Introduction to Latex

This introduction is given by David Reid

Why is LATEX great for technical docs?

• Separate content from style.
• Good layout (usually).
• Excellent for managing references (including gure numbers).

LATEX basics: Commands and Environments

Uses commands to do something special：

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\commandname[optional_args]{required_args}

Uses environments to treat sections specially：

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\ begin{environment} ... \ end{environment}

Structure of a LATEX document

• Preamble
  • Collection of commands that specify global processing parameters
• Body
  • Actual text mixed with LATEX commands.

What goes in the preamble?

The first is:

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\documentclass[options]{class}

• its options:
  • font size (10pt,12pt, etc.)
  • page format (onecolumn, twocolumn)
• its class choices:
  • book, article, letter (others: gatech-thesis, ieeetran)

The second is:

• Title and Author information (these are like global variables)

Some Notes as input in Body

1. paragraphs (need blank line between each paragraph)
2. quotation marks (use tick mark for leading quote marks)
3. percent sign - a reserved character (replace with \%)

Section headers

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\section{Section Title}

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\label{yourlabel}

use the following conventions for labels:

figures = fig:name
tables = tab:name
sections = sec:name

And you can reference it in the text with

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\ref{yourlabel}

Math in LATEX

The math engine in LATEX is extremely powerful

Equations are build using a markup language

Two ways to add math:

• Inline:

  1	$ type equation here $

• Equation environment:

  1	\begin{equation} type equation here \end{equation}

You can use AMS-MATH LATEX package to for more symbols

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\usepackage{amsmath}

Important things to know as using math in LaTex

Subscripts:

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var_{subscript}

Superscripts:

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var^{superscript}

Fractions:

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\frac{num}{denom}

Greek letters:

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\lettername or \Lettername

Reference Book is here

Adding graphics to the document

• You can use a LATEX package to import graphics from external programs
• Called graphicx
• File types:
  • LATEX: .eps
  • PDFLATEX: .pdf, .png, .jpg

Important things to know as Adding graphics in LaTex

• Add the figure
  • Import the package in the preamble:
    \usepackage{graphicx}
  • Setup the gure environment:
    \begin{figure} ... end{figure}
  • Add the gure:
    \includegraphics{buzz.jpg}
  • Compile
• Adjust the figure
  • Optional arguments:
    \includegraphics[key=value]{buzz.jpg}
    scale = number
    height = number, width = number
    angle = number
    plus more
  • Try one:
    \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{buzz.jpg}
  • Center Buzz: add the command \centering to the environment
• Place figure
  • Optional arguments: \begin{figure}[where]
    ht: here (as close to here as possible)
    t: top
    b: bottom
    p: on its own page or column
  • We can make the gure span two columns by changing \begin{figure} and \end{figure} to \begin{figure} and \end{figure}
• Captions
  • Simple: \caption{text}
  • You can use any LATEX commands in the caption.
  • Try it: \caption{This is buzz. Unlike Hairy Dawg, he knows $\pi \neq 3$.}
• Labeling
  • Works just like labeling sections
  • \label{yourlabel}
  • Try it: \label{fig:buzz}
  • And you can reference it in the text with \ref{fig:buzz}.
  • And you can create a list of gures with \listoffigures !
• How to create figures
  • Vector or Raster?
  • Ways to generate vector images
    • Export .eps from Matlab, Mathematica, etc.
    • Corel Draw
    • Adobe Illustrator
    • Inkscape (free)
    • maa
    • Convert vector graphics to pdf with Acrobat

References in LATEX

• LATEX is great for documents with references
• We will use BibTeX to manage references
• BibTeX requires two things to work:
  • Commands in the source file
  • Bibliography (.bib) file
• Commands in the source file
  • To the body, add: \bibliographystyle{plain}
  • Choices: plain, unsrt, abbrv \bibliography{mybib} mybib.bib is the bibliography file
• Bibliography file
  • A database of all your references
  • Can be reused for other documents!
  • Open mybib.bib for examples
  • Open bibtextemplates.txt for examples
• Citing a reference
  • Similar to referencing a label
    \cite{Clough:2004}

More resources

• www.prism.gatech.edu/_gte449i/latex/.
• Tons of information on the web.
• Many good books available: Kopka and Daly, “A Guide to LATEX”.

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