The Very Short Guide to Typesetting With LATEX

The very short guide to typesetting with LATEX What’s this all about? What’s LATEX? LATEX is a document preparation system for the TEX typesetting program. It enables you to produce publication-quality output with great accuracy and consistency. LATEX works on any computer and produces industry-standard PDF or PS documents. It is available both in free (open-source) and commercial implementations. LATEX can be used for any kind of document, but it is especially suited to those with a complex structure, repetitive formatting, or notations like mathematics1 ; or where technical stability, dimensional accuracy, or a persistent and non-proprietary file format are needed. Install the free software from www.tug.org/texlive/ or buy a commercially-supported version from one of the vendors (see back page). Creating and typesetting your document 1. Create your document using any suitable plain-text editor with LATEX controls, eg TEXshop (Mac), TEXnicCenter (Win), Kile (Linux), Emacs (all), even vi ! 2. Save the file with a name ending in .tex (never use spaces in filenames!); 3. Use the toolbar buttons or menu items in your editor to typeset and display the document (you need Acrobat Reader or similar to display the PDF output); 4. Make any changes needed in your original document and repeat step 3. Syntax (how to type LATEX commands — these are the rules)  All LTEX commands begin with a backslash. Example: \tableofcontents  If a command needs text to work with (an ‘argument’), it goes in curly braces. Example: \title{Irisches Tagebuch}\author{Heinrich Böll}  If options are used, they go in square brackets first, before the curly braces. Example: \documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{book}  Spaces after commands without braces get suppressed. © Example: Copyright \copyright␣2013 w Copyright 2013 f % To prevent this, put empty curly braces after the command. Example: Copyright \copyright{}␣2013 w Copyright © 2013 f "  Curly braces are also used to restrict the scope of effects inside them. Example: Some {\tiny little} word w Some word A little Note. This guide shows only a tiny fraction of LATEX’s power. For more information, visit the TEX Users Group site (www.tug.org). For help, see the FAQ (www.tex.ac.uk/faq) and the Usenet newsgroup comp.text.tex. For packages, use the Comprehensive TEX Archive Network (www.ctan.org). For documentation, use the sources in the References [2]. 1 For reasons of space this guide does not cover details of mathematics typesetting. Basic document structure Here’s the skeleton of a LATEX document. These three lines are compulsory: your document will not work without them: \documentclass{article} your Preamble goes here (extra setups, if any) \begin{document} your document text goes here \end{document}  The document class name must be one of   the standard book, article, or report, or one of the many extras preinstalled or downloadable (eg thesis, memoir, etc). There are paper size options a4paper (210 mm×297 mm) and letterpaper (81/200 ×1100 ) and others (eg a5paper). There are body type size options 10pt (the default), 11pt, and 12pt. New material introduced in each example is shown below in blue; previous material in black. Front matter The Preamble is where you specify any extra packages (LATEX plugins) such as typefaces or special formatting requirements, and where you put any changes to standard features. \documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{book} \usepackage{charter,graphicx} \setlength{\parindent}{1em} \begin{document} \title{your document title} \author{your name} \date{date of publication} \maketitle \begin{abstract} the paragraphs of your abstract go here \end{abstract} \tableofcontents the text of your document goes here \end{document} In a typical document, the title, author, date, abstract (summary), and table of contents (optional) all go at the start, followed by your text. Leave a blank line between paragraphs as you type. To LATEX, this means ‘start a new paragraph’, not ‘leave a blank line’. You can control spacing and indentation by setting \parskip and \parindent with the \setlength command as in the previous example, or with the parskip package. Sections and cross-references Sections get numbered automatically in bold type, and get included in the Table of Contents (if any). Numbering can be turned off selectively. Section heading layout can be modified with the sectsty, titlesec, and other packages. Use the babel package for other languages. (Preamble, titling, and abstract as above) \setcounter{secnumdepth}{3} \tableofcontents \chapter{heading of a chapter} text for the chapter goes here ...as shown in section \ref{blah}. \section{heading of a section} \label{blah} make up name for the label text for the section goes here \chapter{heading of a new chapter} text for the new chapter goes here \end{document} For cross-references, use \label{...} to label the target and \ref{...} and/or \pageref{...