I would start with Quarto (documentation link), because it is (like Markdown and Scrivener) a bridge to other formats, whereas LaTeX is very specifically oriented toward print (or at least fixed layout on screen via PDF); it is an end point.
Quarto on the other hand can get you to Word, OpenOffice, ePub, presentations, web sites[1], other bridge formats, LaTeX too (and other higher-end typesetting), and lots more. From there, you have dozens of pathways and can work with anyone.
And if that looks promising, check out some Scrivener-specific discussions, including some fantastic templates from fellow users:
- Quarto: An 'evolved' technical and scientific publishing system compatible with Scrivener
- ScrivQ | A template to control Quarto, export multiple files, manage bibliography and easily create cross-references
The main reason to target an end-format specifically, like LaTeX, is if you’re sure that will work for you and be all you need. There are of course advantages to doing so. Any bridge format is going to by necessity be an abstraction, or a generalisation of document formatting. With Quarto/Scrivener I can say, “put a footnote here, with this text”, with LaTeX I can say, “this footnote is special and should be in the margin, which will cause this page layout to have a wider margin than the rest of the book, and space the left edge of the footnote 18.842pts from the justified right margin, using 10pt font, and bold face on the anchor number”. That’s the difference in a nutshell, and that should also illustrate which of these is, by and large, a better tool for writing.
When you are on their site, you are looking at an example of what it can do. ↩︎