Talk:LaTeX

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Contents

[edit] About

[edit] Creation

Andy Roberts agreed to add his tutorials. I've uploaded these as HTML source, and changed the links on the front page to lead to them (not that I have anyhting against the previous modules, which I haven't deleted, and I hope can be incorporated. Andy's are just a lot more polished and complete). Hopefully, now people will reorganize and add to these, since we have a lot more to work with now.

Please, if you use any material that I have posted here from Andy's webpage, or think you might have, add the tag {{A-Roberts}}. This adds the message:

This page uses material from Andy Roberts' Getting to grips with Latex with permission from the author.

which is the least we can do to acknowledge his generous contribution (not to mention, probably required by licenses). Jtwdog 21:43, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Topic suggestions

I see no help how to write letters and slides [1] [2]. Furthermore, there is not much about creating books with LaTeX. I haven't found any mention about the possibility to use another title of chapter in TOC and text (\section[Short]{Long title}) or hide a chapter/section in the TOC (\section*{Hidden section}). Perhaps we should introduce three separate chapters of this wikibook: Letters, Slides and Books with tips for every document class. Most of contents of LaTeX/General Guidelines can be moved to "Books" section. --Derbeth talk 18:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, go for it! but I have no experience about letters and slides, so I can't help. I can do something for the book section, even if I have always used the report class. Alessio Damato 17:45, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I would also suggest a topic, about creating graph and automaton with Graphviz and GasTex. I will try to start a chapter about it when I get more time, but anyone who want to go ahead and create it is welcomed. --Staz (talk) 18:07, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Great news: including books!

Great news everyone: since we have already introduced a book within this wikibook, I have contacted the authors of other books about LaTeX asking them for the permission to include their work as well. Now we have the permission to include Beginner's guide by Peter Flynn and the not so short introduction to LaTeX by Tobias Oetiker. I will add more details about licensing in the LaTeX/Links page, but if you want to improve this wikibook, you are allowed to copy and paste here as you wish. Alessio Damato 20:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Syntax highlighting

Hi, I've scanned through all the chapters, and standardized many of the code snippets that were previously declared either using:

  1. <pre>\latexcode{}</pre>
  2. \latexcode{} (1 space indent)
  3. :<code>\latexcode{}</code> (or :<tt>\latexcode{}</tt>)

with a more formal (and new):

<source lang="latex">
\latexcode{}
</source>

Look in the chapters to see real examples. There are many advantages using this format, most notably is the highlighting of code to help users discern the elements of the code. Also, you can use direct source from your LaTeX projects, and not have to worry about converting < to &lt;, etc. (if you used <code>…</code> or <tt>…</tt> tags). However, I've seen a few disadvantages of using the syntax highlighting, which are the associated bugs. So far, I've identified one minor one:

\section{Results}
There is a 40\% increase of production between $a$ and $b$.

where the \% is a valid escape, and not the beginning of a comment. I suppose if there are any other easily identifiable bugs, report them to the project page: GeSHi. Considering that these bugs can be fixed in future releases of WikiMedia, using this syntax highlighting to existing LaTeX code in this Wikibook is a compatible upgrade. Happy editing! +mt 02:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reuse of LaTeX wikibook

JISC has published an invitation to submit proposals for the re-use of learning content. I'm considering applying for this, and would like to use this WikiBook as one of the sources to be reused.

I intend to use MathTran and something like Troy Henderson's LaTeX previewer to provide interactivity.

The best way to contact me about this is by email, to J.Fine at open.ac.uk. Applications close on 30th November 2007, but for other reasons I have to complete my work on this application by 20th November. So time is short.

Jonathan Fine 13:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I'm sorry, I tried to 'undo' the work of a vandal, but it appears that someone has to move the page back. 84.53.74.196 09:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Appendix Useful Size Commands Redundant

I would like to propose that the appendix Useful Size Commands be removed. It is redundant with LaTeX/Formatting#Font_Styles_and_size Tully (talk) 03:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The page is meant to be an appendix and act as a reference. Since it links to the other page, I say we keep it as a helpful additional reference. -withinfocus 04:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

I would propose to capitalize the headings of the sections of this textbook in title case, as opposed to sentence case.

