LaTeX/Basics

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LaTeX

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• Introduction
• Beginners
• Basics
• Document Structure
• Errors and Warnings
• Titles
• Bibliography Management
• Tables
• Formatting
• Page Layout
• Mathematics
• Advanced Mathematics
• Theorems
• Labels and Cross-referencing
• Indexing
• Algorithms and Pseudocode
• Letters
• Teacher's Corner
• Importing Graphics
• Creating Graphics
• Floats, Figures and Captions
• Presentations
• Hyperlinks
• Colors
• Packages
• Advanced Topics
• Customizing LaTeX
• Collaborative Writing
• Tips / Tricks
• General Guidelines
• Export To Other Formats
• Internationalization
• Accents and Special Characters
• Useful Measurement Macros
• Index
• Command Glossary

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[edit] Document Classes

The first information LaTeX needs to know when processing an input file is the type of document the author wants to create. This is specified with the \documentclass command.

\documentclass[options]{class}

Here class specifies the type of document to be created. The LaTeX distribution provides additional classes for other documents, including letters and slides. The options parameter customizes the behavior of the document class. The options have to be separated by commas.

Example: an input file for a LaTeX document could start with the line

\documentclass[11pt,twoside,a4paper]{article}

which instructs LaTeX to typeset the document as an article with a base font size of eleven points, and to produce a layout suitable for double sided printing on A4 paper.

Here are some document classes that can be used with LaTeX:

The most common options for the standard document classes are listed in the following table:

For example, if you want a report to be in 12pt type on A4, but printed one-sided in draft mode, you would use:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper,oneside,draft]{report}

[edit] Packages

While writing your document, you will probably find that there are some areas where basic LaTeX cannot solve your problem. If you want to include graphics, colored text or source code from a file into your document, you need to enhance the capabilities of LaTeX. Such enhancements are called packages. Packages are activated with the

\usepackage[options]{package}

command, where package is the name of the package and options is a list of keywords that trigger special features in the package. Some packages come with the LaTeX base distribution. Others are provided separately.

Modern TeX distributions come with a large number of packages pre-installed. If you are working on a Unix system, use the command texdoc for accessing package documentation. For more information, see the Packages section.

[edit] Files you might Encounter

When you work with LaTeX you will soon find yourself in a maze of files with various extensions and probably no clue. The following list explains the most common file types you might encounter when working with TeX:

[edit] Big Projects

When working on big documents, you might want to split the input file into several parts. LaTeX has three commands to insert a file into another when building the document.

The simplest is the \input command:

\input{filename}

\input inserts the contents of another file, named filename.tex; note that the .tex extension is omitted. For all practical purposes, \input is no more than a simple, automated cut-and-paste of the source code in filename.tex.

The other main inclusion command is \include:

\include{filename}

The \include command is different from \input in that it's the output that is added instead of the commands from the other files. Therefore a new page will be created at every \include command, which makes it appropriate to use it for large entities such as book chapters.

Very large documents (that usually include many files) take a very long time to compile, and most users find it convenient to test their last changes by including only the files they have been working on. One option is to hunt down all \include commands in the inclusion hierarchy and to comment them out:

%\include{filename1}
\include{filename2}
\include{filename3}
%\include{filename4}

In this case, the user wants to include only filename2.tex and filename3.tex. If the inclusion hierarchy is intricate, commenting can become error-prone: page numbering will change, and any cross references won't work. A better alternative is to retain the include calls and use the \includeonly command in the preamble:

\includeonly{filename2,filename3}

This way, only \include commands for the specified files will be executed, and inclusion will be handled in only one place. Note that there must be no spaces between the filenames and the commas.

[edit] Picking suitable filenames

Never, ever use directories (folders) or file names that contain spaces. Although your operating system probably supports them, some don't, and they will only cause grief and tears with TeX. Make filenames as short or as long as you wish, but strictly avoid spaces. Stick to lower-case letters without accents (a-z), the digits 0-9, the hyphen (-), and the full point or period (.), (similar to the conventions for a Web URL): it will let you refer to TeX files over the Web more easily and make your files more portable. Some operating systems do not distinguish between upper-case and lower-case letters, others do. Therefore it's best not to mix them.

[edit] Working in a team

See chapter Collaborative Writing of LaTeX Documents.