other work related tasks. I
have org files
  >>> that keep track of my students' grades and my web site is built from a
  >>> single org file. As you pointed out in your talk, org-mode allows one to
  >>> work!
  >>
  >> There was a post on this list from Russel Adams, that shows how to use
  >> custom LaTeX headers. My setup is derived from that post, and enables
  >> the usage of a commen LaTeX-header for Org export and the rest of my
  >> LaTeX files:
  >>
  >> .emacs:
  >>
  >> (setq org-export-latex-classes (cons '("myarticle"
  >>     "% BEGIN My Article Defaults
  >> \\input{/home/sebastian/develop/lib/latex/header-pdf.tex}
  >> "
  >>
  >>     ("\\rzchapteridx{%s}" . "\\rzchapteridx{%s}")
  >>     ("\\rzsection{%s}{}" . "\\rzsection{%s}")
  >>     ("\\rzsubsection{%s}" . "\\rzsubsection{%s}")
  >>     ("\\rzsubsubsection{%s}" . "\\rzsubsubsection{%s}"))
  >>     org-export-latex-classes))
  >>
  >> As you can see here, I include the common header file, and customize
  >> the classes used for headlines on export. Since now the creation of
  >> PDFs is now possible directly from Org-mode (C-c C-e p), this is the
  >> easiest way to do it.
  >>
  >> *.org:
  >>
  >> #+LaTeX_CLASS: myarticle
  >>
  >
  > Thanks for this information. I still have a long way to go before I can use
  > org-mode for LaTeX export.
  >
  > First, I don't know emacs lisp. I've been planning to learn it, but finding
  > the time is difficult and I'm not a professional programmer.
  >
  > Second, the customizations I use for LaTeX vary widely between files. My
  > understanding of your code, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that if I
  > have multiple header files for different types of documents, then I must
  > change my .emacs each time I want to change headers. This doesn't seem to be
  > very convenient to me. I suppose it is possible to write some code to take
  > care of multiple header files, but what if one has a brand new header file?
  >
  > Please understand that I haven't really explored the LaTeX export features
  > of org-mode very thoroughly. However, my impression is that the LaTeX export
  > capabilities of org-mode are somewhat limited at this time. This isn't a bad
  > thing. I don't think org-mode was designed to be a replacement for something
  > like AUCTeX. Anyway, org-mode is works well for me for non-LaTeX tasks, so
  > I'll continue to rely on it.

I am a relatively new (an year old) to both Latex and Emacs and
oven-fresh to Org's latex export so a lot of what I say might sound
naive.

I have found that I write only a certain "types" of latex documents,
professional reports and personal resume for example.  And each type
tends to have same preamble.  Even between latex documents much of the
preamble is also similar.  So if I follow Sebastien and Russell's
setup, I will need to define two custom latex classes in Org and three
files containing header/preamble stuff -- one for each class and one
with common setup.  When I need to write a certain type of document, I
will simply need to specify "#+LaTeX_CLASS: myreport" or
"#+LaTeX_CLASS: myarticle" to select the kind of document I would like
to create and appropriate preamble would be included, no need to
fiddle with .emacs every time.  org-export-latex-classes is worth a
look.

I have not yet found an intuitive way to include images yet but I know
I am going to like making documents in Org a lot.  I think it will
take me 80% of the way and final tweaks (say adding references to
sections, figures etc.) could be done in exported latex file.

Caveat: I do not typeset any math so I don't know how that would work
out with Org.

-- 
Manish