# All Questions

6k views

### Prettiest way to typeset “C++” (cplusplus)?

Writing "C++" in plain text results in an ugly setting, as the '+' signs are too big and too spaced: I've seen around the web several marcos for typesetting the "C++" symbol, ranging from mild ...
103k views

### How can I manually install a package on MiKTeX (Windows)

I'm new to LaTeX, investigating using it for some work projects. I'm using MiKTeX on Windows. My employer's locked-down network blocks the application's automatic installation function. I can take ...
6k views

### How can we display fireworks?

Soon we can celebrate the New Year. How can we use TikZ for drawing fireworks? For example like this, photographed by Kurume-Shimin, found on Wikipedia: Click on Image search for getting further ...
9k views

### “Inspirational” quote at start of chapter

I recall seeing a package to make quotes like that of the following image at the start of a chapter, but I can't seem to find it again. (This image is from the book Combinatorics and Graph Theory ...
15k views

### Dashes: - vs. – vs. —

This may or may not be a real TeX/LaTeX question but rather a general question on punctuation: How are the different dashes - "-", -- "–" and --- "—" supposed to be used?
12k views

### Creating fillable PDFs

I'd like to create a LaTeX document that when rendered into PDF, has forms that can be filled out using Adobe Reader or other such programs. Then I'd like to be able to extract the data. I ...
4k views

### Is there any reason to compile to DVI rather than PDF these days?

I appreciate that in the past, latex was faster than pdflatex, but computer speeds being what they are nowadays, I can't see any difference in how quickly documents compile... So, given that the end ...
2k views

### pgf-Tikz QR code generator

I am looking for a Tikz QR code generator. I am aware of pst-barcode as well as several "local" programs, a luatex solution and web services to do this. Nevertheless, if at all possible, I would much ...
2k views

### What needs to be introduced in a short introduction to LaTeX?

One of the things listed at the How you can help in the TeX community page of the TUG website is: We'd like to have an ‘introduction to LaTeX’ document that falls somewhere between the brevity of ...
1k views

### Margin notes with a pointing arrow that are automatically vertically adjusted

I am trying to emulate margin notes as they are in my (favourite) macroeconomics textbook. The crucial thing here is that the little arrow points to the line where the margin note is set. I have ...
8k views

### Speeding up LaTeX compilation

Usually I don't mind about LaTeX's compilation speed, because a paper of less than 20 pages is compiled rather fast. However, I am working on a large document - A report with more than 80 pages. ...
3k views

### What are penalties and which ones are defined?

Very often you can find solutions by changing the penalty. One is widowpenalty. However what are penalties and is there a small list of every defined penalty. There is a German site which does ...
15k views

### Workflow for converting LaTeX into Open Office / MS Word Format

I often have to write up reports based on the analysis of some data. I use R to analyse the data and export tables, figures, and text. This is then included into a LaTeX document either using input or ...
6k views

### How to best debug LaTeX?

..and I don't mean finding out why it doesn't compile, I mean serious debugging: breakpoints, figuring out value of variables at a given moment during run/compile, stepping, examining a stack (is ...
13k views

### Why should I use LaTeX?

I have heard a lot about LaTeX, but never used it myself. It is mainly used for typesetting professional research papers. But I am not writing research papers. Is LaTeX for me? If yes, why should I ...
14k views

### List of available TikZ libraries with a short introduction

Quick links: Summary ❧ Intersections library ❧ Arrow tips library ❧ Calc library ❧ Mindmap Library ❧ Shapes library ❧ Paper Folding Library ❧ Chains Library ❧ Shapes library Very often I ...
1k views

### How do package authors find the time?

Not sure if this question belongs here, on the main site, or not on TeX.SX at all. Let me know if it belongs somewhere else. I have recently made some leaps in my knowledge of LaTeX, in particular ...
3k views

### Cunning (La)TeX tricks

Writing (La)TeX code sometimes requires a degree of guile. Here (in no particular order) are two of my favourite examples. Macros ending with spaces Pete asked how to see the implementation of ...
3k views

### Torn page effect

[See Torn paper: matching up the torn edges for more on this topic, as well as better illustrations of the final product.] I have a document with a lot of short excerpts from another book scattered ...
24k views

### LaTeX conditional expression

I would like to be able to set a flag at the beginning of the main flag (say output) that tells if I want to produce a paper document or an electronic document. Then I should check this flag to ...
5k views

### I am new to TeX. Should I use LaTeX, XeLaTeX, …?

I am starting to learn LaTeX and I really like what I am seeing. However, I get the feeling I should actually start with another 'TeX' version. I've been reading about different options. Some ...
61k views

### How can I use BibTeX to cite a web page?

I'm looking to cite a number of web pages using bibtex and I was wondering if there was a specific template of the form @<template name here> for doing that. If you could use the following ...
4k views

### Is there an easy way to have my whole document with a space between paragraphs rather than indentation?

I would like to have my whole document showing a blank line (or space) between paragraphs and no indentation. I know how to do it line by line, but is there a way to change that with just one or a few ...
3k views

### PowerPoint's “Smart Art” for TikZ?

This question led to a new package: smartdiagram I haven't been using PowerPoint for years, but today I immediately fell in love with its "Smart Art" feature (2010 version of PowerPoint). The ...
13k views

