Product Comparisons

How does Publicon compare with LaTeX?

LaTeX, a typesetting language for print production, requires a certain amount of understanding of its specific syntax in order to be useful. Customizing any of its predefined macros requires some programming expertise.

Publicon offers a WYSIWYG graphical interface for creating structurally formatted documents with technical content. A Publicon user does not have to be a typesetting guru or learn any sort of programming language.

In Publicon, palettes provide easy input for formulas and special characters. Mathematical expressions can be edited just like ordinary text and, like text, they flow with intelligent line wrapping to optimize display for any window width. Publicon documents are automatically structured in a collapsible hierarchy for simplified navigation. Hyperlinks can connect different parts of the same document and/or other documents. Document appearance is controlled by style sheets, which are simple to customize with the same GUI tools used for formatting other parts of a document.

Publicon is optimized for electronic, interactive documents for online presentation, whereas LaTeX is a print-production tool. Although LaTeX offers more flexibility in printed text layout, that flexibility comes at the cost of a steeper learning curve. Publicon's typesetting capabilities are both interactive and extremely flexible, using a custom suite of attractive, professional-quality, high-resolution fonts so there is no compromise in the appearance of printed output.

Some products, such as Scientific Word or LyX, offer GUI-like interfaces to LaTeX but they compromise on the screen presentation of the document, with unformatted text and intrusive containers, markers, and other devices exposing the mechanical aspects of constructing LaTeX documents. Publicon files are presented on screen as clean, fully formatted word-processor documents that are accessible to author and reader alike without any distracting constructs.

How does Publicon compare with Microsoft Word and MathType or EndNote?

Unlike Word and MathType, Publicon's mathematical typesetting system is completely integrated into the document interface without requiring a separate application add-on with an imposing notation-editing window. Math can be composed and edited just like ordinary text, and it flows with intelligent line wrapping to optimize display for any window or page width. Any special characters, operators, or other mathematical expressions can be searched (and replaced) throughout a document.

Reference management features are also an integral part of Publicon, exploiting the same underlying format in order to maintain metadata structures for conversion to XML. Because reference management is one of Publicon's many features, not its primary function, the built-in reference types don't compare to the breadth of standard choices in a dedicated reference-management application, but the system is completely configurable--allowing any number of additions to common built-in types.

How does Publicon compare with other publishing tools?

Publicon is a desktop publishing application designed specifically for writing and managing technical content. Authors are not forced to learn a complex page-layout or word-processing system to figure out how to deal with just those features they care about. Publicon is based on Wolfram Research's notebook format and it functions as a stand-alone application for document formatting and technical typesetting, requiring no extra plug-ins. Technical notation, tables, graphics, notes, and references are all handled equally as editable document elements. These are managed by built-in tools and features that take care of auto-numbering and all the formatting issues required by the selected publication style.

Publicon is a platform for composing structured content for electronic dissemination more than for page-by-page print production, similar to the way HTML is handled by web browsers using a vertical scrolling paradigm. Publicon does not support completely arbitrary two-dimensional page layouts, multi-column text flows, or drawing tools like QuarkXPress or FrameMaker, but it offers document structuring to the same degree or better, which allows for clean transformation to other formats and which stands on its own for electronic viewing.

What are the differences between Publicon and Mathematica?

Publicon and Mathematica share the same underlying document technology, but Publicon emphasizes the needs of authors and publishers over technical computation and programming. While Publicon shares many of Mathematica's features, it also enhances the document composition process with many features that are not part of Mathematica's standard interface. Publicon does not evaluate expressions or support Mathematica functions as input, but Publicon equations and formulas can be pasted into Mathematica for evaluation, and Mathematica work can be pasted into Publicon documents.