Do people use LaTeX or InDesign (or something else) for a technical report / book?

Question

I was wondering how people write / layout a technical report / book. I have the following requirements:

• main text is two columns
• each chapter contains many graphs / figures / tables that span both columns
• bibliography at the end of most chapters (but these references are not cited in the main text)
• I receive all of the source documents in Word.

I would naturally do this with LaTeX and the memoir class, however after spending only a day at this task, I'm facing the following problems:

• copy & pasting text is slow
• forcing figures and tables to show up at a certain position and spanning two columns is way too hard - it basically never works (maybe I'm doing something wrong) and figures end up always at the end of a section / chapter.
• I don't feel like I could delegate this job to someone without LaTeX knowledge.
• You constantly need to recompile because if you don't do it, you'll never find the problems.

Again, maybe I'm doing something wrong here and I'm open for any suggestions and advice.

EDIT: regarding the contents / design that I'm looking for, I guess the following pdfs might be a good example

• almost ideal example http://www.mpe.mpg.de/Highlights/FB2010/JB_07_09_final_g.pdf
• not ideal example, since they have a figure @ the end of every page http://www.fischer.de/PortalData/1/Resources/fixing_systems/connectit/_documents/10/2008-10-11.pdf
• good example http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/rco/research/mamu/tr029.pdf

Answer 1

1. The transfer from Word to LaTeX can easily be done by opening the *.doc in OpenOffice / LibreOffice and exporting it to LaTeX, I'd suggest to use the option "very clean". Take care of the language settings before exporting. But I never had to export formulas.
2. I'd prefer KOMA-script to memoir, because the MPG-Layout seems to be european style.
3. The real problem seem to be the pictures, which are just a little bit broader than one column, like in your MPG example. We can not really help you here without a working minimal example.

Answer 2

First, work up a LaTeX format in Memoir which applies the desired formatting / page layout.

Second, write a macro in WordBASIC which captures and preserves the formatting which you want, strips out everything else and saves the text w/ basic LaTeX commands.

Third, work out a technique for managing your art program (all graphics will need to be sourced, named appropriately, placed in a suitable file hierarchy, pre-flighted for press-readiness, converted to an appropriate format)