Learn about TeX
This is a short guide to sources of TeX lore on the web. It is focused on TeX for Mac but also has links to sources for PC.
Sub-sections
- Tutorials, books, documentation
- Getting TeX and related software
- Particular issues: presentations, page orientation, figures ...
- More TeX!
Tutorials, books, documentation
- If you have never used TeX before you should start by reading the first chapter (and that only) of "The not so short introduction to LaTeX"
- After reading that first chapter, or if you have an idea of what TeX is for, a very nice (if a bit dated) guide is "Apprends LaTeX!", available in french (link to come soon) or in italian. This is the tutorial I like most as it is simple and essential.
- A bit lengthier, but more complete and available in english, is the afore-mentioned "The not so short introduction to LaTeX", of which this should be a stable URL
- A very good online reference in english, thorough but synthetic, is the online TeX tutorial of the indian TeX users group
- A couple of books on TeX are publicly available, one is "TeX for the impatient" and the other is "Making TeX work".
They are considerably longer than the tutorials and contain information on topics not covered at the "basic" level.
- If you want to read TeX documentation you can search for it your hard disk (it is placed in each package's folder: search for filenames containing the package name, including hidden files) or go the the guide to TeX documentation
- Finally, if you are using a PC you can go the LaTeX subsection of Michéle Tertilt's Home Page which has a very short, hands-on tutorial and also a short list of essential TeX tools. If you still have to install TeX (on a PC!) download the "Introduction to TeX" pdf file and follow the instructions.
Getting TeX and related software
- If you want to install TeX on a Mac machine you can find the essential links to get started on my Mac software page (under iInstaller)
- If you have to install on a PC machine you can search for "MikTeX" or another installation on the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. You can also see Michéle Tertilt's Home Page
Particular issues: presentations, page orientation, figures ...
Presentations
Making presentations is sometimes kind of tricky business with TeX,
especially if you have to print out transparencies rather than prepare
a computer slide-show.
The first time you are trying to prepare a presentation with TeX allow
plenty of time, make sure you read the relevant parts of the tutorials above and the documentation of the package you want to use.
- The simplest but working, solution you could use is surely the
"seminar" package. It will get the job done but with no colors and
limited fancy possibilities, which some people consider a plus as you
are free to concentrate on contents.
Worse is that sometimes page orientation problems arise if you try to use pdflatex: see under "page orientation".
- Much more advanced solutions are the "Prosper" package (there is
a good tutorial on the indian TUG page) and the "Beamer" package, my
favorite. They are both in the LiveTeX-TeTex distribution for Mac.
Even if you are not planning on using "Beamer" I still strongly advise on browsing its manual as it contains one of the best tutorials on preparing a presentation (i.e. number of slides, arranging contents ...) I ever saw.
- If you find yourself bogged down you can always switch to using a more familiar presentations making program (e.g. MS PowerPoint and the like) and still write your math in TeX using a software like "equation service" or "TeX equation editor". At least one is available also for PC and they are described in more details on my Mac page go there and scroll down a bit to see them
- A really comprehensive list of any possible way of preparing a presentation in TeX with code samples, documentation, links to packages (PC versions) can be found at the TeX screen presentation tools page
Page orientation for slides and other documents
Page orientation and size, i.e. how to make TeX understand how to turn and/or resize your page, is sometimes tricky with TeX, especially when trying to make it understand you want "landscape" A4 size transparencies.
- If you run a search on this problem you will find a lot of people advise on using the "geometry" package, but I found (at least on a Mac) this does not always solve the problems. You can read more on this problem here
- A thing that I found useful in most occasions is to
select the "dvips plus ghostview" way of generating the pdf output
rather than "pdflatex", which is the standard of most TeX front-ends
nowadays
(i.e. When TeX was born pdf did not exist. TeX then used to produce typeset output in a "device independent" or .dvi format. To generate pdf this file needed to be converted to .ps first and then to pdf using ghostView. More recently a macro package called "pdfLaTeX", able to generate pdf directly was produced, and nowadays it is the "industry standard". However, some older packages were not built with pdfLaTeX in mind as it did not exist, and actually work better when producing pdf via the older route. Most front-ends have a menu item allowing to choose how to typeset the TeX source)
Figures
TeX, being a typesetting program, tends to have quite strong opinion on where figures and graphs should be placed on a page. You can find references on how to include figures in some of the longer books, but if you want a quick reference I found nothing better than this little booklet, sorrowly written in italian only!
TopMore TeX
- If you want to know everything about TeX on Mac go to the Mac-TeX page
- The most complete storage of TeX info out there is, as the name says, the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network
