LaTeX & Consultancy Testimonials
Some people have been kind enough to share their experiences and feedback about my LaTeX materials or consultancy services. Thank you! (Contact me if you’d like to add your say here.)
— Dominic Duval, Director of Enterprise Training, The Linux Foundation
June 14, 2012 (via LinkedIn)Lian Tze consistently delivers high quality, creative and reliable solutions to our organization. Her top-notch expertise is instrumental in bringing us up to speed quickly with our documentation system, and by helping us avoid common problems she helped us save a considerable amount of time with our projects. I strongly recommend Lian Tze.
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, High Integrity
— Bahareh Pahlevanzadeh, Graduate Student
Network Research Group, School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia
May 21, 2012 (as told to Lian Tze)My experience with LaTeX started when during a meeting with my supervisor, he told me my thesis was ‘not readable enough’. This, despite my many revisions in Microsoft Word, struggling with all the formattings, tracking section headings, enumerated lists, etc… It doesn’t help that I like to put down sudden ideas in my drafts immediately in a previous/later section. So I would be scrolling up/down through the document to find the right place to jot my new idea down, but on my way there I’d get distracted by something else that doesn’t look quite right, and… well my whole writing ‘flow’ would just get very, very disrupted. And I haven’t talked about the numerous versions of files and drafts in my directory yet.
Back at my lab I was at wits’ end (I know I need to find a way to get my writing organised), when I overheard my labmates talking about an assignment they had to do using LaTeX. I’ve heard of this software before, so I thought, sure, I’ve give it one day to see this thing can help me. ONE day, becaused I can’t afford to waste extra time learning something new: my priority needs to be my writing process, not the tool.
So I got all the software that I needed, then the USMthesis class. And then I fell in love with LaTeX.
Previously, writing my thesis Word felt messy and disorganised. I was always looking for my place in the document, or searching for a piece of write-up somewhere else. In contrast, the LaTeX + USMthesis combination was like a miracle to me: Since all text source is just plain text, there’s no distraction at all, and I just go to the point in my thesis where I wanted to add something. When it comes to getting my writing organised, I found LaTeX, especially with the USMthesis class template, to be actually very user-friendly. 50% of the work (mostly the formattings) were done by the USMthesis class. Where Word slowed down my writing, LaTeX makes me feel so excited and motivated to write, write and again write!!! Organised, readable, systematic writing, and at the end, a nice PDF as the outcome. In fact, the thought of the nice result PDF further motivates me to write even more.
I will still continue to use Word, especially for stories, graphs, and documents, notes, but that software is good only for short documents, not a PhD thesis or a book. I wish I had switched to LaTeX sooner for my thesis. It would’ve saved me so much time, headache and heartache. (I’m generally happier and less depressed by my thesis writing, now that’s killing two birds with one stone!) Even my supervisor was surprised, when I was able to give him a truly beautiful copy only 2 days after he asked for a ‘readable’ version.
And I’ll always remember the day I started using LaTeX: 12th May, which also happens to be my birthday. You saved my time with that Miracle gift with your USMthesis Template “SAFETY BOX” . Thank you thank you thank you.