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#1
September 15th, 2004, 03:04 PM
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| Best book to learn LaTex? Can someone recommend the best book to learn LaTex? I am currently using TeXShop but I think I am ready to move on to something a LITTLE more advance. Thanks. P.S. Any web resources (i.e. free) that are the best?  |
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#2
September 15th, 2004, 03:18 PM
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| you can check the public part or my idisk (user: mchevroulet)
__________________ My current machine is an iMac Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz 24" with MacOS X 10.5.1. My Apples are here. My oldest Apple was born in 1977. Surf my .mac web site. GS/P/>SS d-(++) s+: a+ C+(C) U* P L+ E--- W++ N- o+ K? w O-- M++ V PS+ PE+ Y- PGP t+ 5 X+ R tv-- b+++ DI++ D+ G e+++ h---- r+++ y? Time is not changing, I'm just traveling through time. |
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#5
September 16th, 2004, 02:34 PM
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| LaTeX is a document preparation language. You write your text (content) and specify by commands how it is going to look or where it is going to go on the page (form). Then you use the TeX typesetting engine to generate the result, in Postscript or PDF or even HTML or RTF. By using specific commands instead of a WYSIWYG system you have ultimate control over how it is going to look. Moreover, LaTeX forces you to think about the logical structure of your document: is this a section? or a paragraph? As an extra it can handle the automatical generation of various tables (of content, of images, of axioms etc.), indexes, crossreferences and bibliographies. Changing all footnotes to endnotes or notes per chapter is no problem at all. You can use BibTeX to create a database of bibliographical elements that you can use from within you LaTeX documents, which is very useful. Many scientific journals and books in various fields of research are typeset by LaTeX. The layout you obtain is very clean, well-organised and readable. The modular setup (you invoke only the packages you need) makes it easy to use even for beginners, while giving experts (or TeXperts) a lot of features to use. Actually the Not So Short Guide has a splendid intro which explains a lot of the history and functionality of (La)TeX.
__________________ This is not a signature (but I could be wrong). 15" MacBook Pro C2D@2.4 GHz | 2 GB RAM | Mac OS 10.5.4 | Website | LinkedIn | Publications GP/O d-(+)@ s: a->? C++(+++) U* P+ L+>++ !E---- W+++ N o? K? w--- O? M++ V? PS+++ PE-- Y+ PGP t 5? X- R !tv b++++ DI+(++)@ D+(++) G++(+++) e+++$>++++$$ h--->---- r+++ y++++@ |
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#6
September 16th, 2004, 04:48 PM
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| Well said! I am curious, though. Why would you want to have to do all the formatting yourself instead of letting a program like InDesign do it for you?
__________________ Powerpoint is not a design application |
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#7
September 16th, 2004, 05:39 PM
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| Latex handles the formatting for you to suit the style you want best. You just need to mark the text to say that this is a paragraph, a section, a subsection, and so on. If you're working a lot with formulae, Latex is king. It allows you to simply change the way your formulae looks throughout the document. In a program like Word, you would have to manually go through the entire document and do this by hand while in Latex you just need to change a line or two and it will get applied to the entire document. You can also define your own styles and apply them to the entire document. And it's free. Can't beat free  |
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#8
September 16th, 2004, 07:44 PM
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| Okay. The free part I understand. All those other features are handled in layout programs in use today (Word SUCKS for anything but letter writing. Just ask your local printer about it.) Thanks!
__________________ Powerpoint is not a design application |
