LaTeX Beginner's Guide: Create visually appealing texts, articles, and books for business and science using LaTeX

Description

LaTeX is a high-quality open source typesetting software that produces professional prints and PDF files. However, as LaTeX is a powerful and complex tool, getting started can be intimidating, and specific aspects such as layout modifications can seem rather complicated. Using Microsoft Word or other word-processing software may seem more straightforward, but once you've become acquainted, LaTeX's capabilities far outweigh any initial difficulties. This book guides you through these challenges and makes beginning with LaTeX easy. If you are writing mathematical, scientific, or technical papers, this is the perfect book for you. LaTeX Beginner's Guide Second Edition offers you a practical introduction to LaTeX. Beginning with the installation and basic usage, you will learn to typeset documents containing tables, figures, formulas, and common book elements such as bibliographies, glossaries, and indexes. Lots of step-by-step examples start with fine-tuning text, formulas, and page layout, and proceed with managing complex documents and using modern PDF features. It's easy to start with LaTeX when you have LaTeX Beginner's Guide Second Edition at hand. This practical book will guide you through the essential steps of LaTeX, from installing LaTeX, formatting, and justification, to page design. Right from the beginning, you will learn to use macros and styles to maintain a consistent document structure while saving typing work. This book will help you learn to create professional-looking tables, along with including figures and writing complex mathematical formulas. You will see how to generate bibliographies and indexes with ease. Finally, you will learn how to manage complex documents and how to benefit from modern PDF features. Detailed information about online resources such as software archives, web forums, and online compilers complement this introductory guide. Cover Title Page Copyright and Credits Contributors Table of Contents Preface Chapter 1: Getting Started with LaTeX Technical requirements What is LaTeX? Benefits of LaTeX Virtues of open source Separation of form and content Portability Protection for your work How to get started with LaTeX Approaches to working with LaTeX Installing and using LaTeX Installing TeX Live using the net installer wizard Installing TeX Live offline Installing TeX Live on other operating systems Updating TeX Live and installing new packages Creating our first document Checking out advanced LaTeX editors Working with LaTeX online using Overleaf What Overleaf requires and delivers Benefits of Overleaf Caveats of working online Creating our first document online Exploring Overleaf Grammar and language feedback with Writefull Reviewing and commenting Accessing documentation Summary Chapter 2: Formatting Text and Creating Macros Technical requirements Working with logical formatting Creating a document with a title and heading Exploring the document structure Understanding LaTeX commands Understanding LaTeX environments Understanding how LaTeX reads our input Printing out special symbols Modifying the text fonts Adjusting the font shape Choosing the font family Confining the effect of commands by braces Exploring font sizes Creating our own commands Using macros for simple text Proper spacing after commands Creating more universal commands and using arguments Using boxes to limit the width of paragraphs Creating a narrow text box Producing common paragraph boxes Exploring further features of paragraph boxes Using mini pages Breaking lines and paragraphs Improving hyphenation Preventing hyphenation Improving the justification Breaking lines manually Exploring line breaking options Preventing line breaks Turning off full justification Creating ragged-right text Creating ragged-left text Centering text Using environments for justification Displaying quotes Quoting longer text Summary Chapter 3: Designing Pages Technical requirements Creating a book with chapters Defining the margins Using class options Designing headers and footers Understanding page styles Customizing headers and footers Using decorative lines in headers or footers Changing LaTeX's header marks Using footnotes Modifying the footnote line Using packages to expand footnote styles Breaking pages Enlarging a page Changing the line spacing Creating a table of contents Summary Chapter 4: Creating Lists Technical requirements Building lists Creating a bulleted list Building an enumerated list Producing a definition list Customizing lists Getting compact lists Choosing bullets and numbering format Suspending and continuing lists Summary Chapter 5: Including Images Technical requirements Including an image Choosing an optimal file type Scaling an image Including whole pages Putting images behind the text Managing floating images Understanding placement options