Comparison Between Latex and Microsoft Words

Latex		Words
What You Mean Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) 🌸document separates the content  from the commands that will determine what the format of the document will look like Preparing a LaTeX document requires an extra step to format or typeset the document (.tex to .pdf)	TypeSetting	What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) 🌸When you look at it on screen, you are seeing exactly what the final document will look like.Some problems, getting the figure numbers to align, references, cross-references, margins
🌸You will have to initially invest some hours to learn LaTeX without being able to immediately produce text. Depending on how you write LaTeX, you may need to learn some simple commands, like \cite{}, but you will only need a few. Ultimately, you will be faster typing than clicking through Word icons and menus	ease of use	🌸Basic Word features are very easy to use and everybody can produce a simple document with reasonable layout. Using advanced features like automatic numbering, links, and citations require a comparable learning time to LaTeX
🌸LaTeX, on the other hand, provides you with professional layout out of the box. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty, you can adapt the default to your own taste but the standard is already very high without any customisations.	layout quality	🌸Word typesetting quality is ok for most purposes but its far from professional. Plus, you will only be able to reach good quality if you know Word well, which is not the case for the average users
🌸This is not the case with LaTeX. The main output format is PDF, which is the same over all OSs. LaTeX editors exist for all types of systems and are highly compatible. You will also see that many programmes allow import and export. BibDesk can read Endnote, for example, but not the other way round. Still, the PDF is not editable and your collaborator might not know LaTeX.	compatibility	🌸MS Word developers make almost no effort to facilitate exchange with foreign programmes. You may not experience that because Word is so widespread. But even between flavours of Word, there are compatibility problems, e.g. WinWord vs. MacWord or latest version to older version.
🌸The strength of Word is in writing short, relatively simple documents since you immediately see how what you wrote looks like (WYSIWYG)	speed small docs	🌸Writing raw LaTeX is somewhat slower because you first write the contents only and then you generate an output file with layout in a separate step
🌸Word becomes slow when handling either very large texts or texts with large graphics. The sporadic (automatic) saves and typesetting processes will force writing breaks while you are waiting for the programme to complete its task.	speed big docs w graphics	🌸Here LaTeX is faster because you write down only the contents and software wastes no time thinking about layout. The separate type setting steps are only done at the end, which saves you time.