All Questions
234,365
questions
1369
votes
6
answers
799k
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 ...
- 18.9k
975
votes
8
answers
437k
views
Remove ugly borders around clickable cross-references and hyperlinks
I know that I can use hyperref to make cross-references and hyperlinks clickable. That makes the clickable areas outlined in fluorescent green, however. How can I make the green boxes go away?
- 20.3k
971
votes
9
answers
2.3m
views
How does one insert a backslash or a tilde (~) into LaTeX?
How does one insert a "\" (backslash) into the text of a LaTeX document?
And how does one insert a "~" (tilde)? (If you insert \~, it will give you a tilde as an accent over the following letter.)
I ...
- 13.6k
944
votes
93
answers
331k
views
Showcase of beautiful typography done in TeX & friends
If you were asked to show examples of beautifully typeset documents in TeX & friends, what would you suggest? Preferably documents available online (I'm aware I could go to a bookstore and find ...
900
votes
55
answers
651k
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.
...
867
votes
1
answer
209k
views
What do \makeatletter and \makeatother do?
Many LaTeX “hacks” begin with \makeatletter and end with \makeatother. What do these commands do?
- 84.8k
820
votes
1
answer
1.4m
views
What commands are there for horizontal spacing?
I know that \: in LaTeX produces a space when rendered.
Are there any alternatives, because my LaTeX renderer doesn't support \: (it renders it as text), and there is no help / FAQ that I can find.
- 11.2k
814
votes
22
answers
990k
views
How to add a forced line break inside a table cell
I have some text in a table and I want to add a forced line break. I want to insert a forced line break without having to specify the column width, i.e. something like the following:
\begin{tabular}{|...
- 12.2k
792
votes
34
answers
75k
views
How can I explain the meaning of LaTeX to my grandma?
I wrote a book about LaTeX, and my proud grandma wanted to have a copy. So she got it, said "What a beautiful picture on the cover!" and - "What is this, LaTeX?".
She doesn't know Word, never used a ...
- 220k
692
votes
18
answers
221k
views
How to look up a symbol or identify a letter from a math alphabet or other character?
I know what my symbol or character looks like, but I don't know what the command is or which math alphabet it came from. How do I go about finding this out?
- 9,711
691
votes
2
answers
440k
views
How to influence the position of float environments like figure and table in LaTeX?
How to influence the position of float environments like figure and table in LaTeX?
This is a general question and should collect useful answers for all users. I hope we can use this as a reference
- 92.6k
684
votes
8
answers
200k
views
Why is \[ ... \] preferable to $$ ... $$?
I've heard that you should use \[ ... \] for displayed equations instead of $$ ... $$, but why is that?
I'd assumed that it's so that you can more easily tell which are starting and which are ending ...
- 14.2k
664
votes
24
answers
597k
views
How to include SVG diagrams in LaTeX?
I'm making all my diagrams in SVG format using Inkscape and then I export them to some other format (e.g. PDF, EPS or PNG). I wrote a short script that does this for me automatically, but I'd like to ...
- 16.7k
605
votes
7
answers
218k
views
bibtex vs. biber and biblatex vs. natbib
I've heard of many different bibliography-related packages/platforms/?. What's the difference between the following, which is good for what tasks, advantages/disadvantages, which one is the most ...
- 51.8k
599
votes
13
answers
576k
views
Where do I place my own .sty or .cls files, to make them available to all my .tex files?
I know how to define a package or a class, but how do I make it available (to myself) at all times?
Say I have the package file commonstuff.sty (or myprettyclass.cls), that I want to be able to ...
- 14.7k
598
votes
8
answers
1.6m
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 ...
user1332
596
votes
5
answers
1.7m
views
Force figure placement in text
I have a problem when a lot of figures are in question. Some figures tend to "fly around", that is, be a paragraph below, although I placed them before that paragraph. I use code:
\begin{figure}[ht]
\...
