Thesis (.doc) > LaTex or Lyx?

[Abdus]

After just a few hours of gedit (with LaTex plugin) and this UCL_thesis.cls I found, the thesis is almost as good as the final word doc. Boy, do I wish I'd done this sooner.

From your previous posts I understood you're going to achieve a perfect output, no matter how long it takes. If it is so, you could consider using other class. It may seem handy at the beginning to use the thesis class, but I doubt it is so comprehensive, user friendly a feature rich as some other classes, including the 'leading' Memoir.

What I mean is: As long as you want only the default settings of a class, any class will do. But I predict a time will come you will wish to modify things here and there. This is where it starts to matter what class you're using, things that count are for example:

1. Quality of documentation,
2. User friendliness of customization settings,
3. Number of people who use the class, so that you'll be able to get any help in the internet.

This is why I strongly recommend switching to Memoir, which is far the best mega-class I know right now. Switched to it recently and it was a good decision.

[sisyphus1978]

It wasn't a random decision to use that ucl file. The University of London sets specific format requirements for its theses (and UCL is part of the UL, as is my own college) hence I thought it best to use a starting point that appears to follow those standards.

And I never said a perfect output. I just said I wanted to learn LaTex (a bit) and convert the thesis from word to LaTex.

Now I understand why you are suggesting using memoir, but given what I've written, am I not better off just sticking with this one (or should I adapt memoir to the specifications I require)?

[Abdus]

Now I understand why you are suggesting using memoir, but given what I've written, am I not better off just sticking with this one (or should I adapt memoir to the specifications I require)?

As above: If you're fine with your current class defaults, or if you are ready to learn it the hard way in case of modifications - stick with it, nothing wrong about that. But if you now predict you would like to seriously modify the default, you might go Memoir )or other complete 'mega-class') - it is just easier to manage/modify your document with all the help these mega-classes provide.