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)

Getting ready

To compile the recipes in this chapter, ensure you have TikZ installed. Note that while TikZ is the common name, the actual package name is pgf, which you can locate in your LaTeX installation’s package manager. To work with this book, you need version 3.0 or later.

Many of the recipes also utilize additional packages alongside TikZ. Be sure to have each mentioned package installed when starting a recipe. In any case, I recommend a complete TeX installation.

To provide numerous complete and usable recipes in this graphics chapter, we won’t delve into the basics of TikZ commands. You can always refer to the reference manual to learn about them. I assume you have some familiarity with nodes, edges, and styles, but feel free to consult the manual when you need a deeper understanding of these concepts. However, I will provide detailed explanations of how the recipes function.

For more in-depth customization and understanding, keep the TikZ manual readily...