LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use LATEX crash course (for PhDs) What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word T. Hengl1 Comparison Literature 1 Research group on Computational Geo-Ecology Instituut voor Biodiversiteit en Ecosysteem Dynamica Universiteit van Amsterdam June 26, 2010 Outline LATEX crash course T. Hengl 1 Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use 2 What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? 3 LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Important assumptions/facts LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature I am not really familiar with TEX programming (I never developed any LATEX package). LATEX has a steep learning curve. I also use MS Word (e.g. to write short documents). LATEX comes (as any GNU) without any warranty. Outline LATEX crash course T. Hengl 1 Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use 2 What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? 3 LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature The course programme LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Wednesday 14 Oct 16:00-17:30 Introduction to TEX (philosophy, history). Installation of software and first steps. Common LATEX commands. Thursday 15 Oct 14:00-17:30 (2 blocks) Generate your first document with LATEX. Writing a thesis with LATEX. Preparing slides with Beamer (UvA template). Export to HTML (Google Earth). Outline LATEX crash course T. Hengl 1 Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use 2 What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? 3 LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Software LATEX crash course T. Hengl You should have installed these already! Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature MikTEX v2.8 (LATEX engine); WinEdt v5.6 (TEX editor); a number of WinEdt plugins: JabRef — references editor; BibTEX menu — WinEdt menu for references; MathType — Equation editor; R-Sweave — full WinEdt–R integration; Optional: Scientific Word — the commercial programme for producing LATEX documents under Windows; word2tex — a shareware programme that converts MS WORD documents to LATEX. The course programme LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature I am not really familiar with TEX programming (I never developed any LATEX package). LATEX has a steep learning curve. I also use MS Word (e.g. to write short documents). LATEX comes (as any GNU) without any warranty. Outline LATEX crash course T. Hengl 1 Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use 2 What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? 3 LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature TEX history LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature In 1978, Donald Knuth (one of the most famous and well respected computer scientists) embarked on a project to create a typesetting system, called TEX (pronounced ‘tech’), after being disappointed with the quality of his acclaimed The Art of Programming series. Around 10 years later, he froze the language after originally anticipating spending a single year!; In the mid-80s Leslie Lamport created a set of macros that abstracted away many of the complexities (this allowed for a simpler approach for creating documents, where content and style were separate). This extension became LATEX (pronounced ‘lay-tech’); MiKTEX (pronounced ‘mick-tech’) is an up-to-date implementation of TEX and related programs for Windows; Outline LATEX crash course T. Hengl 1 Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use 2 What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? 3 LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature What is LATEX? LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature essentially a markup language; analogous to HTML with CSS; programming environment with many contributed packages and styles; renders the content into a document (PDF); it’s not a code based system! Who is it for? LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Anybody writing anything maths related will not find a richer and better quality system. Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature You plan to write research articles, books (thesis) and make professional and stable overheads; If you are in academia, you really ought to be using it! Even WikiPedia use LATEX for rendering any formulas that appear on their site. See also: “LATEX isn’t for everyone but it could be for you” by Andy Roberts. Why TEX? LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word . . . portability, lightness, security; it is easier than XML (and has less bugs); it is open source / free! it is professional (MS Word is not a press software!); Comparison Literature You can get LATEX to do just about anything you can think of! (it’s just a question of time / effort) TEX saves time LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature focus on content, let LATEX bother about the layout; the software takes care of the actual typesetting, structuring, numbering, referencing and cross-referencing, indexing and page formatting; compile documents in PDF (export to HTML, RTF); hyphenation, typesetting, fine-tuned control; Outline LATEX crash course T. Hengl 1 Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use 2 What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? 3 LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature LATEX versus MS Word LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature MS Word LATEX WYSIWYG world; code world; XML; nonstandard styles; TEX language; standard styles; not-suited for large (collaborative) documents; perfect for large collaborative documents; compatibility problems (MS Word 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007); the syntax staid the same ever since the beginning! . . .and the winner is. . . MS Word LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature MS Word does in fact have a similar Styles feature (but people don’t often know it exists). Microsoft has a software to prepare documents for press — Microsoft Office Publisher, but even this can not be compared with e.g. Adobe InDesign (do you have money to buy all this software?) TEX versus MS Word LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Andy Roberts’ Laws on Word: 1 Likelihood of a crash is directly proportional to the importance of a document. 2 Likelihood of a crash is inversely proportional to the time left before its deadline. 3 Likelihood of a crash is directly proportional to the duration since you last saved. 4 Likelihood of you throwing your computer out of the window is directly proportional to the number of times Clippy pops up. 5 That’s enough laws for now. . . Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature See also: “LATEX vs. MS Word” Outline LATEX crash course T. Hengl 1 Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use 2 What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? 3 LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Comparison Literature Literature LATEX crash course T. Hengl Important points Disclaimer The programme Software in use What is TEX? TEX philosophy What is LATEX? LATEX versus MS Word Lamport, L., 1994. LATEX: A Document Preparation System. Addison-Wesley, 291 p. Oetiker, T. 2008. The (Not So) Short Introduction to LATEX2e. self-published, 155 p. Comparison Literature LATEX on wikibooks. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX Layout galleries LATEX crash course T. Hengl Appendix The TEX showcase; Page and chapter headings by Vincent Zoonekynd; LATEX font catalogue; Copernicus publications (HESS); LATEX to HTML/KML LATEX crash course T. Hengl Appendix convert your LATEX document to HTML (install TtH); install some KML editor (or use WinEdt); Put the slides as HTML in the description field; to get some idea what you can do with KML, look at the KML interactive sampler and/or Google Earth Outreach; You can also convert from LATEX document to Wiki (e.g. using this Python script);