First LaTeX session of the BIB

Introduction to LATEXSession #1

Oriol Borrega Pedro Tiago Martins

Universitat de Barcelona

January 14, 2013

Borrega & Martins (UB) Introduction to LATEX Session #1 January 14, 2013 1 / 39

Outline

1 Preliminary RemarksHow a scientific document must be

2 Why use LATEX instead of a Word Processor?Advantages of LATEXDisadvantages of LATEXThings LATEX is good at and appropriate forThings LATEX is bad at or not appropriate for

3 What is LATEX ?History

TEXLATEX

4 How LATEX worksHow LATEX documents are createdThe basic structure of a LATEX document

5 LATEX commands and a small document


Preliminary Remarks

Outline




TEXLATEX




Preliminary Remarks How a scientific document must be

A scientific document must be:

Structured

identification (of the author and of the work)(optional) table of contentswell-defined and well-placed sections, paragraphs, footnotes, lists,figures, etc.. . .references

Readable

approx. 66 characters per line (there are actually studies on this. . . )large margins (for A4 size paper or similar) or two columnsserif font for main textno underlining for emphasis (underlining was widely used in the pastwhen emphasis had to be added manually, after the writing was done)no variation between elements of the same kind




Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable





Structured


Readable



Why use LATEX instead of a Word Processor?

Outline




TEXLATEX






Before seeing how to actually use LATEX , let’s look at some of itsadvantages and disadvantages in relation to Word Processors.




Before seeing how to actually use LATEX , let’s look at some of itsadvantages and disadvantages in relation to Word Processors.


Why use LATEX instead of a Word Processor? Advantages of LATEX

Advantages of LATEX

portability (since it’s just a plain text document, a LATEX file can bewritten and saved in any device—personal computer, tablet,smartphone, toaster—with any operating system, as long as there’s atext editor available)

does not require a lot of processing power, which makes it basicallycrash-proof and extremely stable

backwards compatibility/longevity (a file written in the late 80s willwork on a 2013 installation of LATEX , and probably the same will betrue 20 years from now)

very good reference management

very high typesetting quality

default document classes that make the work easier (such asarticle, book, etc.)

it’s free software

almost full separation of content and form



Advantages of LATEX











Advantages of LATEX











Advantages of LATEX











Advantages of LATEX











Advantages of LATEX











Advantages of LATEX











Advantages of LATEX











Advantages of LATEX










Why use LATEX instead of a Word Processor? Disadvantages of LATEX

Disadvantages of LATEX

intimidating at first

steep learning curve

although widely used in some academic circuits, it’s not as ubiquitousas, for example, Word; some editors and publishers still don’t acceptit. Working on a document which requires reviewing or corrections byothers can be difficult

there is usually no interface (menus, buttons, etc.)

lack of native reviewing functionalities like commenting,change-tracking, etc. (not as problematic nowadays, since most pdfviewers have commenting functionalities)

the general public sees no clear reason to use it (which contributes tothe third point)
























































Why use LATEX instead of a Word Processor? Things LATEX is good at and appropriate for

LATEX is good at and appropriate for

potentially long, well structured documents

typesetting “complicated things” such as math, logic, phoneticsymbols, different writing systems, etc.. . .

slide presentations (such as this one)

scientific posters

managing bibliographic references, cross–references, table of contents,indexes, etc.. . .

figures, tables, lists, etc.. . .

justification and hyphenation







scientific posters










scientific posters










scientific posters










scientific posters










scientific posters










scientific posters










scientific posters





Why use LATEX instead of a Word Processor? Things LATEX is bad at or not appropriate for

LATEX is bad at or not appropriate for

producing badly structured documents (This is really true; if thedocument is not properly structured, LATEX will probably give you anerror and no ouput)

taking notes

graphics-heavy or “creative” documents such as flyers, banners, etc.(although it can be done)





taking notes






taking notes






taking notes



What is LATEX ?

Outline




TEXLATEX




What is LATEX ? History

History of LATEX

TEXwas designed anddeveloped by DonaldKnuth in 1978 (left)

LATEX was developed byLeslie Lamport as anextension of TEXin 1985(right)



TEX

written by Donald Knuth out of frustration with digital typesetting,when attempting to publish part of his long book “The Art ofComputer Programming”

the name TEXis formed by the upper-case Greek letters tau, epsilonand chi, resembling the Greek root for the English tech, as intechnical (hence the pronunciation)

complex typesetting system and programming language

very powerful and versatile

difficult to use

nobody really uses plain TEXanymore



TEX





difficult to use




TEX





difficult to use




TEX





difficult to use




TEX





difficult to use




TEX





difficult to use




TEX





difficult to use




LATEX

written by Leslie Lamport as a set of TEXmacros (almost like simpleshortcuts for more complex commands), making it possible formortals to use it

the name LATEX is a combination of the first two letters in Lamportand TEX

much simpler to use than TEX

the user enters commands which the define the structure of thedocument along with the text

the formatting is taken care of by LATEX itself

“packages” add extra functionality

widely used (within the –TEXfamily)



