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)

Coloring a table

Sometimes, we see zebra-striped tables with alternating row colors. This design is intended for supporting horizontal reading without the need for separating lines.

While some people like that design, some find it harder to read. For example, while looking at a table, the eye may scan one color first and then jump back, scanning the rows with the other color. So, when we decide to go for this design, we should consider the following:

  • Make the color variation small to prevent the eye from jumping across even or odd rows. The information should be visually stronger than the distinction between those two layers.
  • Keep a good contrast between color and text. For example, black text with a dark gray background is hardly readable.
  • Have a different color for the header to emphasize it.

How to do it...

We will use the xcolor package for this task. The sample data for this table, which we will also use in later recipes, has been taken from https...