# All Questions

14k views

### How can I import an exam or assignment from Word into LaTeX?

This is a counterpart to "How can I typeset an exam or assignment paper in LaTeX?", which was from a teacher looking for a template to compose assignments and exams. I'm a student, and I'd like to ...
4k views

### How do I change my margins and spacing to fit the PhD thesis requirements of University XYZ?

Even-odd pages, inner edge 2.5cm, outer edge 1.5cm top and bottom 2cm. 1.5 spacing between the lines, double between paragraphs, no indent. A general solution for other requirements would be best.
2k views

### How to painlessly create a custom layout for the title page for pdflatex?

For my thesis my university has only a Word template with font sizes and "window" specifications to position title, name, date, etc. What is the easiest way to layout such thing, if I'm not an expert ...
2k views

### IDE / Best known method for writing Hebrew documents with LaTeX

I usually use LyX to prepare lecture notes, course summaries, etc. The reason I use LyX and not LaTex directly is twofold - I usually need to type in real time - summing a lecture. I think for this ...
961 views

### What is the best way to scan over a list of somethings?

It seems that a common operation needed when defining new commands is to scan over a list of arguments (separated e.g. by a comma, but maybe by something else) and do something with each argument in ...
3k views

### Multiple Tables Sweave/Latex

I am very new to LaTeX and Sweave but am excited that it may make my life much simpler when combined with R. What I am looking to do: Create multiple crosstabs, most likely in a loop. As a result, ...
2k views

### Syntax of TeX/LaTeX

{} and [] do some kind of grouping, and comma seems to be special as well. Being a programmer I find it frustrating to use Latex on incantation-only basis. I would like to know how does it exactly ...
11k views

### What is the practical difference between latex and pdflatex?

I understand that some packages (like PSTricks) can't be used with pdflatex. Are there any other differences between these tools? Can we say that pdflatex is better if we don't care about ps?
8k views

### How to draw a torus

Is there an easy way to draw a contour image of torus below with tikz? Or for that matter with any other graphics package.
67k views

### How to create posters using LaTeX

I want to create posters for my poster presentation on a conference. What tools or LaTeX classes are available for preparing posters ?
230k views

### LaTeX Editors/IDEs

What editors/IDEs are available for easing the process of writing TeX/LaTeX documents? Please state some useful features like code completion, spell checking, building final DVI or PDF files, etc. ...
73k views

### How to change certain pages into landscape/portrait mode

How can I change some pages into document into landscape mode, while leaving the others in portrait mode (or vice versa)?
250 views

### Is there a way to stop the vertical spread of multiple super- and sub-scripts?

I'd like to be able to place multiple sub and superscripts (in maths mode) on an element without having them expand vertically. That is, so that in the output of ${x^2_4}^6_8$, the 2 and 6 were ...
1k views

### Can I change the font and colour of a letter permanently?

For my lectures, I like to colour the symbols in the equations to make it easier to follow what's going on - a bit like syntax highlighting. So all vector spaces are one colour, all sets another, e ...
5k views

### non-kludgey left subscripts

I was taught to make a left subscript as a right subscript to {}. For example, I would use f: {}_RA \rightarrow {}_RB to typeset this: If you instead use f: _RA \rightarrow _RB the left ...
674 views

### Is there a '\ReallyDontExpandUntilTheLastMinute' command?

There's a couple of things I want to be able to do that are quite similar and basically involve keeping back a macro expansion until the last minute. Possibly the simplest example is that I have a ...
55k views

### How to change font size for bibliography?

I want to use a smaller font size for the bibliography, e.g., \footnotesize. What is the easiest way to achieve this? I currently do \renewenvironment{thebibliography}... and copy the definition from ...
889 views

### Solfa style music notation (Carnatic)

I'm looking for a way to typeset Carnatic (Indian) music. The notation system is textual, similar to solfa, with some symbols like comma, semi-colon and | for durations, and bar lines. Fine control ...
34k views

### LaTeX templates for writing a thesis

Aside from CTAN, what are good resources/repositories for Latex templates? In particular, I'm looking for some pretty Thesis templates (I'm familiar with classicthesis)
313 views

### What macros are defined in a Web2c format file?

Web2c defines its format style using Pascal strings, so there are no separator characters between csnames. Is there a straightforward way of listing all csnames bound in a .fmt file?
7k views

### align vs equation

I always use align in my documents, and avoid equation. Is there anything wrong with that? My reasoning behind this: align > equation, so why not use it?
3k views

### LaTeX/XeTeX setup Tamil/Indic languages

I use TexMaker and LyX in Ubuntu. I'd like to typeset Tamil/Telugu/Hindi text, and so far I've been unsuccessful. Please suggest me a working TeX/LaTeX/variants setup for Indic languages, especially ...
34k views

### Correctly typesetting a tilde

How do I set the tilde (~) character correctly in LaTeX? There’s a question discussing that on Stack Overflow, with a lot of answers. But dare I say it? They all suck: \textasciitilde is too high, ...
8k views

### Different command definitions with and without optional argument

I want to define a command that expands to two completely different things depending on whether I supply, or not, an optional argument. For example, \mycmd{normal} -> something(normal) ...
3k views