LATEX










LATEX










LATEX










LATEX










LATEX










LATEX










LATEX









How LATEX works

Outline




TEXLATEX




How LATEX works How LATEX documents are created

How LATEX documents are created

you write a file with all the commands and text, which will have theextension .tex

you run LATEX on that file, which will interpret all the commands inorder to produce the output, at which point you will also be promptedto choose a folder for your document

a beautiful .pdf file is created, suitable for printing

(some auxiliary files will be created too, but there’s usually no need tomess with them)






























How LATEX works The basic structure of a LATEX document

Basic structure of a LATEX file

There are three basic commands that all LATEX documents must have:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\end{document}






\begin{document}

\end{document}






\begin{document}

\end{document}






\begin{document}

\end{document}






\begin{document}

\end{document}




The existence of these commands defines different parts of your file:

\documentclass[options]{article}

everything that appears here is called the Preamble. Here is whereyou define general characteristics of your document besides thedocument class, such as the title, the author, the date, the inputlanguage, and other options which will influence the general layout.All of this is accomplished through the use of commands

\begin{document}

here is where the content of your document is going to be, along withcommands that define its internal structure

\end{document}

anything that appears here will be completely ignored, even if it’s thecomplete works of Shakespeare







\begin{document}


\end{document}








\begin{document}


\end{document}








\begin{document}


\end{document}








\begin{document}


\end{document}








\begin{document}


\end{document}




Minimal example

Using only the mandatory commands, we can write a minimaldocument:


\begin{document}

Hello!

\end{document}



Minimal example



\begin{document}

Hello!

\end{document}



Minimal example



\begin{document}

Hello!

\end{document}


LATEX commands and a small document

Outline




TEXLATEX





Document class

The document class defines the general layout of the document.Common document classes are:

article (which we will be using for now)bookthesisreportletter

We can define the document class by using the appropriate commandfollowed by the name of the class enclosed in braces, which wouldmake it the main argument of the command:




Document class







Document class







Document class







Document class







Document class







Document class







Document class







Document class







Optional arguments

However, we can also modify the class a little bit by using optionalarguments, which don’t have to be there (hence the name), and areenclosed in square brackets. If more than one is used, they must beseparated by commas.

Some common options include:

Font size: 10pt (default), 11pt, 12pt. . .Paper size: a4paper (usually default), letterpaper. . .Orientation: portrait (default), landscape. . .

Let’s say we want to write an article with 12pt fontsize and a4paper.We would declare it in the preamble the following way:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}



Optional arguments








Optional arguments








Optional arguments








Optional arguments








Optional arguments








Optional arguments








Optional arguments








Packages

Packages are extensions of the basic functionality of LATEX ,providing additional features when declared in the preamble.

There are hundreds of packages available, for doing anything you canthink of, and many of them come with the basic installation of LATEX ;they just need to be called by us.

If we were to use a package in our document—we won’t for thissession, but we will later—we would do it the following way:


\usepackage{nameofthepackage}

(let’s ignore packages for now and delete this command from ourdocument)



Packages









Packages









Packages









Packages









Packages









Title, author and date

Like we mentioned before, it’s a good idea to identify the document.There are three basic things:

TitleAuthorDate (if we don’t use the command, the current date is fetched fromthe system and used)

Let’s give our document a title, author and date, using theaptly-named \title, \author and \date commands:


\title{It is very simple to write good-looking documents}

\author{John Smith}

\date{June 10, 2020}









\author{John Smith}










\author{John Smith}










\author{John Smith}










\author{John Smith}










\author{John Smith}










\author{John Smith}




Actually writing something

now that we have defined our layout (an A4 paper article with 12 ptfont), let’s begin our document and write something:



\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

Hello, world! This is a good-looking document.

\end{document}







\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}


\end{document}







\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}


\end{document}



Making the title appear

Notice, however, that the title, author and date are nowhere to beseen. That’s because we only told LATEX what those things are in thepreamble. After beginning our document we didn’t actually tell LATEXto use it. To do that, we simple add the \maketitle command,which takes no arguments, in the beginning of our document:



\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle


\end{document}







\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle


\end{document}







\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle


\end{document}



Font types

Now that we have some text, we can easily change the font type.Some of the most common ones are:

font type command effect

bold \textbf{text} textemphasis \emph{text} text

small caps \textsc{text} text

Let’s try it with our text:

Hello, \textbf{world}! This is a \emph{good-looking} document.



Font types









Font types









Font types









Font types









Paragraphs

Hopefully, we will want to write more than a paragraph. It’s verysimple to accomplish that; we just need an empty line:



\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle


After this sentence we want to start a new paragraph.

That was easy. We have now started a new paragraph.

\end{document}



Paragraphs




\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle




\end{document}



Paragraphs




\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle




\end{document}



Line-breaks

We might also want something less drastic than a new paragraph, likea line-break. If we use \\, everything that follows it will start in thenext line:



\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle

Hello, \textbf{world}!\\ This is a \emph{good-looking} document.



