LATEX

1
LATEX

• Fergus Toolan
• Intelligent Information Retrieval Group
• University College Dublin

2
What is Latex?

• Latex appeared in 1982 as an extension to TeX.
• TeX was created in 1978 by Donald Knuth (The Art
  of Computer Programming)
• It is a typesetting language.
• Especially good for Mathematical documents.

3
Components

• Latex file This is where you write your Latex
  commands and the document text. Use a .tex
  extension.
• DVI file The file generated when the .tex file
  is compiled. (DeVice independent)
• EPS Encapsulated Postscript used for graphics.
• PDF Portable Document Format.

4
Latex Commands

• \command_nameparameter list
• Some include
• \textbfHello World
• \emphHello World
• \citetoolan2003
• \\
• \titleLatex Guide

5
Beginning a document

• \documentclasstimes,10pt,twocolumnarticle
• This gives us a document using Times new Roman in
  10pt font.
• The document contains two columns
• It is of class article others include book,
  report (used for a thesis or final year report)

6
Packages

• Like programming languages Latex imports alot of
  extra functionality.
• To do this \usepackagepackage_name
• The only one you are likely to need is graphicx
• \usepackagegraphicx

7
Beginning the document

• Now we are ready to begin the document properly.
• \begindocument
• Like blocks of code in programming a begin
  directive must be followed by an end directive.
• At the end so put \enddocument

8
The Title

• \titleEssay Title
• \authorFergus Toolan \\
• Student No 12345678 \\
• Login ID s00bfxxx \\
• Email fergus.toolan_at_ucd.ie
• \maketitle

9
Comments in Latex

• Like all programming languages sometimes comments
  are essential.
• The is the comment character
• Anything appearing after is ignored by Latex.
• ----------------------- often used to divide
  sections for human readers.

10
in Latex

• is the comment character but what happens if we
  wish to print a sign.
• It must be escaped.
• To escape a character in latex use \ (like Java)
• So to print a the latex command is \

11
The Abstract

• the abstract is standard in all scientific papers
  and reports. It is a brief (lt 100 words) synopsis
  of the paper.
• To write an abstract
• \beginabstract
• text goes here
• \endabstract

12
Sections

• Sections provide some form of organisation for a
  report.
• \sectionIntroduction
• Subsections
• \subsectionName of Subsection

13
Formatting

• Paragraphs.
• Hitting the return key twice will begin a new
  paragraph
• EG
• This is paragraph 1.
• This is paragraph 2.

14
Formatting

• Newlines
• \\ gives a new line. However this must occur on a
  line with some text on it.
• Correct
• We need a new line \\
• Incorrect
• We need a new line
• \\

15
Formatting

• Fonts
• \emphtext emphasis i.e. italics
• \textbftext Bold Face.
• It is considered very bad practice to use
  underlines in Latex documents.
• This is a throwback to old manually typesetting.

16
Figures

• When a figure image, equation, algorithm etc
  appears it has a caption and a number.
• \beginfigure
• Equation algorithm image etc....
• \caption\labeleg_figThis is the eg figure
• \endfigure

17
Figures

• The previous example will appear as...
• Picture or equation appears here.
• Figure 1 This is the eg figure.

18
Figures

• To refer to a figure in text use
• As can be seen in Figure \refeg_fig the
  values....
• Hence Latex worries about the number not the
  person writing the document.

19
Graphics

• \includegraphicsfilename.eps
• Normally inside a figure.
• Encapsulated Postscript format
• convert orig_file new_file
• Or can be created in PSP or Fireworks.

20
References

• All scientific documents must contain references.
• \beginthebibliography99
• \bibitemtoolan2004 Toolan, F. A guide to
  Latex, 2004.
• \endthebibliography

21
References

• To then refer to the reference we use the
  following.
• In the guide to latex \citetoolan2004 Toolan
  stated that....
• It is essential to reference correctly.

22
Compiling

• To generate a PDF file use the following commands
• latex file.tex
• latex file.tex (must do this twice)
• xdvi file.dvi (will view the dvi file.)
• dvipdf file.dvi (will create the PDF file)
• xpdf file.pdf (to view the PDF file)