It’s also not great for document layout containing formatted tables and figures. Scrivener lacks integration with reference management software-though users have found ways to handle citations, it doesn’t work seamlessly. There are a couple of downsides for scientific writing, however. Another great feature of Scrivener is its compatibility with multiple file formats, making it easy to export in just about any document type.
It has a drag-and-drop interface, so a large document can be easily written in fragments, and provides a personal research database for easy storage of notes, folders, images (and just about anything else) that you collect as sources for your project. It combines the visual appeal and ease-of-use that Macs are known for, and its users swear by it. In addition to standard word processing, Scrivener is great for project management and organization. If you are a veteran GradHacker reader, you’ve likely seen Scrivener mentioned before, like here and here. There are other programs that also provide a graphical editor for LaTeX such as Scientific Workplace or TeXmacs. Other users have found that it doesn’t completely remove the need to understand LaTeX, but reduces the learning curve a bit. It still has all the advanced capabilities of LaTeX for mathematical equations and formatting, and integration with BibTeX.
It uses LaTeX in the background, but lets you write the content in a user interface similar to a word processor like MS Word. If you are sold on the powerful and flexible typesetting available with LaTeX, but aren’t crazy about working solely with the markup language, a great compromise is LyX.
Check out this great, detailed article on why you should use LaTeX for writing your dissertation. If you’re lucky, some schools provide LaTeX thesis templates already meeting the required specifications, so all you have to worry about is the content. docx file format, so if you need a Word document for revisions or submission, there is no streamlined conversion from LaTeX. One downside is that LaTeX does not export to. Because it was designed to be used with LaTeX, they integrate perfectly and handle citations and cross-referencing effortlessly. The features I found that really made it worth the effort were its phenomenal job at handling mathematical equations, tables, and figures, and its own powerful reference manager BibTeX. It did take a while to learn, but has a huge amount of document support, and a great online community to answer just about any question you come across. I was first exposed to LaTeX during college and used it to write my undergraduate thesis. Because of this, there is definitely a learning curve when starting out. LaTeX is a markup language-it’s not exactly a programming language, but it does have similarities to coding. It is a powerful and highly customizable typesetting system that, in contrast to MS Word, separates the content and document design. LaTeX is an open-source document preparation system that was designed for scholarly and technical writing, and is great for handling large documents.
#COMPARISON OF THE SCRIVENER FOR WINDOWS AND MAC SOFTWARE#
Here are a few non-Word options I have come across in my search for the best dissertation-writing software that seem to be favorites: docx to ease sending them to my PI for reviews. So a bonus would be that files could easily be converted to. One barrier to changing software is that my mentor likes using MS Word to edit my documents with the track changes feature. The ideal software would be cheap (preferably free), fairly quick and painless to learn, and compatible with a reference/citation manager. As I embark on the dissertation-writing journey, I have been looking for an alternative to MS Word that is up for the job-something that can handle a large multi-chaptered document with robust formatting options. If you’ve ever spent too many frustrating hours trying to format a Word document with multiple tables and figures (why does my figure keep moving halfway off the page?!), then you will likely agree that it’s not always the best to work with. Some tasks call for a bit more than a basic word processor, though. If so, check out our previous post by Hanna on quick tricks for formatting in Word. There are a lot of great features to MS Word if you want to (or have to) stick with it for your writing. It’s easy, convenient, familiar, and gets the job done for simple text documents. Chances are, it’s where you do a lot of your writing as well. You can follow her on Twitter writing this post in Microsoft Word. Lesley McCollum is PhD student in neuroscience at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
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