Hullo scientists, fellow researcher here with a question for peers:
Do you have any suggestions for closed-off writing software (no AI scraping, no school oversight, no cloud storage with mysterious and unknown security). As we are all aware, formatting an article can take as much effort as writing the damn thing some days, especially if you do not want to use Microsoft or Google for ethical and privacy reasons.
My peers and I work with a lot of students who want to study and work with vulnerable populations, the sort of populations that some companies and (shameful) universities are attempting to delete evidence of. I am attempting to address some concerns coming up in the classroom without putting my career at risk. What better way than with a lesson and a resource list for secure writing and storage tips?
The school doesn’t pay for a Microsoft license, and some students have expressed feeling unsafe and uncomfortable supporting google. I have suggested Libreoffice as its what I use but some of the students are really struggling with formatting their papers to academic standards in this software. Admittedly, I agree, Libre takes 7-14 steps to do some things google can do in two clicks. I would like to look into alternatives.
Most of the writing applications I’m seeing both free and paid tend to be for creative writers or note taking and I am not seeing tools to make running titles or easily format your sources.
What are you all using, do you have recommendations? I
I like Overleaf for LaTeX, you can even self-host it.
LaTeX is the go to for academic papers and I’ve and liked overleaf too.
WPS Office is the closest to the MS suite, and I believe now it’s available on both Windows and Mac.
If you’re interested in technical academic writing that supports math and robust formatting in particular, LaTeX is still the top of the line. It has a bit of a learning curve, but better for documents that require more control on formatting involving equations, images/figures, advanced paragraph forms, etc.
Edit: @Donkeywitch@lemmy.world, newer versions of WPS Office have AI + cloud integration and are exploitable. In light of this thread, I wouldn’t recommend. Thanks, @Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com.
WPS Office is proprietary, Chinese spyware
Thanks for this, I didn’t know that’s WPS has come to. I’ll update my answer.
wonderful! I will add this and your explanation to the list I am compiling. Students love trying new apps
Seconding LaTeX as the gold standard for formatting math/science in written form. Some of my peers in grad school (physics) wrote up their assignments in it (I opted instead for massive reams of handwritten work). However, I did write up my thesis in LaTeX. My university had a LaTeX template for a thesis that took care of the boilerplate formatting, I just had to focus on the content.
interesting, could you tell me a little more about this? I am on their webpage and they emphasize that they are not a word processor application. I am looking at this page on APA formatting examples and thinking that it could be very useful for my graduate classes but probably a bit above (terrify the shit out of) the sophomore class.
It seems to require some knowledge of script writing. I’ll add it to the list because I’m sure a lot of folks will use it but I think that image alone would have some of my students going down to the office to switch majors XDThere’s a large ecosystem of software built around LaTeX that provide different types of interface and other features—see here:
Any recommendations?
For a powerful and resilient LaTeX experience, having used many editors and IDEs, I really feel nothing comes close to a properly configured Emacs with the right packages installed (there are various blogposts and walkthroughs online for that).
local tex install in your editor of choice.
ONLYOFFICE (sorry for the caps, poor name) has better docx compatibility than WPS or any other suite. It’s the only thing I’ve found that can do everything in an academic style paper without issue. In addition, its source code is open (unlike WPS) and it has Zotero and Mendeley integrations. Its Zotero integration was better than its Mendeley integration last I checked.
I’m a professor and use ONLYOFFICE as the only word processor on my office computer.
Edit: apparently the Zotero plugin needs to be updated.
I would try the free https://typst.app/ on the command-line. It’s a simpler LaTeX.
Thanks, I never heard of this before.
The school doesn’t pay for a Microsoft license, and some students have expressed feeling unsafe and uncomfortable supporting google.
I can relate to their feeling. The same with with MS Word.
have suggested Libreoffice as its what I use but some of the students are really struggling with formatting their papers to academic standards in this software. Admittedly, I agree, Libre takes 7-14 steps to do some things google can do in two clicks. I would like to look into alternatives.
I see mentions of LaTeX, imho forget about it. It’s great but if your students already are complaining about clicking a few buttons and menus in LO Writer, I doubt they will enjoy configuring LaTeX at all as it’s really complex to setup and it’s also very, very technical. (It is also very much English focused by default, which means there will be a few more tweaks required to make it support other languages and where that turns out to be real fun is that said tweaks may vary depending the libraries you’re relying on since you install various ones and, of course, the doc will not always be reflecting that exactly.)
Most of the writing applications I’m seeing both free and paid tend to be for creative writers or note taking and I am not seeing tools to make running titles or easily format your sources.
Have you considered using templates (and Styles), with LibreOffice Writer?
