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The title sums it up pretty well. I'm using MS Word to write a paper I intend to publish in a SCI journal. It will contain ~15 equations (non-trivial ones: integrals, sums, fractions, special characters, etc.). I'm fairly efficient in Word, but have absolutely no experience using LaTeX. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that once a paper is accepted, it is edited to conform with the journals publishing style, as opposed to some conferences, I attended, which provide a pre-formatted Word document in which I have to place my work before applying to the conference. As the journal provides no such template (but accepts .doc format), I was wondering if there could emerge any issues regarding the equations.

PS: the field is computer science

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    I hear it depends on the journal, some will just reformat your paper. Its best to check with the journal.
    – bdeonovic
    Commented Jun 28, 2014 at 13:30

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If they accept .doc probably they also accept MS Equation. However, the best you can do is ask them directly.

Anecdote: A couple of years ago I prepared the proceedings for a major CS conference. We had about 120 accepted papers and only one of those was written in MS Word.

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    Thanks, the anecdote is quite enlightening. Before grad school, I've literally had no encounter with LaTeX, sure, I was aware of its existence, but assumed always it was intended for mathematicians and the more mathematical aspects of science. It wasn't insisted on in my department, either. I guess, the next paper I write, I'll try with LaTeX. If for no other reason, than to feel the pros and cons for myself. Commented Jun 28, 2014 at 13:12
  • @iliasfl Back to your anecdote, did the authors write their papers with LaTeX? Or any other open-source software?
    – enthu
    Commented Jun 29, 2014 at 12:12
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    @Parsa Yes, everything else was written in LaTex
    – iliasfl
    Commented Jun 29, 2014 at 22:06
  • LaTeX has its own learning curve, but once you have written a couple of papers with it, it soon becomes easier than working with MS Word. In the end I wrote my thesis in LaTeX, one of the great benefits was being able to keep each chapter in a separate file, and import some chapters direct from PDF (they were published papers).
    – Mick
    Commented Nov 24, 2017 at 0:20

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