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.
• Source Code: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/LaTeX-Beginner-s-Guide-Second-Edition
Author(s): Stefan Kottwitz
Edition: 2
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Year: 2021
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 355
Tags: Typesetting; Communication And Publication: Scientific Documents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Getting Started with LaTeX
Technical requirements
What is LaTeX?
Benefits of LaTeX
Virtues of open source
Separation of form and content
Portability
Protection for your work
How to get started with LaTeX
Approaches to working with LaTeX
Installing and using LaTeX
Installing TeX Live using the net installer wizard
Installing TeX Live offline
Installing TeX Live on other operating systems
Updating TeX Live and installing new packages
Creating our first document
Checking out advanced LaTeX editors
Working with LaTeX online using Overleaf
What Overleaf requires and delivers
Benefits of Overleaf
Caveats of working online
Creating our first document online
Exploring Overleaf
Grammar and language feedback with Writefull
Reviewing and commenting
Accessing documentation
Summary
Chapter 2: Formatting Text and Creating Macros
Technical requirements
Working with logical formatting
Creating a document with a title and heading
Exploring the document structure
Understanding LaTeX commands
Understanding LaTeX environments
Understanding how LaTeX reads our input
Printing out special symbols
Modifying the text fonts
Adjusting the font shape
Choosing the font family
Confining the effect of commands by braces
Exploring font sizes
Creating our own commands
Using macros for simple text
Proper spacing after commands
Creating more universal commands and using arguments
Using boxes to limit the width of paragraphs
Creating a narrow text box
Producing common paragraph boxes
Exploring further features of paragraph boxes
Using mini pages
Breaking lines and paragraphs
Improving hyphenation
Preventing hyphenation
Improving the justification
Breaking lines manually
Exploring line breaking options
Preventing line breaks
Turning off full justification
Creating ragged-right text
Creating ragged-left text
Centering text
Using environments for justification
Displaying quotes
Quoting longer text
Summary
Chapter 3: Designing Pages
Technical requirements
Creating a book with chapters
Defining the margins
Using class options
Designing headers and footers
Understanding page styles
Customizing headers and footers
Using decorative lines in headers or footers
Changing LaTeX's header marks
Using footnotes
Modifying the footnote line
Using packages to expand footnote styles
Breaking pages
Enlarging a page
Changing the line spacing
Creating a table of contents
Summary
Chapter 4: Creating Lists
Technical requirements
Building lists
Creating a bulleted list
Building an enumerated list
Producing a definition list
Customizing lists
Getting compact lists
Choosing bullets and numbering format
Suspending and continuing lists
Summary
Chapter 5: Including Images
Technical requirements
Including an image
Choosing an optimal file type
Scaling an image
Including whole pages
Putting images behind the text
Managing floating images
Understanding placement options
Forcing the output of figures
Limiting floating
Avoiding floating at all
Arranging several images
Letting text flow around images
Summary
Chapter 6: Creating Tables
Technical requirements
Using tab stops to write in columns
Typesetting tables
Drawing lines in tables
Understanding formatting arguments
Increasing the row height
Beautifying tables
Adjusting lengths
Spanning entries over multiple columns
Inserting code column-wise
Spanning entries over multiple rows
Adding captions to tables
Placing captions above
Customizing captions
Using packages for further customizations
Auto-fitting columns to the table width
Generating multi-page tables
Coloring tables
Using landscape orientation
Aligning columns at the decimal point
Handling narrow columns
Summary
Chapter 7: Using Cross-References
Technical requirements
Setting labels and references
Assigning a label
Referring to a label
Referring to a page
Using advanced referencing
Producing intelligent page references
Fine-tuning page references
Referring to page ranges
Using automatic reference names
Combining intelligent references with automatic naming
Referring to labels in other documents
Turning references into hyperlinks
Summary
Chapter 8: Listing Contents and References
Technical requirements
Customizing the table of contents
Adjusting the depth of the TOC
Shortening entries
Adding entries manually
Creating and customizing lists of figures
Creating a list of tables
Using packages for customization
Generating an index
Defining index entries and subentries
Specifying page ranges
Using symbols and macros in the index
Referring to other index entries
Fine-tuning page numbers
Designing the index layout
Creating a bibliography
Using the standard bibliography environment
Using bibliography databases with BibTeX
Looking at the BibTeX entry fields
Referring to Internet resources
Understanding BibTeX entry types
Choosing the bibliography style
Listing references without citing
Changing the headings
Summary
Chapter 9: Writing Math Formulas
Technical requirements
Writing basic formulas
Embedding math expressions within text
Displaying formulas
Numbering equations
Adding subscripts and superscripts
Using operators
Taking roots
Writing fractions
Writing Greek letters
Writing script letters
Producing an ellipsis
Changing the font, style, and size
Customizing displayed formulas
Typesetting multi-line formulas
Numbering rows in multi-line formulas
Inserting text into formulas
Exploring the wealth of math symbols
Binary operation symbols
Binary relation symbols
Inequality relation symbols
Subset and superset symbols
Arrows
Harpoons
Symbols derived from letters
Miscellaneous symbols
Writing units
Variable sized operators
Variable sized delimiters
Building math structures
Creating arrays
Typesetting matrices
Writing binomial coefficients
Underlining and overlining
Setting accents
Putting a symbol above or below another one
Writing theorems and definitions
Further tools for writing mathematics
Summary
Chapter 10: Using Fonts
Technical requirements
Using comprehensive font bundles
Latin Modern – a replacement for the standard font
Kp-Fonts – another extensive set of fonts
Using specific font families
Serif fonts
Sans-serif fonts
Typewriter fonts
Calligraphic fonts
Using arbitrary fonts
Selecting the main font
Selecting multiple font families
Summary
Chapter 11: Developing Large Documents
Technical requirements
Splitting the input
Including small pieces of code
Including bigger parts of a document
Compiling parts of a document
Creating front and back matter
Designing a title page
Working with templates
Summary
Chapter 12: Enhancing Your Documents Further
Technical requirements
Using hyperlinks and bookmarks
Adding hyperlinks
Customizing hyperlinks
Creating hyperlinks manually
Creating bookmarks manually
Using math formulas and special symbols in bookmarks
Designing headings
Coloring our documents
Summary
Chapter 13: Troubleshooting
Technical requirements
Understanding and fixing errors
Handling the preamble and document body
Using commands and environments
Writing math formulas
Working with files
Creating tables and arrays
Working with lists
Working with floating figures and tables
General syntax errors
Handling warnings
Justifying text
Referencing
Choosing fonts
Placing figures and tables
Customizing the document class
Avoiding obsolete classes and packages
General troubleshooting
Summary
Chapter 14: Using Online Resources
Web forums, Q&A sites, and discussion boards
LaTeX.org
TeX and LaTeX on Stack Exchange
Forums in other languages
Usenet groups
Lists of frequently asked questions
Mailing lists
TeX user group sites
The TeX Users Group
DANTE
The LaTeX project
UK TUG – TeX in the United Kingdom
Other local user groups
Websites for LaTeX software and editors
LaTeX distributions
LaTeX editors
CTAN – the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network
Graphics galleries
LaTeX blogs
Twitter messages
Summary
Other Books You May Enjoy
Index