You could have all your formatting exactly like you need it to be and you (or anyone else) would only need to prepare it once and then make it available to all your students. So, the template being 7 or 14 steps would not mean much since they would not need to do it at all and the person doing it would do it only once.
What they would need to (learn to) do is to use Styles, in Writer. Like they are supposed to (learn to) use them in Word, and like in a very limited way they can do in Google Docs too. Imho between the three word processors, Writer is the best at managing Styles but it will still require some basic learning like showing them what Styles are and why they’re so useful, where they are and how to apply them in Writer.
Without using Styles in a word processor, you will need to rely on LaTeX or some lighter markup language (like Markdown combined with say Pandoc, which are way simpler than LaTeX but also much more limited in terms of page layout and notes management).
Also, there is no ready-made tool available that you ‘simply use’. They all need to be tweaked in some way to meet expectations and being taught to the students. The simplest way I can think of is by using Styles. What are Styles you may ask? Think one type of content (title, simple paragraph, notes, illustrations, …) being associated to a set of formatting rules that are automatically applied to it whenever it is used).
It could help to share some real example of the type of settings you’re looking for (what do you want to do?) so others may be able to tell you if and with what app it’s doable ;)
In summary, LibreOffice:
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Is Libre software.
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It use an open format that is documented, ODT.
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Behaves like any word processor is expected to, mostly.
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Can be used to write in many languages.
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Works great with Styles, allowing documents to be (easily) precisely (or loosely) formatted.
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Doesn’t push AI crap, or any other type of connected crap.
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Doesn’t spy on anyone (you can even deactivate the little banner that pops up once in a while asking for a donation)
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Can do Styles and can use templates to create very neatly formatted documents, that one can easily share.
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Is preinstalled with most Linux distributions out of the box, and is easy to install on Mac and on Windows.
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DO not rely on some mega corp good will.
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is NOT as precise as LaTeX, but is also much simpler to learn and use.
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is NOT available for mobile, but I have yet to see anyone writing a full book or even an article on a phone screen ;)
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is NOT as simple as using Markdown and Pandoc but offers all formating control 99% of users wil ever need AND offers a much easier way to work collaboratively between non-geek users.
Edit: typos/clarifications.
I see mention of LaTeX, imho forget about it. It’s great but if your students already are complaining about clicking a few buttons and menus in LO Writer, I doubt they will enjoy configuring LaTeX at all as it’s really complex to setup and it’s also very, very technical. (It is also very much English focused by default, which means there will be a few more tweaks required to make it support other languages and where that turns out to be real fun is that said tweaks may vary depending the libraries you’re relying on since you install various ones and, of course, the doc will not always be reflecting that exactly.)
All good suggestions, but this part is iffy. I’ve had course instructors provide boilerplate for students so that they don’t need to worry about formatting. There are also WYSIWYG LaTeX editors like LyX. Finally, language support for LaTeX has expanded considerably over the years.
All good suggestions, but this part is iffy. I’ve had course instructors provide boilerplate for students so that they don’t need to worry about formatting. There are also WYSIWYG LaTeX editors like LyX. Finally, language support for LaTeX has expanded considerably over the years.
Don’t get me wrong, I framed my remark in regards to the context given by the OP: their students already have complained about too much configuration (clicking buttons/menus). So, in that context, I think telling them to use LaTeX even if using the Lyx or any other GUI (Lyx, which I would favor, is not bug free and has its own quirks, we should not forget that) or any simplified subset of LaTeX, well, that won’t be fun for those student and I’m willing to bet most of them will even hate the experience. Something I would not wish to happen.
And then, always in that context, I suggested that maybe learning to properly use Styles and templates in LO Writer could be simpler since they already are using it… just not in the most optimal way, as it is so often the case since almost everybody think they already know how to use a word processor and there is nothing they need to learn. Not and instant and no-sweat solution but still should a less demanding one than starting to use LaTeX from scratch. At least, I think so.
I understand the context in which you’re responding. It’s a learning curve to adjust to a new writing environment that would be more apparent to students now, considering the last time they have learned about the editors they’re switching from was years ago. Since OP is compiling a list of alternatives rather than one recommended product for graduate students studying OT and psychology, there’s no harm in having LaTeX (+ editor) as one of those options. Considering the improved language support, templates, and the different editors out there for LaTeX, the barrier isn’t as steep as coding from scratch IMO. People learn, it’s not a big deal.
Sure, LyX has (had?) its quirks and isn’t bug-free, but so did Excel with parsing gene names into dates for years, leading to scientists renaming genes as a bypass until MS provided a solution in 2023.
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