### How can I produce exercises in one part of a LaTeX document with selected answers in another?

How can I produce exercises in one part of a LaTeX document with selected answers in another? I could, of course, simply typeset the questions and the answers separately, but this is too likely lead ...
18k views

### How to get long \texttt sections to break

I often format path names with \texttt which can be very long. Usually Tex will not break this text. The line will just create a hbox overflow. It looks like this: ................ ...C:\documents ...
5k views

### How can I get an underbrace and an overbrace to partially overlap in an equation?

Sometimes I want to describe portions of an equation using \underbrace and \overbrace in such a way that the portions are not completely distinct, for example: /-------\ x = A + B + C + D + E ...
9k views

### How to wrap text around a figure?

How to wrap text around a figure in LaTeX like this? Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean quis mi ut elit interdum imperdiet quis non ante. Sed imperdiet, sapien quis ...
7k views

### How can I typeset an exam or assignment paper?

I want to use LaTeX for exam and assignment papers for a class that I am teaching. I obviously could just do the whole thing myself. But, what alternatives are there for easily typesetting such ...
2k views

### Slashed symbols

In my field of work, mathematical operators that live on reduced dimensions are customarily defined as the normal one with a slash through it. For example, the gradient is usually written as \nabla, ...
21k views

### How do I ensure that figures appear in the section they're associated with?

Often floats may land quite a bit later in the document than the point they are created, sometimes after a section break. Is there a way to force a new section to start on a new page, after any ...
9k views

### Can I use \clap, \rlap and \llap in math mode?

The commands \clap, \llap and \rlap are useful "horizontal" analogues of \smash: they reduce the horizontal width of a box to zero, aligning the box with either the middle, left or right of the ...
10k views

### How to find the \textwidth in two-column mode?

Sometimes I find that floats don't fit nicely on a page, so I use \resizebox{\textwidth}{!}{ <blah blah blah> } so that the borders match the margins. However, I'm now working on a paper in ...
5k views

### Can I get a normal footnote in a minipage environment in LaTeX? How?

I need to use a minipage environment and I need a footnote in that minipage. I want the footnote to be numbered in the normal footnote sequence and to occur together with the rest of the footnotes in ...
15k views

### How to make clickable links and cross-references in pdfs produced by LaTeX?

How can I make things link url references, my index, table of contents, and cross references clickable links in documents produced by LaTeX? I generally use pdflatex to produce my documents.
53k views

### What's the best way to write e-mail addresses?

When trying to write an e-mail address, there are always problems with the @ sign. Solutions I've seen suggested are using some verbatim environment (more difficult in footnotes) and using a ...
43k views

### Fonts larger than \Huge?

How can I make text that is larger than the size of the output of {\Huge ...}? I would like to be able to make text arbitrarily large (even if that is done by some suboptimal scaling routine).
733 views

### How to set preferred PDF viewer for texdoc in TeXLive 2010 pretest.

I had evince, installed TexLive 2010 pretest (ubuntu lucid linx, fresh install). texdoc was using evince. Then I installed kubuntu ontop, and texdoc switched to okular. Now I've installed acroread and ...
248 views

### How do I make links in my pdf to run other programs?

I remember when I installed MiKTeX on my PC, I did it by clicking a series of links in a pdf document, which would run the various installer programs. What (La)TeX commands were used to make that ...
18k views

### What is the difference between \let and \def?

What is the difference between the \let and \def commands in TeX/LaTeX? Ideally please provide a simple example that will illustrate the difference between them.
203k views

### When should I use \input vs. \include?

There are two different commands to incorporate another file into the source of some document, \input and \include. When should I use one or the other? What are the differences between them? Are there ...
2k views

### How do I add numbered footnotes on every page?

I wan to be able adding numbered footnotes for some words in my documents, but displaying them on the same page and not at the end of the document. Ho do I do that?
2k views

### Using custom symbols

As comprehensive as the existing set of symbols is, it doesn't have every possible symbol that could exist, and it really takes the fun out of inventing a new symbol if you can't typeset it nicely. ...
7k views

### How can you use LaTeX to write a document with other people?

I imagine that many users are or were [PhD] students, so I would like to know: how do you use LaTeX to write a document (like the final dissertation) that requires many revisions from other people. ...
29k views

### How can I add “page # of ##” on my document?

I want to add a footer to my document displaying the current number out of total number of pages. How do I do that?
13k views

### Installing TTF fonts in LaTeX

One of the annoying aspects of LaTeX is the limited number of fonts that come by default, and the pain involved in making new fonts 'LaTeX' ready. I have a collection of truetype fonts that I'd like ...
34k views

### I want to start using LaTeX on Ubuntu. Where do I start?

There are many different kind of options that you can do in order to start using LaTeX on Ubuntu. I would prefer doing that through Eclipse, but if there is a better way of doing it, feel free to ...
1k views

### How do I break up a bibliography into separately numbered sections?

There are at least two use cases where one might want to list items in a bibliography under separate subsections with different numbering conventions. a CV, where you'd like to list journal papers, ...