Introduction to LaTeX - Harvard University Department of Physics

Introduction to L A T E X 

Jerome Fung 

Manoharan Group 

Department of Physics & SEAS 

July 14, 2008 

Jerome Fung (Manoharan Group) Introduction to LAT E X July 14, 2008 1 / 54

Overview 

1 Introduction 

2 Typesetting Text 

3 Typesetting Mathematics 

4 Including Figures 

5 L A T E X Resources 

6 Supplementary Topics 

7 Summary 


Part I: Introduction 


What is L A T E X? 

L A T E X is a set of macros for producing documents 

A markup language, like HTML 

Pass around examples 


A Little History 

T E X originated with computer scientist Donald Knuth in late 1970’s 

Knuth wanted to explore computerized typography/typesetting 

Very stable; current version of T E X is 3.1415926 and approaching 

π 

Low-level typesetting; harder to work with directly 

L A T E X written in 1980’s by Leslie Lamport to make it easier to 

typeset documents with T E X 

Current version is L A T E X 2ε 


The L A T E X Paradigm 

WYSIWYG: typical word processor 

What You See is What You Get 

Combines functions of inputting content and formatting 

WYSIWYM: L A T E X 

What You See is What You Mean 

Separation of content and formatting 

Inputting content and structure: your favorite text editor 

Save as a plain text file with .tex extension 

Formatting: L A T E X 

Totally separate “compile" step 

You don’t worry about appearance while writing document 


Why Use L A T E X? 

Advantages/disadvantages of both WYSIWYM and WYSIWYG 

WYSIWYM paradigm lets you concentrate on content while writing 

Easy to subsequently change global formatting 

Runs on all standard platforms; anyone can read plain text files 

Open source, free: no proprietary formats 

Easy to use with standard version control tools (CVS, SVN, 

Bazaar, etc.) 


Hello World! in L A T E X 

Let’s begin with maybe the simplest possible document. 

1 Open up Notepad. 

2 Enter the following: 

\documentclass{article} 

\begin{document} 

Hello, world! 

\end{document} 

3 Save this as latexhelloworld.tex 



What did we just do? 

First L A T E X command: \documentclass{article} 

Commands begin with a backslash (\) followed by a name 

Command names are case-sensitive 

Arguments go between braces ({ }) 

When present, optional parameters go between square brackets ([ 

]) 

\documentclass must be present at the beginning of every 

L A T E X file 

article is a standard document class pre-defined by L A T E X 

which sets formatting 

Many other document classes exist 



First example of a L A T E X environment: document 

Requires \begin{environment} and \end{environment} 

commands 

All input text between these commands is affected in a certain way 

Also required in every L A T E X file 

Body of document text goes between \begin{document} and 

\end{document} 



Next steps: 

1 Open the Command Prompt window 

2 At the c:\ prompt, enter the following: 

latex latexhelloworld.tex 

3 Observe what happens 



You should hopefully see: 

Output written on latexhelloworld.dvi (1 page, 232 bytes). 

Transcript written on latexhelloworld.log. 

What are all those files that got generated? 

.dvi This a device-independent file, the main output of L A T E X 

.log Shows what happened in last compiler run 

.aux Stores information between compiler runs – handles 

cross-references 

Open the .dvi file by double-clicking. Voila! 

But is this useful? 



Advantages of .dvi files: 

Relatively fast to generate 

Occupies less disk space 

Disadvantages: 

DVI does not include fonts within the file 

DVI viewers are relatively uncommon (have you heard of this 

format before?) 

To share documents: use PostScript (PS) or Portable Document 

Format (PDF). 



To convert a DVI file to PDF: 

dvipdfm latexhelloworld.dvi 

Alternatively, you can directly make PDFs from .tex files: 

pdflatex latexhelloworld.tex 

pdflatex can handle the same .tex files 

Exception: graphics (we’ll cover this later) 

Since you usually want a PDF anyway, we’ll use pdflatex here 


Comparison of Possible Workflows 

ps2pdf 

pdf2ps 

PostScript 

dvi2ps 

PDF 

(pdf, png, jpg) 

pdftex 

pdflatex 

tex 

latex 

DVI 

(eps) 

dvipdfm 

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX 


Part II: Typesetting Text 


Examples: on seminar webpage 

http://physics.harvard.edu/~fung/latexstuff.html 


A Second Example 

We want to do more sophisticated things than just “Hello, world!". . . 

Also, Notepad is not all that great of a text editor. 

Open the file textexample.tex 

We will use TeXnicCenter, a free, open-source L A T E X editor for 

Windows 

TeXnicCenter also allows us to avoid typing 

pdflatex textexmaple.tex at the command line 

What do you notice? 


Comments 

In a L A T E X file, the percent sign (%) is the comment symbol. 

L A T E Xignores anything on the line following % 

Also ignores whitespace on subsequent lines 

Use to add notes to the input file 

Note how you solved a particular L A T E Xproblem (as in 

programming) 

Use for debugging 


Document Structure: The Preamble 

Everything before the 

\begin{document} 

command is called the preamble. 