Forcing the output of figures Limiting floating Avoiding floating at all Arranging several images Letting text flow around images Summary Chapter 6: Creating Tables Technical requirements Using tab stops to write in columns Typesetting tables Drawing lines in tables Understanding formatting arguments Increasing the row height Beautifying tables Adjusting lengths Spanning entries over multiple columns Inserting code column-wise Spanning entries over multiple rows Adding captions to tables Placing captions above Customizing captions Using packages for further customizations Auto-fitting columns to the table width Generating multi-page tables Coloring tables Using landscape orientation Aligning columns at the decimal point Handling narrow columns Summary Chapter 7: Using Cross-References Technical requirements Setting labels and references Assigning a label Referring to a label Referring to a page Using advanced referencing Producing intelligent page references Fine-tuning page references Referring to page ranges Using automatic reference names Combining intelligent references with automatic naming Referring to labels in other documents Turning references into hyperlinks Summary Chapter 8: Listing Contents and References Technical requirements Customizing the table of contents Adjusting the depth of the TOC Shortening entries Adding entries manually Creating and customizing lists of figures Creating a list of tables Using packages for customization Generating an index Defining index entries and subentries Specifying page ranges Using symbols and macros in the index Referring to other index entries Fine-tuning page numbers Designing the index layout Creating a bibliography Using the standard bibliography environment Using bibliography databases with BibTeX Looking at the BibTeX entry fields Referring to Internet resources Understanding BibTeX entry types Choosing the bibliography style Listing references without citing Changing the headings Summary Chapter 9: Writing Math Formulas Technical requirements Writing basic formulas Embedding math expressions within text Displaying formulas Numbering equations Adding subscripts and superscripts Using operators Taking roots Writing fractions Writing Greek letters Writing script letters Producing an ellipsis Changing the font, style, and size Customizing displayed formulas Typesetting multi-line formulas Numbering rows in multi-line formulas Inserting text into formulas Exploring the wealth of math symbols Binary operation symbols Binary relation symbols Inequality relation symbols Subset and superset symbols Arrows Harpoons Symbols derived from letters Miscellaneous symbols Writing units Variable sized operators Variable sized delimiters Building math structures Creating arrays Typesetting matrices Writing binomial coefficients Underlining and overlining Setting accents Putting a symbol above or below another one Writing theorems and definitions Further tools for writing mathematics Summary Chapter 10: Using Fonts Technical requirements Using comprehensive font bundles Latin Modern – a replacement for the standard font Kp-Fonts – another extensive set of fonts Using specific font families Serif fonts Sans-serif fonts Typewriter fonts Calligraphic fonts Using arbitrary fonts Selecting the main font Selecting multiple font families Summary Chapter 11: Developing Large Documents Technical requirements Splitting the input Including small pieces of code Including bigger parts of a document Compiling parts of a document Creating front and back matter Designing a title page Working with templates Summary Chapter 12: Enhancing Your Documents Further Technical requirements Using hyperlinks and bookmarks Adding hyperlinks Customizing hyperlinks Creating hyperlinks manually Creating bookmarks manually Using math formulas and special symbols in bookmarks Designing headings Coloring our documents Summary Chapter 13: Troubleshooting Technical requirements Understanding and fixing errors Handling the preamble and document body Using commands and environments Writing math formulas Working with files Creating tables and arrays Working with lists Working with floating figures and tables General syntax errors Handling warnings Justifying text Referencing Choosing fonts Placing figures and tables Customizing the document class Avoiding obsolete classes and packages General troubleshooting Summary Chapter 14: Using Online Resources Web forums, Q&A sites, and discussion boards LaTeX.org TeX and LaTeX on Stack Exchange Forums in other languages Usenet groups Lists of frequently asked questions Mailing lists TeX user group sites The TeX Users Group DANTE The LaTeX project UK TUG – TeX in the United Kingdom Other local user groups Websites for LaTeX software and editors LaTeX distributions LaTeX editors CTAN – the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network Graphics galleries LaTeX blogs Twitter messages Summary Other Books You May Enjoy Index