- 7,369
575
votes
8
answers
144k
views
How do I make my document look like it was written by a Cthulhu-worshipping madman?
I want to type up some spells from the RPG Call of Cthulhu and give them to my players. I could just type them up in Word or LaTeX, but that seems too...neat. I'd like to make these things look like ...
- 17.3k
571
votes
14
answers
1.4m
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 ...
- 19.6k
566
votes
12
answers
176k
views
Space after LaTeX commands
I have a definition:
\newcommand{\arnold}{Arnold Schwarzenegger}
When I refer to it by:
\arnold is a
it is rendered as:
Arnold Schwarzeneggeris a
In order to have a space in front of "is" I ...
- 5,761
556
votes
66
answers
182k
views
Nice scientific pictures show off
Task
Show off your best scientific illustration !
The main purpose of this question is to share beautiful scientific pictures, preferably with an educational aspect.
Content
Your post must ...
554
votes
33
answers
445k
views
LaTeX template for resume/curriculum vitae
If you have a TeX'ed resume, did you use a template or make your own? Are there any useful packages? What looks the most professional? How about special considerations for different areas of work (e.g....
541
votes
6
answers
770k
views
What are all the font styles I can use in math mode?
As can be seen in above picture, there are lots of fonts or font styles that can be used in math mode.
What are all the fonts or font styles I can use in math mode, and which packages are required in ...
- 51.8k
533
votes
4
answers
528k
views
How can I make an enumerate list start at something other than 1?
Sometimes, I want to have enumerate lists in LaTeX start at other than the first value (1, a, i, etc.) How can I make an enumerate list start at an arbitrary value?
- 28.7k
529
votes
5
answers
320k
views
How do I use a particular font for a small section of text in my document?
The standard font packages make global changes to the fonts in my document. What if I want to use a particular font for just a portion of my text?
How do I find the right name of the font?
How do I ...
518
votes
4
answers
74k
views
What's the difference between \newcommand and \newcommand*?
I just spotted someone use \newcommand* in an answer and realised that I'd never quite sorted out in my head what the star (asterisk) was there for.
(This one is practically impossible to search for ...
- 146k
509
votes
7
answers
706k
views
Superscript outside math mode
What is the easiest way to superscript text outside of math mode?
For example, let's say I want to write the $n^{th}$ element, but without the math mode's automatic italicization of the th. And what ...
- 26.9k
495
votes
8
answers
156k
views
Drawing on an image with TikZ
Recently I have learned how to draw simple stuff with TikZ. I really like it. Now I wonder if it is possible to draw with TikZ on a image. Instead of pasting a image in Illustrator and adding some ...
- 10.5k
482
votes
1
answer
144k
views
Guidelines for customizing biblatex styles
Suppose I've just made the switch to biblatex. I have chosen one of the built-in styles (numeric, alphabetic, authoryear, authortitle, verbose) or of the custom styles available at CTAN, and I've ...
- 238k
469
votes
3
answers
1.1m
views
"Correct" way to bold/italicize text?
Is either of these considered better/more readable/more "proper"/more conventional than the other for making text bold? If so, what is the reason?
I like my text \textbf{bold}
versus:
I like my ...
- 8,637
466
votes
4
answers
2.0m
views
LaTeX figures side by side [duplicate]
I want to place 2 images side by side in LaTeX. I have 2 .png files and I don't understand how to do it in LaTeX. I have tried many ways but could not get a good result.
nikhil
464
votes
34
answers
754k
views
What are the available "documentclass" types and their uses?
Some of the available classes of documents in LaTeX are well known and widely used, such as the article and beamer classes, while others are not so well known, such as the standalone class.
I found ...
464
votes
5
answers
116k
views
Differences between LuaTeX, ConTeXt and XeTeX
I’m interested in the differences and commonalities between the “new” (La)TeX processors:
LuaTeX,
XeTeX, and
ConTeXt.
Personally, I’ve only used XeTeX so far and without having the time to try out ...