### How can I design a book cover?

Can anyone share his or her experience on designing a book cover? I just finished writing my "Awk One-Liners Explained" e-book and now I am designing the cover. I tried \maketitle and the result was ...
14k views

### Style/class tutorials

What are some good tutorials on writing custom styles (classes) that clearly explain commands used and some of the features that TeX has to offer in the way of styles?
21k views

### Why are there no alternatives to TeX, or, why is TeX still used? [closed]

I'm fairly new to TeX and LaTeX, having been drawn in by the Big Idea — creating a document programmatically. However, my experience of TeX (and its libraries — LaTeX, ConTeXt, …) has been almost ...
2k views

### Showcase of optical illusions made with TeX/LaTeX/LuaTeX/ConTeXt

Optical illusions are fun, so I thought it would be a good idea to have a list of optical illusions designed using MetaPost, or PGF/TikZ, or PS-Tricks, or Asymptote. Each entry should display one ...
2k views

### Which manuals are on your “TeX Reference” shelf?

This is a community wiki since there is no "one true answer"- if you find an answer that contains a lot of your choices, but is missing something you feel is incredibly useful. Feel free to add it. ...
6k views

### What are the strengths and weaknesses of KOMA-Script and memoir?

To make a professional book layout, many people suggest to use either KOMA-Script or memoir. Let me know the strengths and weaknesses of each please.
24k views

### \emph or \textit

In the comments section of Does it matter if I use \textit or \it, I asked for a clarification of these points. The clarification has mostly been made, but it was requested that I turn this into a ...
4k views

### My phd supervisor wants me to use Word because they can't edit LaTeX. What to do?

How do I make it possible for my supervisor to edit my thesis while using LaTeX? I submit a pdf document but they want to edit it.... how do I do this without switching to MS Word?
11k 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.
3k views

### Fundamental differences : PSTricks, TikZ/PGF and others

OK, since this is a pretty vague and subjective question. I need to set up some borders around the discussion that I intend to benefit from. But before anything, I certainly do NOT want to excite the ...
3k views

### Showing the bibliographic entry in a popup when you hover over the citation key

I thought it would be useful to have bibliographic entries displayed as a tooltip so readers are not interrupted by following hyperlinks or trying to find the Bibliography, so I created the following ...
4k views

### Alternatives to LaTeX

Are there any professional alternatives to TeX/LaTeX which produce equal or even better typesetting? Maybe expensive commercial ones. The software counts if it is comparable or superior to LaTeX ...
6k views

### What are the advantages of TikZ/PGF over PSTricks?

The first time I saw the PSTricks' 3D Galleries, I immediately felt in love with it. I have spent much time to learn and use it. In this forum, I see many people using TikZ. I have not used TikZ yet. ...
13k views

### Cool Text Highlighting in LaTeX

LaTeX has soul. ConTeXt, of course, has beautifully marked up "sharpie" highlighting, where you can put sweet hightligher under your text for free! In the pictured example, you can see highlights ...
4k views

### How to create magnified subfigures and corresponding boxes for portions of a large image

Updated Below I hope the title gets at what I'm trying to do. I have a large image for a thesis on an image processing topic, and I want show the large image, with zoomed in boxes (typically with the ...
27k views

### Lengths and when to use them

There are many lengths in LaTeX. For instance, \enskip, \enspace, \quad, \parskip, \smallskip, ... Some of them are mostly used for vertical spacing, some others are mostly used for horizontal ...
10k views

### What is XeTeX exactly and why should I use it?

I have been using LaTeX for five years now and have been using PDFLaTeX ever since. I find it hard to monitor the progress of LaTeX development. Recently there is a lot of talk about XeTeX. What is ...
3k views

### How to draw a Sankey Diagram using TikZ

I would like to draw something similar to this (not exactly): using TikZ. Ideally I would be able to set the width by variables and rejoin two flows into one again. Is there a good way to do this? ...
2k views

### Reducing the time it takes to write a paper

I often have situations in which I must quickly write and print a report, within a short time. Some features of TeX allow me to work quickly. For example, with BibTeX, I can quickly add a source to an ...
64k views

### How can I get bold math symbols?

To make Latin-letter variables bold I can use e.g. \mathbf{a}, but while putting Greek letters or symbols such as \nabla inside \mathbf doesn't cause any errors or warnings, it also doesn't do ...
5k views

### Suggest a “nice” font family for my basic LaTeX template (text and math). [I am confused]

My goal is to choose a "nice" font family (serif, sans serif, monospace, and "math") for my basic LaTeX template. I know the default setting (Computer Modern's family) is a very good choice. However, ...
2k views

### {(x+y)}^2 or (x+y)^2?

This expression is just an example, of course. My question is: should one always specify the quantity being exponentiated by surrounding it with braces, or is it acceptable to drop those braces? ...
27k views

### How do I create an invisible character?

I cannot remember how to create an invisible character in LaTeX, i.e. I want to put a space the that has the width of a particular character, say `M'. I know there is a command for this, and this is ...
15k views

### Is it wrong to use \clearpage instead of \newpage?

The commands \newpage and \clearpage both force a page break. In addtion, the latter command also "flushes" all pending floats from the stack, i.e., forces them to be typeset starting on the page that ...