All Questions
253,813
questions
1462
votes
7
answers
890k
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 ...
- 19.9k
1097
votes
8
answers
528k
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?
- 22k
1015
votes
10
answers
2.5m
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 ...
- 14.1k
978
votes
99
answers
360k
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 ...
934
votes
1
answer
241k
views
What do \makeatletter and \makeatother do?
Many LaTeX “hacks” begin with \makeatletter and end with \makeatother. What do these commands do?
- 88k
922
votes
56
answers
697k
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.
...
892
votes
1
answer
1.5m
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.
- 12.2k
880
votes
23
answers
1.2m
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}{|...
- 13.1k
802
votes
34
answers
78k
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 ...
- 229k
740
votes
8
answers
238k
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 ...
- 15.2k
726
votes
18
answers
250k
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?
- 10.1k
720
votes
2
answers
464k
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
- 95k
698
votes
23
answers
693k
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 ...
- 17.6k
663
votes
7
answers
1.9m
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
659
votes
6
answers
2.0m
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]
\...
- 8,029
646
votes
7
answers
252k
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 ...
- 54.1k
629
votes
13
answers
618k
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 ...
- 15.3k
618
votes
14
answers
1.7m
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 ...
- 20.9k
613
votes
12
answers
207k
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 ...
- 6,231
596
votes
5
answers
619k
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?
- 30.5k
593
votes
6
answers
871k
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 ...
- 54.1k
580
votes
8
answers
148k
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 ...
- 17.8k
568
votes
67
answers
190k
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 ...
563
votes
5
answers
347k
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 ...
562
votes
32
answers
464k
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....
550
votes
7
answers
794k
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 ...
- 28.7k
549
votes
4
answers
83k
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 ...
- 152k
514
votes
3
answers
1.2m
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 ...
- 9,367
513
votes
8
answers
170k
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 ...
- 11k
499
votes
4
answers
2.4m
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
499
votes
1
answer
160k
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 ...
- 248k
496
votes
34
answers
852k
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 ...
475
votes
5
answers
124k
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 ...
- 39k
465
votes
4
answers
419k
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 ...
- 260k
462
votes
65
answers
98k
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 ...
456
votes
2
answers
278k
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 ...
- 30.5k
453
votes
13
answers
746k
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 ...
- 4,907
439
votes
12
answers
1.2m
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 ...
- 4,493
433
votes
6
answers
682k
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)?
- 6,339
431
votes
3
answers
796k
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 ...
- 5,485
419
votes
28
answers
450k
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 ...
- 26.6k
418
votes
10
answers
975k
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...
- 10.3k
418
votes
5
answers
852k
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
414
votes
7
answers
744k
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 ...
- 6,293
409
votes
6
answers
177k
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, ...
- 61.3k
399
votes
4
answers
714k
views
Omitting the date when using \maketitle
I'm using the \author and \title commands to produce a title with \maketitle. I also know that there is a \date command to specify the date of my work. However, if I omit \date, \maketitle will ...
- 248k
396
votes
13
answers
91k
views
Are \( and \) preferable to dollar signs for math mode?
Along the lines of Why is \[ ... \] preferable to $$ ... $$?, what reasons are there (if any) to favor \( ... \) over $ ... $?
- 17.4k
390
votes
6
answers
41k
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?
- 10.2k
389
votes
13
answers
379k
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, ...
- 4,870
388
votes
8
answers
485k
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?
- 4,251