Book Image

LaTeX Cookbook

By : Stefan Kottwitz
Book Image

LaTeX Cookbook

By: Stefan Kottwitz

Overview of this book

LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting software and is very popular, especially among scientists. Its programming language gives you full control over every aspect of your documents, no matter how complex they are. LaTeX's huge amount of customizable templates and supporting packages cover most aspects of writing with embedded typographic expertise. With this book you will learn to leverage the capabilities of the latest document classes and explore the functionalities of the newest packages. The book starts with examples of common document types. It provides you with samples for tuning text design, using fonts, embedding images, and creating legible tables. Common document parts such as the bibliography, glossary, and index are covered, with LaTeX's modern approach.You will learn how to create excellent graphics directly within LaTeX, including diagrams and plots quickly and easily. Finally, you will discover how to use the new engines XeTeX and LuaTeX for advanced programming and calculating with LaTeX. The example-driven approach of this book is sure to increase your productivity.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
LaTeX Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Quick-start for beginners


LaTeX provides a special syntax for math expressions. Furthermore, it has to be declared what is math but not text to get properly printed. Let's see how to write math!

How to do it...

We will practice math basics now. Let's write a document:

  1. As usual, start with a document class.

    \documentclass{article}
  2. Start the document:

    \begin{document}
  3. Let's have an unnumbered section for our text:

    \section*{The golden ratio}
  4. Write a statement containing math. Enclose each math formula within parentheses. As usual for LaTeX commands, write a backslash before each parenthesis.

    The symbol for the golden ratio is the Greek
    letter \( \varphi \). Its value is the positive
    solution of \( x^2 - x - 1 = 0 \).
  5. Continue the text; this time, math shall be set off and centered:

    It can be calculated to:
    \[
      \varphi = \frac{1 + \sqrt{5}}{2} = 1.618 \ldots
    \]
  6. End the document:

    \end{document}
  7. Compile the document, and take a look:

How it works...

Math is differently written compared to normal text. For example...