The Google Docs thing is pretty neat, not because it is a word processor in — omg — your web browser, but because of the simple reason that I can move between computers and work on the same documents, without having to scp or rsync anything. I do this a lot, because I move between a laptop and two desktops, and all three have scattered portions of each other’s documents.
For the class I’m taking this quarter, we write summaries on papers we read. I had been doing this in TextEdit, and using rsync to move between computers, because I always start working on one computer, then move to another, then back again. Now I’m doing it in Google Docs, and I can happily not worry about syncing anything, when I decide to move my ass over to the couch, and use my laptop for a while.
So, it would be really cool, again for us grad school nerds, if I could compose LaTeX documents, and click on a button to render it to PDF/PostScript, which the browser downloads. The web editor for LaTeX could do some simple syntax highlighting, even. That way I could hack on my project paper, or eventually my thesis, whenever the mood struck me from whatever computer I was at.
It would also be nice to just have a “Google Folder” on all my computers, that has the same content in it, synced between them when changes are made.
Dear Google, please add something like this. If you don’t have anyone working on that now, you could always hire someone to work on it.
(For my human friends, there is more detailed contact info in the encrypted version. The password begins with “zed70″, ends with “mangos”, and there is a period in the middle)
Loading...
Canek | 14-Oct-06 at 7:30 pm | Permalink
You could put your $HOME (or at least a directory below) in CVS or Subversion. I’ve got my ~/Documents directory in SVN for almost three years now, and it’s priceless when using a laptop and a desktop computer.
Besides, you get all the benefits of version controling.
csm | 14-Oct-06 at 8:10 pm | Permalink
Yup, that’s a perfectly fine way to do it (though, I would personally avoid CVS, because I’m not out to cause myself any more pain). My point is that I shouldn’t even have to worry about checking things in manually. I should just be able to use it, and have everything work as seamlessly as possible. My only other objection to using a version control system is that it uses a program meant for syncing multiple people working on one set of files, for syncing what only one person works on.
And all of this goes double for a non-programmer, who would almost never adopt a tool like Subversion. And it needs to not suck, like the Microsoft Briefcase thing did.
IOW, it’s a simpler problem domain, but with different UI requirements.
std | 11-Dec-06 at 5:55 pm | Permalink
I have worked on exactly such a tool: Google Docs to LaTeX conversion web app. It is not publicly available, but you can read up about it here:
http://www.sci.usq.edu.au/research/googledocs.php
A technical report is being written which will contain enough details to recreate this software.
csm | 18-Dec-06 at 11:45 am | Permalink
@std: Neat. I’m surprised that so many people desire this feature. Having a third-party web service do it is a fine solution, but I think Google should just offer it as a part of the service.
Mahound’s Weblog » Blog Archive » Feature request for Google Docs - LaTeX! | 21-Dec-06 at 1:13 pm | Permalink
[...] “Google Docs should have Latex support” [...]
James | 08-Jun-07 at 12:44 pm | Permalink
Hear hear. I am using Lyx and CVS to manage my writing now. If Google docs can export to LaTeX, I will be able to use other computers as well rather than just my own. On the other hand, unlike Google docs, I can currently edit offline. I wish Google exposes an API to get at the documents. That would allow tool writers to write the filters independently.
Linxy | 17-Oct-07 at 4:40 pm | Permalink
A cool workaround for LaTeX in Google Docs is to use Texify service http://www.texify.com
Job | 16-Nov-07 at 3:21 pm | Permalink
There’s http://www.latexlab.org, still under development but already has a number of features.
KalleS | 11-Dec-07 at 2:51 am | Permalink
Googledocs is a great tool for collaboration, Latex is a great tool for producing documents. Combining them would be a powerful tool, so I tried to do it. It worked out pretty good. My tool puts together multiple Google documents, downloads the images, converts some html like bold, lists, images and heads to Latex, compiles it with pdflatex and outputs a pdf file. Everything just by clicking a link on a webpage.
This fall I wrote a 100pages report this way with three other students and it seems to work.
Anyone interested in helping me continue the development of this tool, please let me know at johan at lindbom dot net.
It’s written in PHP
Tom | 09-Jan-08 at 9:00 am | Permalink
Use darcs (or another distributed version control system) instead of CVS; it’s far easier to manage and you don’t need a centralized server.
Sami | 20-Jan-09 at 5:34 am | Permalink
Please, see this to use LaTex in Google Docs:
http://knol.google.com/k/sami-losoi/a-tweak-to-use-latex-in-google-docs/u2u9u65×97oc/4?domain=knol.google.com&locale=en#view
Mauro | 20-May-09 at 4:24 am | Permalink
There is already ScribTeX, a free collaborative LaTeX editor. http://www.scribtex.com/
Joseph Turian | 09-Jun-09 at 2:26 pm | Permalink
ScribTex is great, seconded.