Case Appearance
title case The Title of the Section
sentence case The title of the section

Currently, the capitalization of section headings in this book is inconsistent. The Wikibooks naming convention requires the names of the chapters (not of sections) to be in title case. Interestingly enough, the policy itself uses sentence case in section headings. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

A downside to this proposal is that the majority of section headings in the book now seem to be in sentence case. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hey, we are quite popular

According to http://wikistics.falsikon.de/latest/wikibooks/en/, LaTeX textbook was 5th most popular wikibook in August. Yay! More than 800 hits per day for the table of contents is not so bad at all, and chapters like Floats, Tables, Mathematics and Formatting get 300-400 hits per day. --Derbeth talk 11:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Structuring the book

At its inception, the book was structured and the names of the chapters chosen by the task or aim the user wants to achieve (like "Creating Mathematical Graphics"), and not what the technical means there is for doing it (like "xyPic"). I propose this approach is continued.

For the purpose of quickly finding the right place in the book by a keyword, such as "xyPic", the right tool is index; the purpose of table of contents is different.

Put differently, this is much more a user guide than a reference manual.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 08:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Packages

Adding the individual packages to the table of contents can easily clutter the structure of the book. I propose that packages are added with care, possibly only as sections of either the Packages chapter or Package Reference chapter.

Also, creating chapters for tasks, not for packages, is IMHO preferable.

Examples:

Users coming to grips with LaTeX have the names of tasks in their minds already present (such as "I want to create and Index, and I see the idea under the letter I, not under M of makeidx.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 10:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I have now added some packages to LaTeX/Index, so please, before you start a chapter on a package (which is IMHO a poor idea anyway), check whether the package is already covered, by looking in the index. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Okay, creating a chapter on a package is not all that bad. Someone will need to edit it, and move it around, but the text will already be there. The point is: try to find out the task that the package should achieve, and create a chapter for that task, documenting the package in that chapter. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Glossary

The current Glossary chapter is not a wikt:glossary but an alphabetical index of LaTeX keywords. AFAIK, glossary defines terms used in the book, not keywords.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 10:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so this actually is a glossary, provided it defines the commands, and what I have called "keywords" is usually called commands in the LaTeX context. I have moved the page to LaTeX/Command Glossary. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Order of chapters

I have moved "Importing Graphics" after "Letters", so that it neighbors "Creating Graphics". In any case, "Importing Graphics" was before "Formatting", which is suprising, as "Formatting" should be IMHO one of the first, basic chapters. Also, "Importing Graphics" was also before "Mathematics", another surprising fact, as LaTeX is AFAIK mostly used for mathematical typesetting, which does not always require graphics; and the mathematics support is built in, while the support for graphics comes through packages. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple parts about: Creating packages

There are some multiple parts about 'creating packages' See

And I think it should be under the section LaTeX/Packages.

I added some links to each other, but of course somethings should me merged/moved. -- LR (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

One way of ensuring that the coverage of topics in the book is documented, which can minimize duplication of content, is to add the topic to the index, as I did for the topic of "creating packages" in this edit. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Book Errors

Found this on page 23, and I don't think it's supposed to be there (the spaces aren't there, but I don't know how to display it regardless):

< /code>\input< /code>

[edit] Sectioning the book

Considering there is at least 3 dozen chapters, what about dividing the table of contents on main page into parts? For example, the first three chapters and the 'Errors and Warnings' may be chapters within Part 1 (perhaps called introduction too?), while structure, title creation, page layout, and fonts could be another part. --Sargas (talk) 18:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Just for the hell of it I made these changes, someone please comment on how it looks, revert if ya don't like. Looking at the tips and tricks and the advanced chapters I think those can be moved to the other pages, which is why they are in the category they are in.--Sargas (talk) 15:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks like someone has since reverted the changes. I do think it was a good idea using sections: the list is getting quite long, and the current order is rather arbitrary and confusing (why is fonts at the bottom, and not near formatting?). My ideas for headings:

  • Introduction and basics (first 5 of current list)
  • Formatting and layout (formatting, page layout, fonts, colours, labels, hyperlinks, etc.)
  • Mathematics (currently two, but could probably be split better)
  • Further material (graphics, captions, tables, indexes, bibliographies etc.)
  • Advanced LaTeX (customizing, packages, collaborative writing, etc.)

Comments?—3mta3 (talk) 13:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Changing "Algorithms and Pseudocode" and adding Code

This chapter doesn't quite make sense. The listings package described works for code, not pseudo-code, so it is out of place. I think it is more useful then the algorithm typesetting packages listed, so perhaps we can combine listings (with the information in LaTeX/Packages/Listings with a section on the verbatim package. Anyone know any other techniques for programming languages? --Sargas (talk) 06:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Another package for pseudocode is clrscode. I would like to see it described but (1) there are already lots of alternative and (2) I don't have time myself to do a good job now :( 193.1.132.191 (talk) 17:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

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