Revision as of 07:43, 23 October 2014

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Objective

Short introduction to LaTeX for those who never use it before.

Antall Deltakere

Introduction to LaTeX

Slide Show

Title

LaTeX

Subtitle

First steps

Author

Iñaki Garitano

Footer

Introduction to LaTex

Subfooter

UNIKUM kollokvie

⌘ What is LaTeX

• LaTeX = markup language
  • Syntactically easy to distinguish from the text
  • We have text and we have instructions
• TeX vs LaTeX
  • TeX = computer program
    • Input = file with text and instructions
    • Output = document with a certain style
  • LaTeX = TeX + set of macros (small programs)
    • Objective = make easier the life of editors
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Introduction#What_is_TeX.3F

⌘ Why do I need LaTeX

• Used in:
  • Books
  • Scientific articles
  • Thesis
  • Presentations
• Useful for:
  • Collaborative writing
  • Not to struggle with formatting
  • Mathematical formulas
  • Bibliographic references

⌘ Drawbacks

• Needs time to learn
• What you see is not what you get
• Tables (could be a nightmare), not any more
• Positioning tables, figures, is not easy
• Needs to generate the output file, PDF

⌘ Advantages

• Flexibility and modularity
  • Split the document into different files
  • Reorder sections without any complication
• Concentrate in the content, not the layout
• Could be used within many editors
• Easy to create:
  • Indexes
  • Citations
  • References
  • Footnotes
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Introduction

⌘ Installation & Requirements

• Requirements
  • LaTeX distribution
    • Windows = MiKTeX
    • OS X = MacTeX
    • Linux, OS X, Windows = TeX Live
  • Editor
    • TeXstudio
    • TeXshop
    • TeXmaker
    • ...
• Installation
  • First LaTeX distribution
  • Then Editor
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Installation

⌘ How does it look like

• Main idea => blocks of text where an instruction will be applied

\instruction
  Text under instruction

\begin{instructions}
  Text under instruciton
\end{instruction}

% Comments
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
  \begin{center}
     Hello world!
  \end{center}
\end{document}

• Show example

⌘ Good practices

• Documents, more than one page
  • Create a .tex file for each section
• Tables => usually a nightmare
  • Starting point => http://www.tablesgenerator.com
• Inkscape
  • Convert bitmaps to vectorial images
  • Create vectorial images
  • Safe in many different formats
    • Including PDF
• Good to know how LaTeX works
  • Difference between DVI, PS, PDF
  • http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Basics
  • http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Basics#mediaviewer/File:LaTeX_diagram.svg

⌘ Bibliography

• Starting point => BiBTeX file
  • Bibliography database file
• Compile => bbl file
• If small changes are needed, like special characters
  • Copy bbl content into our .tex file
  • Modify the entries
  • No need to compile again

⌘ Collaboration

• Split the document into different files
  • Each collaborator can work in a different section
• Each sentence in a new line.
  • Easier to work with software version control system
  • YES

+ -----------.  ----x------.
- --------.      -------.
- -----------.  -----------.

• • NO

+ -----------. --------. -----------.    -----------. ---x----. -----------.

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