Book Image

LaTeX Beginner's Guide - Second Edition

By : Stefan Kottwitz
4 (1)
Book Image

LaTeX Beginner's Guide - Second Edition

4 (1)
By: Stefan Kottwitz

Overview of this book

LaTeX is high-quality open source typesetting software that produces professional prints and PDF files. It's a powerful and complex tool with a multitude of features, so getting started can be intimidating. However, once you become comfortable with LaTeX, its capabilities far outweigh any initial challenges, and this book will help you with just that! The LaTeX Beginner's Guide will make getting started with LaTeX easy. If you are writing mathematical, scientific, or business papers, or have a thesis to write, this is the perfect book for you. With the help of fully explained examples, this book offers a practical introduction to LaTeX with plenty of step-by-step examples that will help you achieve professional-level results in no time. You'll learn to typeset documents containing tables, figures, formulas, and common book elements such as bibliographies, glossaries, and indexes, and go on to manage complex documents and use modern PDF features. You'll also get to grips with using macros and styles to maintain a consistent document structure while saving typing work. By the end of this LaTeX book, you'll have learned how to fine-tune text and page layout, create professional-looking tables, include figures, present complex mathematical formulas, manage complex documents, and benefit from modern PDF features.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

Writing basic formulas

LaTeX offers three writing modes:

  • Paragraph mode: The text is typeset as a sequence of words in lines, paragraphs, and pages. That's what we used in the previous chapters.
  • Left-to-right mode: The text is a sequence of words, but LaTeX typesets it from left to right without breaking the line. For instance, the argument of \mbox will be typeset in this mode; so \mbox prevents hyphenation.
  • Math mode: Here, LaTeX treats letters as math symbols. That's why they're typeset in italics, which is common practice for variables. A lot of symbols can only be used in math mode. Such symbols are roots, sum signs, relation signs, math accents, arrows, and various delimiters, such as brackets and braces. LaTeX ignores space characters between letters and symbols. Instead, the spacing depends on the type of symbols—spacing of relation signs is different from spacing of opening or closing delimiters. All math expressions require this mode...