WordTeX - A WYSIPCTWOTCG Typesetting Tool
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN people recommend it as an entertaining example of great effort on a trivial problem, and cite the template in LaTeX-versus-Word discussions.
What it is
Tom Wildenhain's SIGBOVIK 2018 presentation of WordTeX, a Microsoft Word template that mimics LaTeX typesetting output. It is a joke research project executed with serious effort.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2018 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec UncleMeat · 2023-07 · on “C89 compiler produces printable executables from C code [pdf]”
Sigbovik is a joke conference put on by CMU students. About 80%-90% of the papers each year are pure jokes, but about 10-20% of them are jokes that have a nontrivial amount of work backing them up. These papers are awesome. Tom publishes at least one every year (sometimes 3-4) and his papers are among the best but there are others that are also awesome. It hits a very fun combination of hard work on trivial problems that is fascinating. They publish a proceedings every year and they are fun reads. Not a lot of people do accompanying videos like Tom does, but this one on WordTeX is excellent: [this video]
Recommends amhouse · 2018-08 · on “LyX: combine the power of LaTeX with the ease of use of a graphical interface”
There's also WordTeX, a "WYSIPCTWOTCG" editor. There's a paper [1], but this is a rare case where the Youtube video [2] is both more entertaining and the medium lets the content shine. [1] [LINK] [2] [this video]
Recommends gitgud · 2020-05 · on “Show HN: LaTeX.css – Make your website look like a LaTeX document”
If you're a fan of this, you might like; "WordTeX - A WYSIPCTWOTCG Typesetting Tool" [1] [this video] (video)
Cites bobbiechen · 2019-06 · on “Word processors are ditching equation editors in favour of LaTeX”
>Could you use a standard word processor to approximate LaTeX, while obtaining an arguably better experience? Introducing the WordTeX template [for Microsoft Word] . From the SIGBOVIK 2018 presentation, "WordTeX - a WYSIPCTWOTCG Typesetting Tool" : [this video]
Cites senkora · 2025-06 · on “I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst”
There’s always the WordTex template if you want to create documents that look like LaTeX output from within Word: [this video]