Can Someone Truly Master LaTeX to Replace Paper Completely?

[Simfish]

Is really fast on LaTeX, so fast that he does his scratchwork on LaTeX instead of on paper?

To think of it, all it takes is getting used to the new ways the symbols are arranged. Once you're used to those, you can then do computations on sight. The skill needed for solving such problems, short term visualization, should not favor doing problems via paper over doing problems on LaTeX.

Do you know anyone who has completely abandoned paperwork of all forms in favor of LaTeX? (this is starting to sound very attractive to me since I'm very messy and am really starting to lose track of all my notebooks)

I know that at one college, students often LaTeX up notes in class.

 

[Dr Transport]

I cannot see why you couldn't use LaTex for your notes... With the gui's available today, you can almost do your notes in real time.

 

[robphy]

At times, I do some algebraically tedious calculations in LaTeX... many because I can cut and paste, then make the changes on the new line. [Some text editors make it easy to use customized templates to avoid the tedium of recalling and writing down certain LaTeX constructions.]

More recently, I've been using my own handwriting on a TabletPC for writing notes and calculations... which is certainly more natural and faster than LaTeX. I can still cut and paste, then make changes. In addition, since the layout is free, I can move the Ink around anywhere I want... scaled up or down in size and in whatever color I want. [I'm curious if this new version of MathJournal at http://www.xthink.com/ can really convert my handwriting to LaTeX. See also https://www.physicsforums.com/blog/2006/05/20/tabletpcs-for-science-and-science-teaching/ ]

So now, most of my notes are electronic... much easier to find [using the built in but not perfect handwriting recognition], better organized as relatively small files, and of course lightweight and portable! Of course, I backup my files periodically... and occasionally make a printout on paper and printout to "pdf", which I can publish on a website.