lecture latex short

Latex - a Typesetting SystemTypesetting

VERY VERY SHORT GUIDE TO LATEX

Dr P. V. Johnson

School of Mathematics

2012

Dr P. V. Johnson Latex


Advantages...Disadvantages...The Basics

THE BASIC IDEA

A word processor allows the user to design the documenton screen whilst the text they type appears inside itIn LATEX, when writing, you will not see the final document...LATEXwill design the document for you.You can help with the design by using LATEX commands.You will see this idea everywhere:

Computer codinghtmlxmlpostscriptsvg




THE BASIC IDEA

in an ACSII fileWrite your document

COMPILE

Compile the fileusing LaTeX

for printing or viewingDocument ready

If not satisfactorychange settings

file.tex latex file.tex file.dvi




THE GOOD POINTS

Professionally crafted layouts are available, which make adocument really look as if printed.The typesetting of mathematical formulae is supported in aconvenient way.Users only need to learn a few easy-to-understandcommands that specify the logical structure of a document.They almost never need to tinker with the actual layout ofthe document.Even complex structures such as footnotes, references,table of contents, and bibliographies can be generatedeasily.




THE GOOD POINTS

Free add-on packages exist for many typographical tasksnot directly supported by basic LATEX. For example,packages are available to include Postscript graphics or totypeset bibliographies conforming to exact standards.LATEXencourages authors to write well-structured texts,because this is how LATEXworks - by specifying structure.TEX, the formatting engine of LATEX 2, is highly portableand free. Therefore the system runs on almost anyhardware platform available.




THE BAD POINTS

LATEXdoes not work well for people who have sold theirsouls. . .Although some parameters can be adjusted within apredefined document layout, the design of a whole newlayout is difficult and takes a lot of timeIt is very hard to write unstructured and disorganizeddocuments.Your hamster might, despite some encouraging first steps,never be able to fully grasp the concept of Logical Markup.




GETTING STARTED

The easiest way to create latex documents is to use an IDEThere are many of these programs available for allplatformsFollow the guide for

WinEdt on windowsKile on linux

depending on which platform you prefer.




A SIMPLE LATEXDOCUMENT

Every file must start with the command

\documentclass{...}

Like every good book it must have a start. . .

\begin{document}

and an end

\end{document}




HELLO WORLD!

So the Hello World! tex file looks like

\documentclass{article}\begin{document}Hello World!!\end{document}

On unix machines, if this file is called helloworld.texwe can compile it with the command

latex helloworld.tex



TextMaths

SPACES, LINE BREAKS AND PARAGRAPHS

Several consecutive white spaces, and single carriagereturns are treated as a single spaceWe must use a special command to make a newline \\An empty line starts a new paragraph

A line break \\Another line break \\A large spacecounts as a singlewhilst an empty line.

Makes a new paragraph.

A line breakAnother line breakA large space counts asa single whilst an emptyline.

Makes a newparagraph.



TextMaths

TITLES, CHAPTERS AND SECTIONS

A good document will be divided into appropriate sectionsIn LATEXwe use the following commands\section{}\subsection{}\paragraph{}\subparagraph{}

LATEXwill also create a table of contents with the followingcommand: \tableofcontents



TextMaths

CROSS-REFERENCING

One of the most powerful tools of LATEXis the crossreferencingWrite the label commmand after the equation, section,figure or table we want to referenceCommands are:\label{key}, \ref{key}, \pageref{key}

Use descriptive names for the key, for example\begin{equation}a^2 + b^2 = c^2\label{eqn:pythags-rule}

\end{equation}



TextMaths

EQUATIONS

Use the amsmath is the standard package to typesetmaths in LATEXPut the following at the top of your document:\usepackage{amsmath}

We can put mathematical expression within text:

Paul was runningat $5ms^{-1}$. Paul was running at 5ms1.

Or in its own paragraph

Pauls running speedwas $$v=5ms^{-1}$$.

Pauls running speed was

v = 5ms1.



TextMaths

BUILDING BLOCKS OF MATHS

Inside the math environment we can easily build complexequations using the commands \frac, \sum, \int, etc.and superscript and subscript commands ^ and _. Forexample

$$\frac{\sum_i i^2}{N}$$

i i

2

Nor

$$ \int_0^\inftye^{x^2} dx $$

0

ex2dx



TextMaths

SUMMARY

This should be just enough to get you startedRead through the not so short guideTry the examples and check against the solutionsTry to follow the tutorial on writing a School of Mathsthesisand using bibtex for referencing


Latex - a Typesetting SystemAdvantages...Disadvantages...The Basics

TypesettingTextMaths

lecture latex short

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