Generally contains commands/information relevant to entire 

document 

Additional packages: geometry and verbatim 

Information about document: title, author, date 


Additional Commands 

The abstract environment 

Sections: \section and \section* 

Subsections, subsubsections, paragraphs, subparagraphs 

Emphasized text: 

\emph{} 


Other Text Matters 

Characters with special meanings in L A T E X: 

\# \$ \% \^ \{ \} \~ \textbackslash 

Quotation marks: “ and " 

Ellipsis . . . (\ldots) 

Hyphen -, En-dash -, Em-dash -- 

Spacing after periods: Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones: 

Mr. Jones, Mr.~Jones 


Debugging 

Change \maketitle to \maektitle and see what happens on 

compile 

Common causes of errors: 

Incorrect number of braces: “Too many }’s" and “Runaway 

argument" 

"Undefined control sequence" (usually due to misspelling a 

command) 

Warnings: “overfull hbox" and “underfull hbox" 

Good habits (e.g. type both { and } at the same time) can reduce need 

for debugging 


Play around! 

Change the document class: try report 

Change the font size 

Add the twocolumn parameter to the document class command 

Geometry package 

Table of contents 

verbatim environment 

Anything else we’ve discussed 


Part III: Typesetting 

Mathematics 


Math Packages 

Several additional packages and classes produced by the American 

Mathematical Society supplement L A T E X’s native math capabilities. 

Collectively known as AMS-L A T E X 

amsmath: never hurts to include it 

amsfonts includes additional math fonts: (R, G) 

\mathbb{R}, \mathfrak{G} 

mathrsfs includes script font: (H ) 

\mathscr{H} 


Math Mode 

L A T E X distinguishes between text mode and math mode. 

Math mode within a line of text: use dollar signs ($ x = 3 $) 

Equations on a separate line: can use \[ and \] 

Best to use the AMS equation environment: 

\begin{equation} 

f(x) = 17x^3 - 9x^2 + 4x - 1 

\end{equation} 

Use equation* for an unnumbered equation 


Common Math Tasks 

Open mathexample1.tex 

Greek letters: \Delta, \pi 

Subscript and superscript: xˆ2 (x 2 ), c_{ij} (c ij ) 

Fractions: \frac{}{} 

Square roots: \sqrt{} 

Brackets/parentheses: let L A T E X set the size – ( 22 

7 ) vs. ( ) 

22 

7 

\left( \frac{22}{7} \right) 

Integrals: \int 

Use superscript and subscripts to set limits of integration 

See chart – many, many more possibilities 


Labels and References 

L A T E X lets you reference things by a name to refer to them in other 

parts of the document 

\label{sec:gausslaw}, \label{eq:quadfunc} 

Then, later reference the object or the page number it was on: 

\ref{sec:gausslaw}, \pageref{eq:quadfunc} 

L A T E X takes care of the numbering even if the numbers change 

Need to run L A T E X multiple times to get references correct 


Spacing in Math Mode 

Sometimes you may want to play with the horizontal spacing in math 

mode: 

quad Space equal to current font size 

qquad 2 quads 

\ Interword spacing 

\, 3/18 quad 

\: 4/18 quad 

\; 5/18 quad 

\! -3/18 quad 


Defining New Commands 

Open mathexamplefancy.tex 

Use \newcommand command 

For instance, if you want to change how your vectors appear, you 

can change globally 


Play around! 

Insert more equations and math of your choice 

Play with labels and references 

Play with command definitions 

Have fun – there are a gazillion things you can do 


Part IV: Including Figures 


Figures in L A T E X 

.tex files can’t embed graphics the way a word processor file can 

Some support for describing simple graphics with text 

Advanced topic; beyond the scope of this workshop 

Usually: create graphic in another application 

L A T E X commands to embed graphic file in final DVI or PDF file 

What kinds of graphic files can work with L A T E X? 


pdfL A T E X vs. L A T E X 

This is maybe the only thing where you do significantly different things 

in your .tex file depending on whether you compile with latex or 

pdflatex. 

latex Only accepts Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) files 

pdflatex Accepts PDF, PNG, and JPEG files but not EPS 

However, if you have EPS files, you can convert them to PDF with the 

epstopdf utility. 

Sometimes necessary to have multiple formats of a graphic on 

hand, if you have to be able to use either latex or pdflatex 


Obtaining Appropriate Graphics Files 

Raster graphics e.g. photos – many cameras can make JPEGS. 

Manipulate with programs like Photoshop. Very big files in 

PDF or EPS format. 

Vector graphics Generally best for line drawings and graphs. Make 

graphs with your favorite analysis package (e.g. Matlab). 

Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics drawing 

program. 

c) 


Including Graphics 

To deal with graphics, use the graphicx package. 

