TeX doesn't suck..

Formatting documents to look consistent and structured is one of the things that used to always irritate me. I personally just could not do this with Microsoft Word or any document editor... I realize that it's probably just a lack of artistic ability (and patience) that I could not accomplish this simple task, but I am here to tell you that there is a better way.

Way back in the day(which was a tuesday, in case you were wondering), a man named Donald E. Knuth created the TeX formatting system to help him create a book for the math course he was teaching. TeX is a typesetting language - it allows you to focus on the structure of the document instead of the appearance. As long as you aren't stupid, TeX will produce a very professional looking document every time.

The initial version was called TeX, but these days your best bet is to download a version of LaTeX - which is basically TeX with a bunch of other common files - that way you don't have to worry about downloading them separately. There are some editors specifically intended for LaTeX, however I prefer using Notepad++ with the nppexec plugin.

Another strong benefit of using TeX (especially for documentation or things of that nature...) is the fact that you can check the raw tex files into a source control system and easily tell what has changed between versions of a given file. This isn't very easy to do with other formats(doc,pdf,etc...).

Anyway - That's all for now... I really do recommend giving this a shot. It has made my life a whole lot easier when writing documentation or anything that needs to look professional.

Check out their home page - it has tutorials and mirrors to download LaTex(Called TeX Live just to confuse you some more)

TeX Live