LATEX [1] is a typesetting system which is most suited to producing scientific and mathematical documents of high typographical quality. The system is also suitable for producing all sorts of other documents, from simple letters to complete books. LATEX uses TEX[2] as its formatting engine.
This short introduction describes LATEX2″ and should be sufficient for most applications of LATEX. For a complete description of the LATEX system refer to [1, 3].
LATEX is available for most computers from the PC and Mac to large UNIX and VMS systems. On many university computer clusters you will find, that a LATEX installation is available, ready to use. Information on how to access the local LATEX installation should be provided in the Local Guide [4]. If you have problems getting started, ask the person who gave you this booklet. The scope of this document is not to tell you how to install and set up a LATEX system, but to teach you how to write your documents so that they can be processed by LATEX.
This Introduction is split into 5 chapters:
Chapter 1 tells you about the basic structure of LATEX2″ documents. You will also learn a bit about the history of LATEX. After reading this chapter you should have a rough picture of LATEX. The picture will only be a framework, but it will enable you to integrate the information provided in the other chapters into the big picture.
Chapter 2 goes into the details of typesetting your documents. It explains most of the essential LATEX commands and environments.
After reading this chapter you will be able to write your first documents.
Chapter 3 explains how to typeset formulae with LATEX. Again a lot of examples help you to understand how to use one of LATEX main strengths. At the end of this chapter you find tables, listing all the mathematical symbols available in LATEX.
Chapter 4 explains index and bibliography generation, inclusion of eps graphics and some other useful extensions.
Chapter 5 contains some potentially dangerous information. You will learn how to to make alterations to the standard document layout produced by LATEX. This allows you to change things so that the beautiful output of LATEX begins look quite bad.
It is important to read the chapters in sequential order. The book is not that big after all. Make sure to carefully read the examples, because a great part of the information is contained in the various examples you will find all through out the book.
If you need to get hold of any LATEX related material, have a look in one of the CTAN ftp archives. For the US it is at ftp.shsu.edu, for Germany it is ftp.dante.de and for the UK it is ftp.tex.ac.uk. If you are not in one of these countries, choose the archive closest to you. If you want to run LATEX on your own computer, take a look at what is available from CTAN:/tex-archive/systems.
Download The Not So Short Introduction to Latex
This short introduction describes LATEX2″ and should be sufficient for most applications of LATEX. For a complete description of the LATEX system refer to [1, 3].
LATEX is available for most computers from the PC and Mac to large UNIX and VMS systems. On many university computer clusters you will find, that a LATEX installation is available, ready to use. Information on how to access the local LATEX installation should be provided in the Local Guide [4]. If you have problems getting started, ask the person who gave you this booklet. The scope of this document is not to tell you how to install and set up a LATEX system, but to teach you how to write your documents so that they can be processed by LATEX.
This Introduction is split into 5 chapters:
Chapter 1 tells you about the basic structure of LATEX2″ documents. You will also learn a bit about the history of LATEX. After reading this chapter you should have a rough picture of LATEX. The picture will only be a framework, but it will enable you to integrate the information provided in the other chapters into the big picture.
Chapter 2 goes into the details of typesetting your documents. It explains most of the essential LATEX commands and environments.
After reading this chapter you will be able to write your first documents.
Chapter 3 explains how to typeset formulae with LATEX. Again a lot of examples help you to understand how to use one of LATEX main strengths. At the end of this chapter you find tables, listing all the mathematical symbols available in LATEX.
Chapter 4 explains index and bibliography generation, inclusion of eps graphics and some other useful extensions.
Chapter 5 contains some potentially dangerous information. You will learn how to to make alterations to the standard document layout produced by LATEX. This allows you to change things so that the beautiful output of LATEX begins look quite bad.
It is important to read the chapters in sequential order. The book is not that big after all. Make sure to carefully read the examples, because a great part of the information is contained in the various examples you will find all through out the book.
If you need to get hold of any LATEX related material, have a look in one of the CTAN ftp archives. For the US it is at ftp.shsu.edu, for Germany it is ftp.dante.de and for the UK it is ftp.tex.ac.uk. If you are not in one of these countries, choose the archive closest to you. If you want to run LATEX on your own computer, take a look at what is available from CTAN:/tex-archive/systems.
Download The Not So Short Introduction to Latex