Open graphicsexample.tex 

Basic command to place a figure right where it appears: 

\includegraphics{imagename} 

L A T E X looks for files with that name with an extension it can handle 

Useful supplementary arguments: 

width Self-explanatory; set either width or height to 

preserve aspect ratio 

height Ditto. 

scale Scales the image by a numerical factor (e.g. 1.5 to 

blow it up) 

angle Rotate image by n degrees counterclockwise 


Digression: Measurement Units and Macros 

Common measurement units include points (pt), inches (in), 

centimeters (cm), and millimeters (mm). 

But, some macros can be easier than explicitly specifying a unit 

\textheight Height of text on the page 

\textwidth 

\pageheight Height of the page 

\pagewidth 


Figure Floats 

Notice how we placed the sine graph inside a \figure environment. 

This is called a float environment 

L A T E X decides where to place the graphic we included and 

anything else, like a caption 

Example – what if we tried to insert a graphic at the bottom of a 

page? 

Can include a caption with \caption{} 

Floats are numbered and can be referenced 

Can fiddle with spacing with \vspace and \hspace commads 


Float Placement 

L A T E X decides where in the text to place a float. 

Optional commands to specify placement: 

h Place float approximately at the point in text where 

included 

t Place float at top of page 

b Place float at bottom of page 

p Place floats on a separate page 

! Use with one of these commands to override L A T E X 

internal algorithms (avoid if possible) 


Play Around! 

Several other files for you to play with: sinc.pdf, lab.jpg, 

highpass.pdf 

Try including these graphics + text/equations of your choice 

Play with float placement 

Captions, labels, and references 


Part V: LAT E X Resources 


Installing L A T E X 

Easiest to download a distribution containing prebuilt T E X and 

L A T E X binaries, standard packages, and often other helpful 

software 

Linux Probably don’t have to do anything – many Linux 

distributions come with L A T E X. If not, try TeX Live. 

Mac MacTeX (based on TeX Live) – what I personally use 

Windows proTeXt bundles the MikTeX distribution with other 

software (including TeXnicCenter) for one-stop install. 

Alternatively, try TeX Live. 

You can also build your own binaries with TeX Live if you really know 

what you are doing. . . 


Some Text Editors 

General Purpose Emacs 

T E X Specific TeXnicCenter (Windows), WinEdt (shareware, Windows), 

TeXShop (Mac) 

Another way to “gently" start using L A T E X is LyX, a graphical frontend 

for L A T E X with much of the feel of a traditional word processor. 


Getting Additional Packages 

Best source for additional packages is the Comprehensive 

T E XArchive Network (CTAN) 

What exactly you do for a global installation depends on your 

L A T E Xdistribution – see its documentation 

You can place the style file (usually .cls) in the same directory 

where you have the .tex file (no one “officially" recommends this 

but it’s easy and works in a pinch) 


Getting Help and Learning More 

Online Resources: (links on workshop webpage) 

Books: 

lshort.pdf – Well-written, describes many features we haven’t 

had time to discuss. Strongly recommended reading and 

reference. 

L A T E X Wikibook 

Google – you’ll be surprised at how much comes up 

F. Mittelbach et. al., The L A T E X Companion. (Especially 

recommended for more advanced stuff like writing your own 

document class) 

L. Lamport, L A T E X: A Document Preparation System. (not as 

up-to-date) 

Ultimately, the only way to learn L A T E X is to use it! 


Supplementary Topics 


Including a Bibliography 

Let’s look at shortbibexample.tex. 

Use thebibliography environment 

Argument is just a placeholder for number of digits needed in 

enumeration 

You specify format of bibliography 

Works well for short bibliographies where you know the format you 

need 

Is there a more structured way to do this? 


BIBT E X 

BIBT E X strongly recommended if you have more than a few 

citations 

Open bibtexexample.tex and examplebibfile.bib 

Store structured citation information in .bib file 

Other items exist, including conference proceedings and theses 

Reference management software can output .bib files 

Bibliography style file (.bst) file takes care of formatting 

Here we use a default (plain) 

Many style files available for download, especially from journal 

publishers 

To change bibliography format, change style file 


BIBT E X Workflow 

1 First run L A T E X 

2 Then run BIBT E X: 

bibtex bibtexexample 

3 Run L A T E Xas many times as necessary to get references correct 


List Environments 

itemize 

enumerate 

description 


Summary 


Summary 

Things we’ve covered: 

Basic text 

Math mode 

Including floating graphics 

Bibliographies 

There’s much more to learn that we haven’t covered. 

Get out there and have fun with L A T E X! 


Acknowledgements 

Kathryn Hollar for support 

Xuan Liang for setting up this lab 

Kate Jensen, Chaos Golubitsky, and Vinothan Manoharan for 

suggestions 

David Kaz for his laptop 

Guangnan Meng for help with beamer 

Blake Setlow for introducing me to L A T E X 

Thank you all for coming! Please take a few moments to fill out the 

feedback form.

Introduction to LaTeX - Harvard University Department of Physics

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