# Tag Info

## Hot answers tagged tutorials

93

Being aware of the fact that this post is quite old, I would like to add two further resources which might be interesting when it comes to programming. I think there are three categories which need to be mastered (perhaps not all in the same degree) in order to become comfortable around TeX programming: TeX programming. That's very basic, it deals with ...

44

I have introduced LaTeX into our organization and quite a number of other people at a personal level over the years. In academia it is almost tradition that LaTeX is introduced via word of mouth and that the person that made the introduction helps with the first steps. Most "non-technical" people use Windows or maybe Macs and probably are not old enough to ...

43

You could start with LaTeX2ε for class and package writers aka clsguide. We already have some information regarding this on the site, for example: Style/class tutorials Is there a comprehensive and complete LaTeX reference? You could learn much if you would read the commentes LaTeX2ε sources aka source2e. To understand it best, you could learn TeX or ...

42

Here is a list: When intermixing text and math, some people use \mbox to box the text-related stuff. The reason being that \mbox necessarily switches to text mode. So, if you have math content within \mbox, you need to explicitly restate its use. Here's a short example (causing a Missing \$ inserted error): \documentclass{article} \begin{document} \[ ...

30

There is a user friendly LaTeX package: newfile. You can use it to read and write files easily. It provides normal file IO functions, and also verbatim file IO functions. It is more suitable for your example, than those low-level macros. The package document has some good examples. A naive example (similar to table of contents): \documentclass{article} ...

30

I wrote my first LaTeX package (idxlayout) about half a year ago (January 2010). I didn't know a comprehensive class/package writing guide then (and do not now), but I can offer a few hopefully useful hints: You may not need advanced TeX programming skills, but you should be familiar with the existing solutions (and their shortcomings) in the subject area ...

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If you have one write handle left you can do it with the following commands which are also used for .toc, .lof, .lot, etc. \@starttoc{<extension>} Reads the file with the given extension (\jobname.<extension>) and opens it for writing afterwards. The file is initially empty. Creates the output file handle \tf@<extension> . ...

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Here is a MWE (not really minimum, but showing some options) that should get you started. Other possible values for the biblatex options are described in the biblatex documentation. \documentclass[]{article} \usepackage[autostyle]{csquotes} \usepackage[ backend=biber, style=authoryear-icomp, sortlocale=de_DE, natbib=true, url=false, ...

27

I think a good place to start is to flick through the not so short introduction to LaTeX. Obviously, you don't need to read it cover-to-cover, but it's good to read enough to understand how and more importantly why LaTeX is different from a word processor like Word. The first most disorienting thing about LaTeX is that you don't have a WYSIWYG approach. ...

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I would do the following, which has worked for a few of my friends already. Im my opinion one best starts with just the structure. Prepare an empty document for him, and show him the basic sectioning commands. Have him work a while with this reduced set of commands and step by step explain how to accomplish certain tasks e.g. tables, figures,etc. What ...

21

TikZ, in common with Beamer and Memoir, is a very, very rich, and, as a result, intimidating, package, so don't feel too bad about it. The way I learned all three was basically demand-driven --- "learning by doing". Whenever I needed something "new", I'd dig into the manual and try stuff until either it worked (not always most elegantly), or in desperation ...

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Today LaTeX is more than just its core. I don't want to go without amsmath, inputenc, fontenc, babel, microtype, hyperref, natbib, graphicx and many more. To learn just about the LaTeX kernel, Lamports book is not bad, it's good to read what the author said. It's his reference manual. Reading source2e.pdf provides further insights. But the LaTeX Companion ...

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First of all, let's note that \patchcommand is a command defined in the package patchcmd that's completely different in nature from the commands provided by etoolbox and generalized by xpatch. I would consider patchcmd and \patchcommand as obsolete: with etoolbox the complete functionality of \patchcommand can be obtained with \pretocmd and \apptocmd and ...

18

You should show them LyX instead of full Latex. LyX is an editor that lets you create files that are compiled to LaTeX source (and from latex to .pdf). You edit text mostly without using LaTeX commands (although you can insert plain LaTeX code in the document). While it lets you to edit using GUI, it is not a WYSWIG editor. It does very nice things like ...

