In economics and related disciplines, discussions about whether one should be using Microsoft Word* or LaTeX to write one’s papers are roughly like discussions about the gender of angels in theology–everyone has an opinion, and few are willing to change their mind in response to other people’s reasons for preferring one or the other.
One of the arguments that I have often heard for preferring LaTeX is that even though it takes more time to format a document in LaTeX, it looks more professional, which in turn might even signal (however subliminally) technical competence to journal editors and reviewers, and so it remains optimal to use LaTeX even though one can only do so at relatively higher fixed (and often variable) cost.**
But it looks like it is possible to have your cake and eat it too. I was at the University of Illinois to give a talk a few weeks ago, where my colleague Scott Irwin gave me a copy of a new paper of his titled “The Case for Writing Papers in Economics Using Fake LaTeX.”
Here is the abstract:
LaTeX is a very popular platform for writing papers in economics, mainly due to its superior aesthetics in print. The downside is that it is a very time intensive and complicated method of writing papers. For many economists, the aesthetic benefits do not justify the opportunity costs. FaKe LaTeX using Microsoft Word is a low cost alternative that should appeal to many economists.
If you’ve always wanted your papers to have that cool professional LaTeX aesthetic but didn’t feel like investing in learning what amounts to a new programming language, Irwin’s paper–written entirely with Microsoft Word, and looking 99% like the real thing (I’ll let the eagled-eyed LaTeX-using readers figure out what the 1% is)–shows how to get that LaTeX look with Microsoft Word.
For those who remain skeptical, here is a screen capture from Irwin’s paper:
Years ago I had heard a legend about a Berkeley ARE professor who had developed his own set of Microsoft Word macros to write papers that looked just like LaTeX, but this is the first time I see proof that it is feasible.
* I use Microsoft Word a shorthand for “any low-entry-barrier word-processing software.”
** Even Scientific Workplace, which I use, is not as easy to use as Microsoft Word, and it is also pretty pricey.