Trade-off of writing in markdown vs Latex

1,059

I am now not so sure anymore, as the jupyter-markdown loses points in terms of flexibility and things you can actually do.

You have not given us clues whether you use R in your notes, and moreover I do not know Jupiter well enough to compare, but considering the above cite in the context of maths thesis, then indeed, your tool is Rmarkdown in Rstudio, and more specifically, bookdown.

The reason in that is still a markdown that can use R chunks, but in addition of some specific Rmardown/bookdown features, you can have total control over the LaTeX export via:

  1. The optional YALM header,
  2. The optional pandoc template customization, and
  3. The optional addition of LaTeX commands and environments directly in the markdown text (all type of commands, not only LaTeX maths).

Therefore, you have all together the simplicity of markdown, and all the power R and all the power of LaTeX typography. However, note that using the third way the LaTeX parts will be omitted in HTML or Word export, so this is a good solution only if your outputs will be only in LaTeX/PDF format.

Share:
1,059
gte
Author by

gte

To learn is to be free.

Updated on September 07, 2020

Comments

  • gte
    gte about 3 years

    I am in the process of putting together my PhD dissertation (maths) and am trying to figure out the best tool to use. I have already written most of the maths in jupyter-markdown (python) and was initially thinking of trying to do the whole thing there, using pandoc as required. However, I am now not so sure anymore, as the jupyter-markdown loses points in terms of flexibility and things you can actually do.

    Does anyone have experience in writing in jupyter-markdown (python), and/or opinions on the best tool to use? Also, in the case I'd choose not to use jupyter-markdown, what is the best way to convert the .ipynb format to use it in a latex/md environment?

    Thank you!

    • Peter Wilson
      Peter Wilson about 3 years
      I have no idea about jupiter-markdown but (La)TeX has been the typesetting system for mathematicians for over 30 years.
    • Torbjørn T.
      Torbjørn T. about 3 years
      Isn't nbconvert the standard way of converting from a Notebook to other formats, including LaTeX?
    • Aubrey Blumsohn
      Aubrey Blumsohn about 3 years
      I started off using latex via Markdown. I rapidly came to the conclusion that it is far easier and better to abandon the Markdown step -- unless you are producing very simple documents - mostly straight text with headings, or if you are editing a lot of stuff on the go on your phone or some other lousy editor. For jotting notes markdown is fine.
    • LaTeXereXeTaL
      LaTeXereXeTaL about 3 years
      Welcome to TeX SE! Jupyter Notebooks support Markdown and a LaTeX-like command syntax for mathematical notation. It is not, however, equivalent to a full TeX/LaTeX installation (e.g. TeX Live). It may suffice for your needs though. I wish Jupyter and other developers would make clear the distinctions between systems that use LaTeX-like command syntax (e.g. MathJax) and true TeX/LaTeX. They are not the same despite the command syntax.
    • Torbjørn T.
      Torbjørn T. about 3 years
      A small apropos: Just remembered a fairly new addition to the Jupyter ecosystem: blog.jupyter.org/announcing-the-new-jupyter-book-cbf7aa8bc72‌​e It's still in beta, so perhaps too soon to use for a thesis, but in case it's of interest I thought I'd mention it.
  • gte
    gte about 3 years
    Thank you for your answer @Fran. I used markdown in a python jupyter-lab notebook. I have no experience with R markdown, are the two similar?
  • Fran
    Fran about 3 years
    Without see a MWE of the complexity of your jupyter notes is hard to say, but assuming that there are not any chunks of executable python code or another language (julia, R, C++...), afaik is pass from markdown to markdown, so your notes must be mostly usable without changes.