Intro to LaTeX

1. Intro to LaTeX WING meeting 12 Jan 2007

2. What’s LaTeX? • An alternative to using MS Word for writing reports and papers • Our target today: • HYP Thesis • ACM Conference Submissions • PhD Thesis • Best Practice Tools

3. Why LaTeX? • Plain Text with Markup • Forces you to concentrate on writing • Takes care of math, figure positioning, references, and tables of contents quite well. • Free! • Why not LaTeX? • Steep learning curve • Not WYSIWYG (even with 3rd party tools) • Needs compilation • Ugly tables and Figure inclusion is hard • Conclusion: use if you have time to learn

4. Example of LaTeX document \documentclass{article} \title{Simple Example} \author{Andrei Gurtov} \date{March 2000} \begin{document} \maketitle Hello world! \end{document}

5. Tabular Two Columns • Columns • \begin{tabular}{|…|…|} • \end{tabular} • Rows • & - Split text into columns • \\ - End a row • \hline - Draw line under row • e.g. 123123 & 34.00\\ \hline l = automatically adjust size, left justify r = automatically adjust size, right justify p = set size e.g p{4.7cm} c = centre text

6. Example of table \begin{tabular}{|l|r|c|} \hline Date & Price & Size \\ \hline Yesterday & 5 & big \\ \hline Today & 3 & small \\ \hline \end{tabular}

7. Floating Objects • Floating objects can stop splitting of tables and images over pages. \begin{figure}[options] \end{figure} \begin{table}[options] \end{table} • They will now appear in the • List of Figures (LOF) and • List of Tables (LOT). Options (recommendations) h = place table here t = place at top of page b = place at bottom of page

8. Example of floating figure • \begin{figure}[ht] • \centering\epsfig{file=uni.ps, width=5cm} • \caption{University of Helsinki} • \label{uni} • \end{figure} Width and height modifiers Figure~\ref{uni} shows...

9. Some Math \begin{center} {\large $$ y=\frac{a^3+2c_{x}}{1+\sqrt{b_{x}}} $$ \\ \vspace{0.2in} $$ Q=\sum_{i=1}^{j}\int_{\mu}^{\infty}f(x_{j})dx $$ \\ \vspace{0.2in} $$ \Psi = \oint_{- \infty}^{\infty}f_{xy}({\frac{\partial Qx}{\partial Qy}})^{\Im_{\pi}^ \prime} $$ \\ }

10. Local .sty and .cls files • These are the files that control the formatting of the final file (look&feel) • LaTeX uses .sty (style files) • LaTeX2E uses .cls (class files) • For HYP reports use Wei Tsang’s page • Google “latex ooiwt” or “latex nus soc” • For Ph.D. thesis use Hang’s template • www.cuihang.com/software/thesis_template.zip • Or WING cvs sg/edu/nus/comp/hang/thesis_template • For papers, start with the ACM template • Google “acm latex template”, use alternate tighter style

11. Trivial to do • Create a table of contents • Create a table of figures • Create the bibliography • Only records that were referenced will be included • This means you can keep all of the references you will ever use in one BibTex file.

12. Bibliography using BibTex • Bibliography information is stored in a*.bib file, in BibTex format. • Include chicago package (at top) • \usepackage{chicago} • Set referencing style (at end) • \bibliographystyle{chicago} • Create reference section by • \bibliography{bibfile with no extension}

13. Bibliography using Bibtex @book{Come95, author=“D. E. Comer”, title={Internetworking with TCP/IP: Principles, Protocols and Architecture}, publisher=“Prentice-Hall”, year=1995, volume=1, edition=“Third”}

14. Bibliography contd. • Citing references in text • \cite{cuc98} = (Cuce 1998) • \citeN{cru98} = Crud (1998) • \shortcite{tom98} = (Tom, et. al. 1998) • Creating Bibtex Files • Use Emacs with extensions. • or copy Bibtex entries from bibliography database. • ACM Portal has option to get BibTex reference

15. Problems • Often LaTeX will fail with an error. • If it has a question mark for you, type “x” and press enter. • This will quit LaTeX. • When LaTeX dies like this, it is almost always because you screwed up.

16. How to solve problems • Look at the error LaTeX gave you. • It will have a line number which will help you find the error. • Common mistakes: • Mismatched \begin{}/\end{} blocks • Mismatched {/} • Mismatched $, $$, or \(\) or \[\] • Misspelled keywords • Sometimes lines are too long. This isn’t fatal but looks bad. LaTeX outputs a warning with a line number so you can fix it.

17. Best Practice Tools • make to create your pdf file • Use another program to create eps or pdf figures for inclusion. • PowerPoint, or xfig • Use graphicx or epsfig package for eps figures • You can import raster graphics (jpg) but this is trickier; make sure resolution is correct • Use GhostView to see revisions • Can read PDF, not as slow or feature heavy as Acrobat Reader • Handles re-opens well • Need to count words? • Use my texWordCount.pl script, from my software page.

18. General Best Practices • Check in your revisions very often to get CVS to backup your stuff • You may need to refer to your old files • Do comment your revisions • Use in file CVS $Id$ and $Log$ to see revision history • Use specific comments • Comments start with % but don’t show • Use % BUG: to tell me what to correct, I will do the same • Use % GUB: to tell me what’s fixed; I will then delete the line if I agree • Use inline notes {\em BUG: xxx } • If you need me to see a thing wrt to the actual file.

19. Need help? • Use the web; learn by example • One in particular: Hypertext help for LaTeX • http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~kanmy/latex (local)