January 2, 2023

Converting documents from the .tex format of LaTeX to the .docx format of MS Word

Preface on LaTeX and MS Word

I have been using LaTeX for about thirty years to write documents of all kinds: court documents, reports, research, projects and more.

After overcoming the challenging initial learning curve, therefore, it is very unlikely that one will go back to “traditional” word processing systems: the extraordinary typographic quality and considerable time savings have become indispensable.

Sometimes, however, it is necessary to exchange material written in LaTeX to friends and colleagues who have not yet had the opportunity to appreciate it.

December 20, 2022

Converting from Org Mode to Markdown GFM

Does it make sense to talk about Org Mode instead of Markdown?

Why should I use Org-Mode to write articles to be published network in Markdown format?

Wouldn’t it be more convenient to write the articles directly in Markdown?

The question is more than justified and the answer is not obvious.

First, let me remind you that Org-Mode is a mode of GNU/Emacs. While there are various plugins for other editors, including Vim, none of them can match the outstanding efficiency of the original system.

December 10, 2022

Vim - VimTex, Emacs - AucTeX: create environments in empty fields

Subject of this post

This post is a follow-up to my previous one named “Vim, VimTex: environments and commands in LaTeX” in which I described the creation of environment tags in the LaTeX language through Vim’s “surround.vim” plugin.

Specifically, I described how to add environment tags to words and lines objects non-empty, that is, starting from already existing text.

If you need a reminder about the concept of “line” in Vim, you can refer to this article of mine: “What is intended by “line” in Vim? How to configure a dual alternate mode of movement between lines?”

December 3, 2022

About Vim and the Global Command

Vim and the Global Command: basic structure

This post is not a complete review of Vim’s Global Command but is just a series of personal observations on it.

You can find a good review, written by those who know much more about it than I do, on this page.

With the “Global Command” of Vim (g) you can replicate various ex-commands on multiple lines.

The basic structure of the Global Command is very simple: :g/pattern/command, meaning:

November 26, 2022

Vim, VimTex: environments and commands in LaTeX

A smart system for writing

Vim is a great editing tool.

LaTeX is a “State of the Art” typesetting system.

Vim and LaTeX together make a powerful writing system, but an add-on is needed to relate them.

VimTex provides exactly that target by relating Vim to LaTeX, and it does its job very well.

So Vim and VimTex is a smart system for every kind of writer in LaTeX.

The topic is vast and certainly cannot be contained in a short post like this one.

November 17, 2022

Vim Is Magic or Nomagic?

What’s this joke?

The title is a joke with the name of “V.I.M.” but, at the same time, it’s a real mode of Vim itself: the Magic Mode.

To understand what Magic Mode is, the primary source is the item :help magic in Vim.

In a few words:

The Magic Mode refers to the regular expressions
The Magic Mode is enabled by default in Vim.
You can explicitly invoke the Magic Mode with the \m command in the RegEx search area.
To deactivate it you must set \M (capitalized m) in the RegEx search area.
When you use the \M command you invoke the Nomagic Mode.
Nomagic Mode turns “almost all special regex symbols into ordinary ones unless they start with a backslash”.
There is also a Very Nomagic Mode that extends the effect to other characters, not relevant to this article.

When is magic mode (default) better than nomagic?

To analyze the difference between magic and nomagic mode, I resume a formula from a previous article of mine.