Information Literacy @ SKL for Graduate Students

Instructors:Sina Mater

3 December 2010

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

LATEX MS WordWYSIWYG No YesGraphics Yes YesMath. Formulas Yes (Yes)Style changing Yes (Yes)Citing Yes NoReference List Yes NoDifferent Operating System Yes NoFree Yes No *WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get

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• Latex was probably originally made for linux, so it is a little picky about path names.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.

• I want to write the equation:• 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.

dvsr

dtRdI

b

ai 2

2

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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