Is Writing a Thesis on an iPad Do-able?

[syd430]

The comments about adding an external keyboard are misleading. Try making dozens of tedious edits by reaching your hand out every minute or so and targeting the cursor/selection on a touch screen. It's a real pain.

[Medic311]

Originally Posted by syd430

The comments about adding an external keyboard are misleading. Try making dozens of tedious edits by reaching your hand out every minute or so and targeting the cursor/selection on a touch screen. It's a real pain.

jailbreak to use BT mouse

[palpatine]

Originally Posted by syd430

The comments about adding an external keyboard are misleading. Try making dozens of tedious edits by reaching your hand out every minute or so and targeting the cursor/selection on a touch screen. It's a real pain.

Hi. As said before, the keyboard shortcuts make a mouse largely unnecessary. I rarely touch the screen while I am editing.

[Davidkoh]

Originally Posted by nonns

But ....

you'd want a bluetooth keyboard. Typing on the screen is only good for short notes.

I think you could structure quite complex docs using Tex Writer
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tex-...552717222?ls=1

Note this does not constitute a rec for the app as I haven't used it. However if it supports full Tex then you should be able to structure pretty much any academic doc.

I find TexPad much better tbh. I love how everyone in this thread who talks about advanced text editing not being possible on the iPad later go on to saying that you need Word or similar programs. That is still basic text editing, LaTeX is an advanced form and honestly someing I thought everyone in higher education was aware of. I cant imagine the pain of writing my thesis in Word, might as well have written it in the iPad standard notes program.

Originally Posted by syd430

The comments about adding an external keyboard are misleading. Try making dozens of tedious edits by reaching your hand out every minute or so and targeting the cursor/selection on a touch screen. It's a real pain.

Why not use the keyboard shortcuts?

[palpatine]

Originally Posted by Davidkoh

I love how everyone in this thread who talks about advanced text editing not being possible on the iPad later go on to saying that you need Word or similar programs. That is still basic text editing, LaTeX is an advanced form and honestly someing I thought everyone in higher education was aware of. I cant imagine the pain of writing my thesis in Word, might as well have written it in the iPad standard notes program.

In my opinion, Word is pretty advanced, and there is a reason why it is pretty much ubiquitous on college campuses and in the business world. Pages is advanced as well, but doesn't really measure up to Word -- I only use it because it is the only app on the iPad with footnotes (create, view, and edit).

If you thought everyone in higher education knew about LaTeX, then didn't you ever wonder why almost no one outside of the sciences was using it? Or, did you not go over and visit the humanities folks

LaTeX is very impressive, and I would recommend that anyone with "difficult" layout issues (formulae, archaic languages, uncommon languages, etc.) take a look at it. I know a few people in the humanities who use it, and it may be worth the effort to familiarize yourself with it. For many, though, it will be overkill.

In my case, Apple's Notes program was a bit too simple, even for me (writing in plain text for all but the last stage), because you have no control over fonts, no integration with apps like Scrivener on the Mac, and until recently you couldn't even sync across devices. You can sync now, but it is iCloud, and iCloud has already lost my data from Pages, so I am not terribly keen on trusting my dissertation to Apple without lots and lots of backup (I duplicate each day's work and put a copy into Dropbox just in case -- of course, I also have Time Machine backups as well).

[h'biki]

Originally Posted by ejlorge

Hello all, I have been writing my thesis on an Macbook Air which got dropped and is too expensive to fix. So I am debating between getting a regular MacBook and an iPad as a replacement.

The problem of course isn't the iPad's memory, but the typing function. My question is: How difficult is it to type for one or two hours at a time on the iPad? Is the screen to small for text docs?
)

I'm a professional writer.

Given the either/or choice, I would choose the MacBook. I do write on my iPad but I also have an old MacPro that I use, and use more often. The iPad is great when you're reviewing or proofing written material, or writing away from home. But it's not ideal for manage big writing projects.

If you can stretch your budget, try getting a cheap desktop (Mac Mini!) and an iPad. The combination is arguably better than a MB alone.

I'd also write in Scrivener - it's amazing for longform documents, and I wish I had it back in the dark ages when I did my undergraduates. Scrivener can also do bidirectional syncing with SimpleNote and Dropbox.

If you were to use the iPad, have a look at Daedalus or Elements. Daedalus has a great way of switching between multiple documents, which is very useful with the above mentioned Scrivener

And definitely, definitely, get a full-sized BT keyboard for the iPad.
Just my 2c.

[rcp27]

Originally Posted by palpatine

In my opinion, Word is pretty advanced, and there is a reason why it is pretty much ubiquitous on college campuses and in the business world. Pages is advanced as well, but doesn't really measure up to Word -- I only use it because it is the only app on the iPad with footnotes (create, view, and edit).

I don't know if newer versions of word are any better, but when I was writing up (2007-8), the tales I heard in the common room from people trying to write a PhD thesis in word were alarming. Things like word documents crashing and being un-openable if they were longer than a certain (not long enough) limit, with a work-around being to split the thesis over multiple documents inducing deep pain in getting page numbers and references to sync between them. I will never forget the person who announced that she had finished her thesis, just needed to get the bibliography sorted out, and that would take "a couple of days". For me, getting the bibliography right involved typing "bibtex" a couple of times.

Unless it has significantly changed, Word is an absolute disaster for writing a thesis (including in humanities).

[palpatine]

Originally Posted by rcp27

I don't know if newer versions of word are any better, but when I was writing up (2007-8), the tales I heard in the common room from people trying to write a PhD thesis in word were alarming. Things like word documents crashing and being un-openable if they were longer than a certain (not long enough) limit, with a work-around being to split the thesis over multiple documents inducing deep pain in getting page numbers and references to sync between them. I will never forget the person who announced that she had finished her thesis, just needed to get the bibliography sorted out, and that would take "a couple of days". For me, getting the bibliography right involved typing "bibtex" a couple of times.

Unless it has significantly changed, Word is an absolute disaster for writing a thesis (including in humanities).

It is actually pretty nice right now. A colleague of mine is using it right now for his thesis, and it is serving him well. Other colleagues in the past have used it without issue.

In the old days, Word was a little unstable, I lost a bit of data, and it was always a good idea to split up chapters. You are right. Also, trying to navigate three or four-hundred pages was difficult to do, and the document scrolled / rendered pages very slowly. Nowadays, even on the iPad, Pages can jump right to the end of my dissertation without a problem.

My only issue with Pages is that it doesn't do well with images and the like, and the formatting of these looked wildly different than the document on my MBA. For this reason, I waited until the final stage to put all of the graphical elements and complex formatting into it. This is why I say I did "most" of my dissertation on the iPad. 90% or more of the process was there, but in the end, unless I was willing to give up the additional complexity, I still needed the MBA for part of it. Still, that is a couple years of writing on the iPad!

As for LaTeX, it is definitely a great way to write, and would allow someone to get even more use out of the iPad IF they were willing to ride the steep learning curve