Use LaTeX for Text Formatting
LaTeX (pronounced lay-tek or lah-tek) is a typesetting software primarily used to typeset documents containing a lot of math. It's widely used throughout the academic world to publish technical journals or books, but has more applications such as typesetting letters, resumes and much more. Taking care of proper kerning (letter spacing) and featuring advanced hyphenation, the documents usually look much cleaner than those of traditional word processors.
Contents
Sample document
Latex quick start tutorial.pdf
Steps
- Install a LaTeX distribution. First of all, using LaTeX is free. There is no need to buy a program, since a myriad of tools are available as free downloads. The choice of an editor is a matter of personal preference and your operating system. If you're using a PC, you probably want to install MikTeX as a beginner, as it provides you with everything you need out of the box.ution you use depends on your computer's operating system. As a GNU/Linux user, you will probably find the texlive package in your repository and you can easily install it through your distribution's package manager. Also for Mac/OSX there are several tools available. One of them is gwTeX. If you want to get started right away, you can also try using an online editor for LaTeX such as writelatex.com.
- Find a tutorial. By querying the search engine of your choice for tutorials, you can choose from plenty of tutorials on the internet. There are offline tutorials available as PDF such as The (Not So) Short Introduction to LaTeX2e, plain text tutorials from many universities (e.g. A Tutorial from Cornell or David Wilkins's Primer). For more detailed documentation, you can refer to LaTeX in Wikibooks.
- Find an example document similar to the document you want to write. For example, a PH.D. dissertation written in LaTeX may be a set of files or a single file. The file with the '.tex' extension will be the one containing the actual document. Example documents can be found at these useful sites: IIT Bombay, Univ. of Michigan, and many more.
- Build the document. What the LaTeX software does is convert a text file (written in its markup language) into a document. This can be a cumbersome step. Once the first build is finished the rest are easy.
- Modify the document to suit your needs. Once the template has been built, it is not difficult to modify it to suit your needs.
- Maintain an organized list of links with information on LaTeX. LaTeX is a sophisticated software package and the possibilities are endless. Some sites may treat many aspects of LaTeX, some only a few specific ones.
Tips
- LaTeX is far superior to word processors when there are many equations. See the wikiHow article on how to Typeset Formulas in LaTeX
- Importing citations into BibTeX using a search engine like Google Scholar can drastically speed up the time it takes to record citations. BibTeX is an add-on to LaTeX that automatically formats the bibliography in a work. Importing the citation is quick compared to the "note card" method of recording citations.
- If the length of the document exceeds 30 pages, LaTeX is more advantageous than a word processor. This is usually the case, especially since you can focus strictly on content and have the formatting done for you by LaTeX.
- LaTeX is useful if you want to separate the content in a document from the way it is typeset. For example, if the same article was going to be in a journal and then put online, a presentation made out of parts of it would be easier to compile in LaTeX. You'll find that it's much more straightforward the presentation style without interfering with content.
Warnings
- LaTex has a steep learning curve compared to conventional word processing. Be ready for it.
- For non-mathematical or scientific documents, a standard word processor is easier (but of course not "better"!). LaTeX can be used generally on in a specialized way, and it really depends on your willingness to learn it, as well as the nature of the task.
Things You'll Need
- A TeX distribution appropriate for your operating system. Go to [http://www.ctan.org/starter.html] for more information.
- A tutorial or info document, preferably with an introduction to basic formatting.
Related Articles
- Typeset Formulas in LaTeX
