LATEX Course - Department of Electronic Systems

LATEX CourseMake Reports and Articles Using LATEX

Lars Chr. Hausmann and Henrik Uhrenfeldt

[email protected] and [email protected]

Department of Communication Technology, Aalborg University

LATEX Course – p.1/40

Agenda

- Overview of LATEX

- LATEX- TeX systems- teTeX systems

- Formatting with LATEX- Commands- Environments

- Examples and Demonstration


Overview of LATEX

- What is LATEX

- What can it be used for?

- Why should we use it?


What is LATEX

- latex: look in the dictionary for clothes madeof rubber

- LATEX: (pronounced latek or latech) softwarefor text formatting and type setting. It is notan editor


What can it be used for?

LATEX is very versatile and can be used for anumber of things including:

- Large reports for your projects

- Worksheets with lots of formulas, tables andfigures

- Scientific articles with a predefined layout

- Presentations (like this)

- Letters to family, friends and others (“I needmore money!”)


Why should we use it?

- LATEX is well tested and bug-free software fortype-setting of any kinds of documents

- Table of contents, List of figures, List oftables, references and bibliography madeeasy

- LATEX is widely used (here and abroad)


Agenda

- Overview of LATEX





LATEX

- TeX system:- The history behind the TeX and LATEX- Overview and structure for LATEX- teTeX and miktex packages


The history behind TeX and LATEX

- Donald E. Knuth’s big bibles- TeX and the basic utility programs for font

generation and more

- Leslie Lamport- LATEX: a general macro package for plain

TeX

- Others:- other more or less specialized macro

packages for plain TeX


Overview and structure for LATEX

The structure for LATEX can be seen as this:

input

device independence

monitor paper



The structure for LATEX can be seen as this:GNU/Emacs

latex

xdvi dvips

input

device independence

monitor paper



The structure for LATEX can be seen as this:

working filesaux

idxtoc

lof

lot

user input (tex)

bbl,ind

TeX output (dvi)

postscript screen printer text file

Format (fmt)Class (cls,sty)Font Metrics (tfm)Font Defs (fd)

lis,log,blg

latex



Important things to remember from the previousslide:

- The four programs: GNU/Emacs, latex, xdvi,dvips

- Log files contains important information

- aux files is included in the next latexexecution therefore can be a source forerrors


teTeX Distribution

- Thomas Esser TeX distribution- Approximately 350 MB source code

- Available on all UNIX platforms

- What’s in the teTeX distribution:- Everything needed regarding TeX- Except editor, spell checker etc.


MikTeX Distribution

- “teTeX” for the Windows platform. Nearlyidentical but beware!

- GNU/Emacs is also available for Windows

- http://miktex.sunsite.dk orwww.miktex.org


TeX Software

- emacs test.tex&

- latex test.tex

- xdvi test.dvi&

- dvips -o test.ps test.dvi


Software Overview

The following software is normally used:

Editor: GNU/Emacs

Graphics: xfig,dia,MetaPost,xv,gnuplot,matlab

PDF: ps2pdf,pdflatex,distill

Bibliography: bibtex

Utilities: makeindex,CVS,RCS,make

DVI: xdvi,dvips,dvitty


Just to Summarize

- What files are used to make a document

- What programs are used to make adocument


Agenda

- Overview of LATEX





General Command Format

- Two formats of general commands

\commandname{}\commandname

- Emphasized text

a small example \emph{example}

gives: “a small example example”

- The logo \LaTeX gives LATEX


General Environment Format

- A general environment is formatted like

\begin{environmentname}...

\end{environmentname}

An example would be

\begin{center}text

\end{center}


Structure of a Document

- Document Class

- Preamble

- Begin Document- Chapters, sections, body of text

- End Document



A simple “Hello World” example:\documentclass{report}\begin{document}Hello World\end{document}



A simple Danish “Hello World” example:\documentclass[danish]{report}\usepackage{ae,babel}\begin{document}Hello World with æøå\end{document}


Options

- Command format once more:

\commandname[opt1,...]{arg}

- Environment format once more:

\begin{environment}[opt1,...]...

\end{environment}


Specific Commands and Environments

The most nescesary commands andenvironments explained

- Formatting of raw text

- Lists of text

- Advanced equations

- Figures and tables



- Formatting of raw text

\textbf{bold text}\textit{italics text}\emph{emphasized text}\textsl{slanted text}\textsc{smallcaps text}



- Lists with text

\begin{itemize}\item First item\item Second item\end{itemize}\begin{enumerate}

...\end{enumerate}\begin{description}

...\end{description}



- Advanced Equations

\begin{equation}...

\end{equation}\begin{displaymath}

...\end{displaymath}



- High control over form and content enablecryptic commands and environments

\begin{equation}\[y^{2x} =\frac{x^0 - x^2 + \ldots}%{x^1 - x^3 + \ldots}\]

\end{equation}

y2x

=x

0− x

2+ . . .

x1− x3 + . . .



- Insert a floating figure

\begin{figure}[htbp]\centering\includegraphics{test.eps}\caption{Figure text example}\label{fig:test-reference}

\end{figure}



- Insert a floating table

\begin{table}[htbp]\centering\begin{tabular}{ll}x & y \\1 & 2 \\

\end{tabular}\caption{Table text example}\label{tab:test}

\end{table}


Seeking Knowledge

- LATEX: A Document Preparation System - useit to get going

- The LATEX Companion - use it for reference

- Guides(http://kom.auc.dk/net/guides/)

- Links seehttp://kom.auc.dk/net/courses/latex/


Agenda

- Overview of LATEX





Examples and Demonstration

Purpose: Give you a jump-start into theEmacs/LATEX world by example

- Borrowing from other reports

- Creating your report environment

- Utilizing the Emacs/LATEX combination- Syntax highlighting- Master system- Reftex system

- Daily report writing


Borrowing from other reports

- Example report by Flemming Kjær Jensen

- Get it at http://kom.auc.dk/net/courses/latex

- Thing to note- Iesreport.cls: Defines layout, supplies iesreport

class

- Preamble: User-defined commands and options

- Frontmatter: All items up to the actual chapters

- The master file is the “parent” file

- Chapters are seperate files included


http://kom.auc.dk/net/courses/latex

Creating your report environment

- Create a latex directory

- Create a subdir for figures

- Copy master.tex, master.bib, iesreport.cls,bibliography.tex and preamble.tex to yourlatex directory

- Edit the files to suit your needs - commentout most stuff in the master

- Create a chapter file and include it in themaster


Utlizing the Emacs/LATEX combination

- Syntax highlighting

- Keyboard shortcuts for compiling

- Master system for compiling chapters

- Reftex system for managing references

- Master and reftex is set up in your .emacs file- Additions to your .emacs file at


- Get a reference card with the shortcuts



Daily report writing

- Do make an effort to use all the helpingfeatures in your emacs - they are priceless.

- Need a new function (figure, table, etc.)- See how Flemming did it :-)

- Consult the LATEX Companion (the dog book)

- Still can’t figure it out?- Ask your fellow students on the ies.edb

- Read the LATEX guide on the KOM net pages

- Search the web - lots of smart people use LATEX


Exercises

- Create your own latex environment usingiesreport.cls

- Add Master & RefTeX capabilites

- Insert the chapters you have already written

- Use versioning for your report


Documents

LATEX Course - Department of Electronic Systems