} to refer to it. Make up the label values: LATEX will use them to work out the right numbers to print. Example: ...section \ref{blah} on p. \pageref{blah}. ...section 3 on p.9. w Typefaces LATEX’s default typeface is Computer Modern. There is a selection of other typeface packages (use them in your Preamble): Times Palatino Bookman Charter Utopia Century mathptmx mathpazo bookman charter utopia newcent Courier courier Avant Garde avant Helvetica Zapf Chancery Pandora Fraktur helvet chancery pandora oldgerm See each package’s documentation for details. Dozens of others are available, including mathematical and decorative fonts. To switch to a sansserif type family (eg Helvetica, Avant Garde), use \sffamily in your text. To change font for a word or phrase, use these commands (they can be nested—see below): Italics Boldface Smallcaps Sans-serif Monospace \textit{Hello} \textbf{Hello} \textsc{Hello} \textsf{Hello} \texttt{Hello} w Hello Hello w Hello w Hello w Hello w w Example: \textit{\textbf{\textsf {bold italic sans}}} bold italic sans \normalsize 10 11 12 \tiny \scriptsize \footnotesize \small \large \Large \LARGE \huge \Huge 5 6 7 9 11 12 14 17* 20* 6 7 8 10 12 14 17* 20* 24* 7 8 9 11 14 17* 20* 24* 28* * sizes rounded here to save space Font sizing is automatic for titles, headings, and footnotes. There are some named step-size commands (in points, relative to the base size): and descriptive lists (topic-and-explanation format). Others are avaiable on CTAN[5]. \begin{itemize} \item 1lb Sugar \item ½pt Cream \item Chocolate \item 2oz Butter \end{itemize} • 1lb Sugar • ½pt Cream • Chocolate • 2oz Butter Lists There are three basic kinds: itemized lists (bulleted); enumerated lists (numbered or lettered); Mix together Boil to 112°C Stir and cool Pour into dish Fudge is fun but fattening if made too often. Broccoli sucks, period. Exercise is good for you if taken daily and not to extremes. Tables and figures Formal tables and figures will float (change position to fit available space). Use \caption and \label to caption and label tables and figures. \begin{table} \caption{Mean growth rate and intakes of supplement, milk, and water for 4 diets.} \label{dietgrowth}\centering \begin{tabular}{|l|r|r|r|r|}\hline &Growth&Supplement&Milk&Water\\ Supplement&rate&intake&intake&intake\\ &(g/day)&(g/day)&(ml/kg$^{0.75}$)& (ml/kg$^{0.75}$)\\\hline Lucerne &145&450&10.5&144\\\hline Sesbania&132&476& 9.2&128\\\hline Leucaena&128&364& 8.9&121\\\hline None & 89& 0& 9.8&108\\\hline \end{tabular} \end{table} Table 2: Mean growth rate and intakes of supplement, milk, and water for four diets (after Sherington, J, undated) Supplement Google For verbatim text, use the listings or fancyvrb packages, or the \verb command. 1. 2. 3. 4. \begin{description} \item[Fudge] is fun... \item[Broccoli] sucks... \item[Exercise] is good \end{description} You can nest lists inside each other. Use the enumitem package to control list formatting. You can specify an exact size with the fix-cm package and the command: \fontsize{pp }{bb }\selectfont for any point-size (pp) on any baseline (bb). Enclose the command and its applicable text in curly braces to prevent it affecting the rest of the document. For double or 11/2 line-spacing (eg in theses) use the setspace package. You can also use RGB, CMYK, HTML, and many other colourspaces with the xcolor package and the \color{name } command. \begin{enumerate} \item Mix together \item Boil to 112°C \item Stir and cool \item Pour into dish \end{enumerate} Lucerne Sesbania Leucaena None Growth Supplement Milk Water rate intake intake intake (g/day) (g/day) (ml/kg0.75 ) (ml/kg0.75 ) 145 132 128 89 450 476 364 0 10.5 9.2 8.9 9.8 144 128 121 108 Packages like longtable and array can help with more complex table formats. Tables and Figures, continued \begin{figure} \caption{Swiss and Dutch Mennonite migrations of the 1700s and 1800s}\label{lmig} \centering (graphics must be EPS files for standard LATEX; but JPG, PNG, or PDF for pdfLATEX) \includegraphics[width=.8\columnwidth]{menno-a}\\ (double backslash for forced linebreak) \scriptsize Courtesy of Paul C. Adams, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin. \cite{adams}\end{figure} Figure 1: Swiss and Dutch Mennonite migrations of the 1700s and 1800s Courtesy of Paul C. Adams, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin. [1] Footnotes, citations, references, and indexes (back matter) You do footnotes with a simple command,2 see below. Citations using BIBTEX (Patashnik, 1988) are easy (see [2], §7.4.2), and there are packages for more complex formats for journals and publishers. You can add indexes with the \index and \printindex commands and the makeindex program. You do footnotes with a simple command,\footnote{Like this.} see below. Citations using BIB\TeX{} \citeauthoryear{oren} are easy (see \cite[§7.4.2]{flynn}), and there are packages for more complex formats for journals and publishers. You can add indexes with the \verb‘\index‘ and \verb‘\printindex‘ commands and the \textsf{makeindex} program. \bibliography{myrefs} \bibliographystyle{apalike} (see BIBTEX manual [3] for details) References 1. Adams, Paul C. Linguistic Chaos in Montreal, www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/adams/chaos.ppt, 2/59, Oct 2006. 2. Flynn, P. Formatting Information, 2005, at latex.silmaril.ie/formattinginformation/ 3. Patashnik, O. BIBTEXing, TEX Users Group, 1988 (distributed with all copies of LATEX). 4. Sherington, J. example table in ‘Informative Presentation of Tables, Graphs and Statistics’, 4.2, Statistical Services Centre, University of Reading, www.reading.ac.uk/ssc/publications/guides/toptgs. html 5. TEX Users Group, for TEX Live (www.tug.org/texlive/) and CTAN (Comprehensive TEX Archive Network) for downloads (www.ctan.org). Note. Commercial implementations of TEX with business support are available from Personal TEX, Inc (PCTEX); Blue Sky Research (Textures [Mac]); MacKichan Software, Inc (Scientific Word); Micropress, Inc (VTEX), TrueTEX Software (TrueTEX), and others. 2 Like this.