- 37.7k
453
votes
65
answers
91k
views
What packages do people load by default in LaTeX?
I'm getting the impression from reading the answers written by some of the real experts here that there are quite a few little packages that just tweak LaTeX2e's default behaviour a little to make it ...
449
votes
4
answers
362k
views
Difference between \textwidth, \linewidth and \hsize
The three lengths \textwidth, \linewidth and \hsize seem to all hold the width of the current line. At least I never saw some real difference between \textwidth and \linewidth in my code. Both seem to ...
- 249k
433
votes
2
answers
237k
views
Why should I use \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}?
As a native English speaker, I've mostly been allowed the luxury of pretending that ASCII is enough, and have been able to treat font encodings as not my problem. I've seen lots of advice that I ought ...
- 28.7k
418
votes
13
answers
656k
views
Column and row padding in tables
How do you guys go about controlling column padding in tables?
Update
To clarify, I'm looking for a way to control both vertical and horizontal padding. So, if I had a simple table like in the ...
- 4,547
407
votes
12
answers
1.0m
views
Commenting out large sections
To "comment out" a line, I need to insert a % at the beginning of the line (so that the line will not be compiled).
Is there a way to comment out a large section without having to manually ...
- 4,173
404
votes
28
answers
413k
views
Is there any way to do a correct word count of a LaTeX document?
Often assignments (or even papers) have a word count limit. That is not a big deal when using Word, but I don't know how to do that using LaTeX. My solution has been so far to compile the document and ...
- 25.5k
399
votes
6
answers
585k
views
How to change certain pages into landscape/portrait mode
How can I change the orientation of some pages of my document into landscape mode, while leaving the others in portrait mode (or vice versa)?
- 5,999
397
votes
7
answers
690k
views
How to write “ä” and other umlauts and accented letters in bibliography?
How to write in bibliography (package natbib) letter "a" with two dots above? Specially, I mean the word Birkhäuser.
Is there a general rule or way how to write such umlauts or other accented letters ...
- 6,033
393
votes
6
answers
159k
views
What to do to switch to biblatex?
Because of the great answers posted around in the site, I'm finally considering to do the switch and move to biblatex. So, the question is what do I have to do?
To give the question some focus, ...
- 57.4k
388
votes
9
answers
845k
views
How do I change the `enumerate` list format to use letters instead of the default Arabic numerals?
I've seen documentation whereby an \alph command is put around the \begin{enumerate} somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure how that operates...
- 9,729
386
votes
3
answers
648k
views
Strikethrough text
I am writing an article in LaTeX 2e. Part of the article describes the Sieve of Eratosthenes, and I want to show examples of how multiples of a prime are removed from the sieve by showing them in a ...
- 4,955
383
votes
5
answers
745k
views
How to suppress page number?
I've made myself custom title-page, put it in separate .tex file and when I input it, it is numbered with 1. The very next page is numbered with 1 also, and page-number increases on the following ...
user1996
380
votes
14
answers
363k
views
biblatex in a nutshell (for beginners)
Is there a 'biblatex in a nutshell' guide out there?
I'd like if someone explained to me the essentials on how to use biblatex (what lines I have to write in my document, which files I have to have, ...
- 4,740
376
votes
13
answers
202k
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 ?
373
votes
34
answers
155k
views
What are good learning resources for a LaTeX beginner?
Which book (free or otherwise) was the most useful to you when you started learning LaTeX?
I am frequently asked this question by friends who want to learn LaTeX, and I recommend the book which got ...
373
votes
8
answers
439k
views
Keeping tables/figures close to where they are mentioned
Is there any package or a method to force LaTeX to keep floating environments like table and figure closer to where they are declared?
- 4,101
368
votes
4
answers
36k
views
What is the use of percent signs (%) at the end of lines? (Why is my macro creating extra space?)
I see that the code in many packages and examples contains percent signs % at the end of (many) lines. What are they used for? Do they affect the parsing of those lines?
- 9,734