Transcript ILcourse_LaTeX_2011.ppt

Information Literacy @ SKL
for Graduate Students
Instructors:
Sina Mater
25 November 2011
What is LaTeX
• LaTeX is a document markup language and
document preparation system for the TeX
typesetting program.
• LaTeX
is
most
widely
used
by
mathematicians,
scientists,
engineers,
philosophers, lawyers, linguists, economists,
researchers, and other scholars in academia.
What is it and how is it different?
• Latex is a scripting language used for writing documents.
• The advantages of this are numerous, but are most
beneficial for academic writings.
• Say if you write a scientific paper and wish to get it
published. Each publishing firm will have its own layout of
how it wants things. If you write it in Latex you only need to
change the style file to set it into their format. There is no
need for a complete rewrite.
MS Word - LaTeX
WYSIWYG
Graphics
Math. Formulas
Style changing
Citing
Reference List
Different Operating System
Free
LATEX
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
*WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get
MS Word
Yes
Yes
(Yes)
(Yes)
No
No
No
No
Getting Started
• Download the ProTeXt from web.
(It’s Free)
• Install the program to your computer.
Creating the directory
• Keep all of the associated files in a single directory.
• Latex was probably originally made for linux, so it is a little
picky about path names.
• Path names should have not special symbols or spaces. In
fact the folder that you place the files in should be kept in
the root directory on a windows machine.
• Also if you use any specialized style files they should also
be kept with the projects files. These are .sty files.
Starting Tips
• “Documentclass” is the first line.
• It starts \documentclass[options]{Class}
• Options are often specific to the class but there
are generic options for both.
• There are 5 main classes: article, letter, book,
slides and report
Starting Tips
• First define the font size. Options are 10pt, 11pt, and 12pt,
They are typed exactly like that.
• Use commas and only commas to separate options.
• The next option you can define is paper size. If you just
want regular printer paper don’t put any thing. Options for
this are letterpaper, a4paper, a5paper, b5paper,
executivepaper, and legalpaper.
• Columns:
– You can specify one or two colums with onecolumn or twocolumn
Starting Tips
• First define the font size. Options are 10pt, 11pt, and 12pt,
They are typed exactly like that.
• Use commas and only commas to separate options.
• The next option you can define is paper size. If you just
want regular printer paper don’t put any thing. Options for
this are letterpaper, a4paper, a5paper, b5paper,
executivepaper, and legalpaper.
• Columns:
– You can specify one or two colums with onecolumn or twocolumn
– \documentclass[a4paper,12pt,twocolumn]{article}
Starting Tips
• The next set of commands is the use package commands.
• Its structure is: \usepackage[options]{packagename}
• There is a set of packages that should be loaded for just about every
paper. These packages define the math symbols and how to use
images.
• If you plan on using any math then there are 3 packages that are a
must. They are:
• \usepackage{amsmath}
• \usepackage{amsfonts}
• \usepackage{amssymb}
• If you plan on using images use
• \usepackage{graphicx}
Let’s Start with LaTeX
Drawing Equations
• Online LaTeX Equation Editor
Lets expand.
b
 d 2 R 
rs   dv
I 
2 
 dt 
• I want to write the equation: i   a
• I would write:
\begin{equation}
\lambda_{i} =\iint_{a}^{b}I \left(\frac{d^{2}\Delta
R}{dt^2}\right)\delta r \delta s \sqrt{\rho} \int dv
\end{equation}
• Imagine how long that would take to put into Words
equation editor. It took me 5 minutes while I can type it in
latex in just a few seconds.
• Full lists of Mathematical symbols can be found all over
the internet. I one time found a 300 page book full of
them, and how to use each one. They were categorized
and shown.
The output in word
Reference Sources
• Latex can be used even out side of the narrow
limits that I have explored it in. A little google,
or wikibooks search will uncover lots of
information for any issue.
•
•
•
•
http://www.latex-project.org/
http://www.miktex.org/
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~jjlin/latex/
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX
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