Office document or (La)Tex
Creating a pdf file
Additional requirements
Bookmark generation with MS Word
Save to PDF
Show your tree
Skip numbered entries
Different numbering of the same level
Thinning your pdf file
Fast web view
Bookmarks with Latex
Example pdf files
Recap

Adobe has blessed the digital world with a document format that is really platform independent. I am referring to the pdf (“portable document format“). As a result the leading format for scientific articles is the pdf file. Scientific journal editors require from prospective authors that they submit their manuscript as a pdf document. More and more grant organizations also request proposals to be sent in as a pdf file.


Office document or (La)Tex
The pdf standard has many advantages. Its major disadvantage is its limited editing possibility. As a result authors have to keep at least two files of a manuscript in sync: the “source” manuscript and the pdf version. Additional graphic material is either embedded in the source or is kept as separate files. The most popular formatter for generating the source is Microsoft’s Word, or a comparable office document formatter. Another source approach is to use a simple ascii file, containing script language directives that are to be interpreted or compiled. Of the latter class the Tex, LaTex, AmsTex family is the most popular. For some fortunate reason the Tex-family has escaped the fate of almost any open-source project: multiple distributions, bad documentation, incompatible versions, and a Windows-hostile developers community.

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