\end{document}



Line-breaks




\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle




\end{document}



Line-breaks




\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle




\end{document}



New page

Or maybe we want something more drastic, like starting a new pagealtogether. For that, we can use the \newpage command, andeverything that follows it will start in the next page:



\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle


After this sentence\newpage we want to start a new paragraph.


\end{document}



New page




\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle




\end{document}



New page




\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle




\end{document}



Sections

After a while, it will be important to organize our text through theuse of sections. The basic commands for doing it are the following:

\part{title}

\chapter{title}

\section{title}

\subsection{title}

\subsubsection{title}

\paragraph{title}

Since we are using the article document class, let’s stick tosections, subsections and subsubsections.



Sections


\part{title}

\chapter{title}

\section{title}

\subsection{title}


\paragraph{title}




Sections


\part{title}

\chapter{title}

\section{title}

\subsection{title}


\paragraph{title}




Sections


\part{title}

\chapter{title}

\section{title}

\subsection{title}


\paragraph{title}




Sections


\part{title}

\chapter{title}

\section{title}

\subsection{title}


\paragraph{title}




Sections


\part{title}

\chapter{title}

\section{title}

\subsection{title}


\paragraph{title}




Sections


\part{title}

\chapter{title}

\section{title}

\subsection{title}


\paragraph{title}




Sections


\part{title}

\chapter{title}

\section{title}

\subsection{title}


\paragraph{title}




Sections


\part{title}

\chapter{title}

\section{title}

\subsection{title}


\paragraph{title}




Sections

Let’s delete the line-break and new page commands for the sake ofsimplicity, add some text and divided it into sections, which take titlesas the main arguments.

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\section{First Section}




\subsection{Something more specific}

This is a subsection.

\subsubsection{Something really specific}

This a subsubsection.

\end{document}



Sections


\begin{document}

\maketitle









\end{document}



Sections


\begin{document}

\maketitle









\end{document}



Table of Contents

Now that we have a seemingly structured document, withautomatically numbered sections, we might want to have a table ofcontents. The only thing we need to do is to add the\tableofcontents command to the beginning of our document:

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\tableofcontents









\end{document}



Table of Contents


\begin{document}

\maketitle

\tableofcontents









\end{document}



Table of Contents


\begin{document}

\maketitle

\tableofcontents









\end{document}



Footnotes

When something is not essential to the main text but still very usefulto include in the document, it might be a good idea to use afootnote. Although some authors are fond of them, the generalconsensus is that they should be used sparingly, as they may bedistracting to the reader or “clutter” the page.

To place a footnote, simply write the command \footnote{text} inthe exact place you want the footnote marker to be shown. Anumbered footnote will be automatically created at the bottom of thepage:

Hello, \textbf{world}!\footnote{It’s easy to create footnotes.}

This is a \emph{good-looking} document.



Footnotes







Footnotes







Footnotes







Special characters

Some characters are reserved for LATEX commands, which meansthat, in order for them not to be interpreted as commands but ascharacters, there are special commands just for them. These are someexamples, from which it’s possible to infer how other accentuationmarks can be typed:

character command

\ \textbackslash

{ \{

} \}

\_

% \%

# \#$ \$

a \~{a}

a \^{a}

a \"{a}



Special characters


character command

\ \textbackslash

{ \{

} \}

\_

% \%

# \#$ \$

a \~{a}

a \^{a}

a \"{a}



Special characters


character command

\ \textbackslash

{ \{

} \}

\_

% \%

# \#$ \$

a \~{a}

a \^{a}

a \"{a}



Special characters

We can try a couple of them out:

Hello, \textbf{world}!\footnote{It’s easy to create footnotes \&

other things.}

This is a \emph{good-looking} document, and that’s 100\% true.



Special characters



other things.}




Special characters



other things.}




Special characters

Different dashes and quotation marks also have their own special wayof being typed in LATEX :

name command result

hyphen - -n-dash -- –m-dash --- —

single quotes ‘text’ ‘text’double quotes ‘‘text" “text”



Special characters


name command result





Special characters


name command result





Special characters

Let’s try them out (the hyphen is already there):


other ‘‘things."}

This is a \emph{good-looking} ‘document’, and that’s

90--100\%---as far as I know---true. Here’s an umlaut: \"{a}.

Don’t worry, in future sessions we will show you easier ways of typing“special” characters and accents.



Special characters









Special characters









Special characters









The whole document



\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle

\tableofcontents










\subsubsection{This has to be really specific}

I don’t even know what to write here.

\end{document}Borrega & Martins (UB) Introduction to LATEX Session #1 January 14, 2013 39 / 39


The whole document



\author{John Smith}


\begin{document}

\maketitle

\tableofcontents










\subsubsection{This has to be really specific}

I don’t even know what to write here.

\end{document}Borrega & Martins (UB) Introduction to LATEX Session #1 January 14, 2013 39 / 39

Education

First LaTeX session of the BIB