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Shameless plug: I write a regular (rather semi-regular) article series in tugboat on specific ConTeXt topics aimed at beginners. Articles so far: Font Styles Table Macros I Table Macros II Indentation Conditional Processing Paper Setup Images The newer articles require a TUG membership to view.

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The context reference manual is somewhat outdated, but we are (slowly) working on improving and extending it. It is a community project, and three chapters have already been improved: Chapter on typography Chapter on fonts Chapter on pagedesign

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run texdoc biber from the command line and you'll get the documentation. However, using biber as a replacement for bibtex you have to define the backend with \usepackage[backend=biber,...]{biblatex} and then change your bibtex run into a biber one, that is all.

14

The PRAGMA Advanced Document Engineering site has a lot of documentation and examples on the finer details of how to use ConTeXt for particular applications and effects. I discovered it during a search for documentation on how to use Layers for cover layouts, which lead me to the excellent PDF It's in the details.

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Tutorials In the unstable version the PGFPlots manual has a section containing step-by-step tutorials. The latest unstable version can always be obtained here: http://pgfplots.sourceforge.net/pgfplots_unstable.pdf Screenshot of the table of contents Introductory talk On the official PGFPlots Homepage at Sourceforge, there is a link to an ...

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I might be wrong, but your question seems to be asking how to go about authoring LaTeX packages rather than programming in LaTeX. Right? In this case, you might be interested in the dtxtut guide and the dtxgallery collection of examples.

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I know only of two: http://mirror.ctan.org/info/texbytopic/ http://mirror.ctan.org/info/impatient/ You'll find free pdf versions of the books in the directories.

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What I found most helpful when learning LaTeX was reading Knuth's TeXbook. It doesn't cover any LaTeX (of course), but you get a pretty deep understanding of why TeX behaves the way it does. There are books like the LaTeX Companion which document various packages, but I find it easier to just look at the documentation for those packages that comes with my ...

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If you are intimidated the Tikz manual then I would suggest a much shorter PDF by Mertz and Slough from TUGboat volume 30 at: http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb30-2/tb95mertz.pdf and another example, a little bit longer with more depth is a "Minimal Introduction to Tikz" that you can find on the CTAN site here. But really, the Tikz manual is excellent and ...

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First source (as I like it now) is at texdoc.net Second source is to use texdoc from command prompt: texdoc float Syntax: texdoc <package name> Third, if you are using an editor like WinEdt goto: Help -> LaTeX doc and type the package name. (This basically uses texdoc itself). Or just double click on \usepackage as noted by Holle. And last, ...

10

An interactive version with beamer may be constructed along the following lines: \documentclass{beamer} \begin{document} \begin{frame}[fragile]% \begin{semiverbatim} \frametitle{Input \&\ Output} \#include <cstdio> \only<1>{(1)?}\only<2->{int main() \{} \only<3>{(3)?}\only<4->{long a,b,c;} ...

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In my opinion, such a detailed and user-friendly reference is lacking, for sure. If you are interested in descriptions that are "deeper than the one of the manual" - and by "manual" I assume you are referring to the user-friendly hyperref documentation - then your next available option would be the detailed (and perhaps cryptic) hyperref manual. My choice ...

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If you read French, there's an excellent guide for the impatient at http://math.et.info.free.fr/TikZ/index.html. And in the Cahiers Gutenberg there's a tutorial by Yves Soulet, and another by Till Tantau himself.

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I don't think there are many interesting LaTeX packages that could be written with only a little knowledge of LaTeX. Most (but not all) require a fairly deep understanding of TeX. I highly recommend reading the TeXbook to learn about TeX. One could probably write a class that essentially loaded another class (like article), used some packages (like ...

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It is not at all a system solely for programmers. Fact, the learning curve might be steeper than Word's or InDesign's, but that's because you need another way of thinking about typesetting. That might lead to the image of TeX being more for programmers, but that's just because programmers are more familiar with working in another mindset (e.g., using your ...

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