LaTeX is a markup language aimed at writing scientific and technical documentation. Writers focus on the content and structure, the details of the layout and presentation of the document are left to the document compiler.

LaTeX is extremely powerful, and features an extensive collection of packages with decades of development behind that facilitates the inclusion of any sort of data in the document, no matter how niche it is. A great example is syntax-highlighted code, or how easy it makes it to manage large bibliographies. In addition, it is possible to integrate LaTeX documents with pipelines that grab the data to be included in the document from its source.

This flexibility comes however at a price: the learning curve is significantly steep. Despite having used LaTeX for writing numerous lab reports, my bachelor's thesis, my master's thesis and my resume, it still does not feel straightforward to me.

In recent times though, Typst has emerged as a contender, featuring a simpler syntax.