An introduction to LaTeX

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An introduction to LaTeX

Dr. Paul HancockThe University of Sydney

Overview

What is LaTeX? Why use LaTeX? How to use LaTeX Common tricks Further references/resources

What is LaTeX?

TeX is a typesetting system LaTeX is a document markup language based on

TeX “a programming language that produces

documents”

Why Use LaTeX?

LaTeX can typeset equations and symbols with ease LaTeX can update citations and references automatically LaTeX separates content and structure from formatting and

style: You provide content/structure (.tex files) Publisher provides formatting and style (.sty files)

Ideally you spend more time on content than on formatting Most (astronomy) journals require submissions to be in

LaTeX

LaTeX example

You can access many symbols and characters without needing to choose crazy fonts that no-one else has

L_{Edd}=4\pi GMm_{p}c/\sigma_{T}\cong1.3\times10^{38}(M/M_{\odot})\,\mathrm{erg\: s^{-1}} becomes:

How to use LaTeX

Edit ms.tex in your favorite text editor (emacs/vim/etc)

“Compile” your document and open latex ms.tex; xdvi ms.dvior pdflatex ms.tex; acroread ms.pdf

latex or pdflatex?

“latex ms.tex” will produce .dvi files that can be read by xdvi latex will leave spaces for eps/ps files which are then

added in by xdvi when displaying your document “pdflatex ms.tex” will produce .pdf files that can be

read by acrobat “pdflatex” will embed png/jpg files within the pdf itself

.pdf files are more easily transported cross platform and are smaller in size than .dvi+eps files

Graphics format

You cannot use eps/ps and png/jpg graphics in the same document

Vector graphics Resolution independent Files size depends on content not image size Can be manipulated within latex using psfrag

Raster graphics Fixed resolution and file size More easily portable (no fonts needed)

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Basic components

Sections

Use \section*{} for un-numbered sections

Figures

\begin{figure}\end{figure}Placement of figure (h! = here damnit!)Center figure

within available space

Size of figure Filename (extension optional)Caption text

Label (must be *after* caption)

TablesColumn alignment (left, right center) use | here for lines between columns

& to separate columns

\\ to end row

\begin{tabular}makes columnsHorizontal lines

\caption must be after \end{tabular}

Label (must be after caption)

Equations and symbols

Inline mathmode uses $...$ Superscript uses ^, subscript uses _

For more than a single character: use 10^{-15} or S_{radio}

Equations and symbols

Equation environment uses \begin{equation} \end{equation}

Large ([{| in equations

\left( \right) \left{ \right} \left| \right| \left[ \right]

For matrices use \begin{array} \end{array} (cf. tabular)

These will scale with the height of whatever they enclose, including nested brackets.

References and labels

Create labels with \label{fig:good_plot} \label{sec:introduction}

Reference with \ref{sec:introduction}

Citations and Bibliography

\usepackage{natbib} for easy bibliography Create a bibliography file eg, ms.bib Use \citep{Kormendy1995} when you want to cite

the paper See http://merkel.zoneo.net/Latex/natbib.php for

more ways to cite papers/authors At the end of your document write

\bibliographystyle{plainnat} \bibliography{ms}

Creating a bibliography

Type of entry (@article, @book, @inproceedings, …)

Citation key for \citep{Kormendy1995}

Bibliographic information

ADS can provide .bib entries

Bibliographic entry that you can copy into your .bib file. Usually needs editing.

And then in the bibliography:

Getting bibtex to work

(pdf)latex/bibtex rely on each other so you must do: Latex ms.tex % will complain about undefined \cite Bibtex ms % update ms.bbl and fix missing \cite Latex ms.tex % replace ??? with actual citations Latex ms.tex % fix long citations that overhang

Sometimes it all goes bad and you need to start fresh: >rm *.aux *.bbl

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} to avoid problems with unicode. eg, names like Königl

Citation management

JabREF – Java stand alone Zotero – Browser plugin + stand alone Mendeley – Online + stand alone Papers2 –OSX/iOS stand alone ADS native – online Many more No universal solution

Still better than by-hand management

Table of contents

\tableofcontents Long section titles

can be a problem \section[short

name]{long name} can avoid this

[short name] will appear in the ToC

{long name} appears in the text

List of figures/tables

\listoffigures \listoftables Captions will be used

as labels. \caption[short cap]

{long cap} can avoid this

[short cap] appears in LoF/LoT

{long cap} appears in text

Typesetting Code

\usepackage{listings} % For highlighting code \usepackage{color} % For colour Provides syntax highlighting for many different

languages Import whole files with \lstinputlisting{example.py} Short codes with

\begin{lstlisting}[language=matlab] \end{lstlisting}

code.tex

Useful Resources

Examples and templates: LaTeXthings.tar from www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~hancock/index.php/Main/

LaTeX I will maintain this page and update with examples upon

request Send me your solutions to problems

Fellow students PhD students and Postdocs are a good resource

(they have more time than professors)

Detexify

http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html is an easy to use lookup service for latex commands