Introduction to LaTeX: A Complete Guide to Document Creation and Formatting

1. Introduction to Unix – CS 21 Lecture 16

2. Lecture Overview • LaTeX • History • Running and creating LaTeX documents • Documents and Articles • Tables • Lists • Fonts • Math mode

3. LaTeX – What Is It? • A general markup language • LaTeX is a system that describes how documents should appear on paper • Formatting • Margins • Section Headings • Special characters

4. Other Examples Of Markup Languages • HTML • Hypertext markup language • Used to describe how web pages appear • A little bit of interpretation is still required and pages may look different on different browsers • SGML • Allows for the construction of special constructs

5. Where Did It Come From? • TeX • 1977 – Donald Knuth • Low level formatting details • Constructed to make mathematical books look good • LaTeX • 1980’s – Leslie Lamport • A layer of abstraction on top of TeX

6. Why Not Just Use Word? • Main reason: Bugs • TeX has long had a bounty for serious bugs that no one can collect on • Secondary reason: • LaTeX does what you tell it to • LaTeX doesn’t try to out-think you and put figures where it believes them to be best

7. O.K., How Does Latex Work? • Latex works on plain text files that are annotated with commands • Commands are of the form: \command{parameter} • Example: \documentclass{article} • Document class tells LaTeX what type of document you are creating • Books have chapters, articles have sections, etc. • Most common: article, book, letter, report, slides

8. What’s With The Braces? • LaTeX uses the braces for grouping like parenthesis • { text } is the same as simply text • Commands inside braces (like changing fonts) only apply inside the braces • Example: • { \sf This is in a serif font } And this is not

9. What Does A LaTeX File Look Like?

10. How Do I Get A Printable Paper Out? • Usage: latex document.tex • This creates several files • document.aux, document.log, document.dvi • document.idx, document.toc, document.lof • xdvi document.dvi • Views the document • dvips –o document.ps document.dvi

11. Example LaTeX Run

12. What To Do When Something Goes Wrong • Latex will pop up with an error message whenever it encounters a problem • Malformed or unknown command • Simplest thing to do: Simply hit return and ignore whatever command LaTeX had problems with • Alternative: type I followed by the correct command to replace the problem • Example: I\end{document}

13. Sample Run With Problems

14. Example Latex File

15. Example Output • dvi1.JPG

16. What Are Comments Doing In A Document? • Might seem a little weird coming from using Word • LaTeX can define new commands and can be confusing at times • LaTeX is not a programming language like perl or awk

17. Normal Text • All paragraphs of normal text are simply typed in without any commands. • Spacing is not taken into account, and all spaces get reduced to one space • Example: • this is the same • this is the same

18. Normal Text Example

19. Normal Text Output • dvi2.JPG

20. Common Constructs • Italics and Bolding • Sectioning • Lists • Tables • Footnotes • Mathematical formulas

21. Italics And Bolding • \emph{text to be emphasized} • \bf • Changes the font to a bolder font

22. Italic And Bolding Example

23. Sectioning Commands

24. Section Example

25. Sectioning Output

26. Unnumbered Sections • \section{Section Name} • Always numbers the section • You can change the format of sections numbers if you’d like • \section*{Section Name} • Will output an unnumbered section

27. Unnumbered Example

28. Unnumbered Output

29. Counters • All sections have a counter associated with them • You can adjust this counter if you’d like • \addtocounter{name}{value} • You can create your own counters • \newcounter{name} • \setcounter{name}{value}

30. Counter Example

31. Printing Out The Current Section Numbers • “The” notation • Will print out the current value of the counter associated • \thechapter • \thesection • \thesubsection

32. Ordered And Unordered Lists • Ordered lists are handled with the enumerate construct • \begin{enumerate} • \end{enumerate} • Unordered lists are handled with the itemize construct • \begin{itemize} • \end{itemize} • \item

33. List Example

34. List Output

35. Tables • Tables are handled with the tabular environment • \begin{tabular}{ FORMAT } • \end{tabular} • FORMAT determines how many columns are in the table and how text is arranged

36. Format Specifics • | represents vertical lines • Specific characters tell how to arrange text in the columns • l = Left aligned • c = Centered • r = Right aligned

37. Table Internal Specifics • & will separate columns • \hline draws horizontal lines • \\ ends a line

38. First Tabular Example

39. First Tabular Output

40. More Complex Tabular Example

41. Tabular Output

42. Footnotes • Footnotes are handled with the \footnote construct • \footnote{This is a footnote} • Again, there is an automatic counter that keeps track of your footnotes on a section by section basis

43. Mathematical Constructs • LaTeX was built on Tex, which was designed for easy representation of complex mathematical formulas • A special mode for math formulas exists in LaTeX • $Math mode$

44. Adding Accents

45. Accent Output

46. Greek Letters

47. Greek Letter Output

48. Relational Symbols

49. Relational Symbols Output

50. Various Math Symbols