Book Image

LaTeX Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Stefan Kottwitz
Book Image

LaTeX Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Stefan Kottwitz

Overview of this book

The second edition of LaTeX Cookbook offers improved and additional examples especially for users in science and academia, with a focus on new packages for creating graphics with LaTeX. This edition also features an additional chapter on ChatGPT use to improve content, streamline code, and automate tasks, thereby saving time. This book is a practical guide to utilizing the capabilities of modern document classes and exploring the functionalities of the newest LaTeX packages. Starting with familiar document types like articles, books, letters, posters, leaflets, and presentations, it contains detailed tutorials for refining text design, adjusting fonts, managing images, creating tables, and optimizing PDFs. It also covers elements such as the bibliography, glossary, and index. You’ll learn to create graphics directly within LaTeX, including diagrams and plots, and explore LaTeX’s application across various fields like mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computer science. The book’s website offers online compilable code, an example gallery, and supplementary information related to the book, including the author’s LaTeX forum, where you can get personal support. By the end of this book, you’ll have the skills to optimize productivity through practical demonstrations of effective LaTeX usage in diverse scenarios.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

Designing a legible table

When we learn how to write tables with LaTeX, we learn how to write in rows and columns and draw lines between cells and borders around the table. However, indiscriminately applying borders can result in a table that looks like the following one:

Figure 4.1 – A table with vertical and horizontal lines

Figure 4.1 – A table with vertical and horizontal lines

Such a habit may arise from using WYSIWYG (which stands for What You See Is What You Get) software such as Excel or Word to write tables. However, while such a grid helps enter data, reading is challenging.

Well-crafted books feature more legible tables. Let’s take a look at how to create a reader-friendly table.

How to do it...

We will use the booktabs package, written with an emphasis on good design. In particular, it enhances the lines within tables. It pays specific attention to horizontal lines with improved spacing and adjustable thickness.

For our example, we will sketch a table displaying the availability...