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Formatting Information

An introduction to typesetting with LATEX

Peter Flynn

Welcome to Formatting Information

Index List of Tables List of Figures List of Exercises

This is the online version of Formatting Information, a book about how to use the LATEX document preparation system. LATEX takes over where wordprocessors and desktop publishing systems leave off, making it possible to automate your formatting consistently, accurately, and reusably, without the tedious and repetitive manual formatting required by other systems.

This book has helped thousands of users get started. It’s now in its 7.83 edition (2020) but this is also a production release: everything has been tested but some details had to be rewritten and this was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic until the release of of TEX Live (2022). The only things you need are a computer and a copy of LATEX (free or commercial)...and a document that you want to typeset. LATEX works on almost any computer, and you can download it from the TUG web site, install it from the TUG DVD, or buy one of the excellent commercial versions.

In the web and eBook editions, this page doubles as the index, but in the print (PDF) edition, the index is at the end. If you haven’t done any typesetting before, I recommend that you start at the beginning. If you’re itching to get started, and you feel you know enough about computers and text-editing already, you can try the Quick Start instead.

Either way, welcome to LATEX. Take it gently for a while, and get used to being able to spend more time actually writing than formatting. If you find mistakes, please let me know so that I can correct them.

Some font conventions are used in the text and the index to distinguish between different meanings. These are listed in § 7 above. The entries in the index are all hyperlinked to their source. In the web and eBook editions, subsequent multiple occurrences give the section number or name. Page or section numbers in bold type indicate a canonical location where the entry is explained.

Index

" ' ( ) - . 1 : = @ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Z [ ] ^ ` ~ ␣

"   (Back)

\"e  1.8

'   (Back)

\'\i{}  1.8

\'e  1.8

(   (Back)

\(  1.10, 1.10

)   (Back)

\)  1.10, 1.10

-   (Back)

\-  1.9

.   (Back)

.h1 Interest Rates  Home

\.m  1.8

1   (Back)

10pt  2.1

11pt  2.1

12pt  1.4, 2.1

:   (Back)

:h1.Interest Rates  Home

=   (Back)

\=o  1.8

@   (Back)

\@author  7.2, 7.2

\@date  7.2, 7.2

@Heading[Interest Rates]  Home

\@maketitle  7.2

\@title  7.2, 7.2

A   (Back)

a4paper  2.1, 2.1

\aa  1.8

\AA  1.8

abstract  2.4, 2.4

\abstractname  2.4

abstracts  2.4

accents  1.8

acronym  5.4

ADA  4.7

\addbibresource  5.3

\addcontentsline  2.6

\addtocontents  2.6

\ae  1.8

\AE  1.8

American Mathematical Society (AMS)  1.10

American National Standards Institute (ANSI)  E

American Standard Code for Information Interchange (see ASCII)  E

ampersand  1.6

AP  Home

Apple Mac  A, A, A.1

\arabic  7.6

argument  1.4

arguments  1.4

array  4.2, 4.2, 8.2

\arraybackslash  4.2

\arraystretch  4.2, 4.2

article  5.3

ASCII  Home, Intro.4, 1.8, 1.10, 2.1, 4.4, 4.7, 8.1, B, C.4, E

\author  2.3, 2.3, 5.1, 7.2

\author{your name}  Home

\autocite  5.3, 5.3

B   (Back)

b  4.6

\b o  1.8

babel  1.8, 1.9, 2.7, 5.3

backslash  1.4

badness  C.3

\bar n  1.10

Barbara Beeton  A.3

baselinestretch  6.1

bbding  4.1, 6.2, 7.6

beer  Home, Home

\begin  1.4, 2.2, 7.5, Home

\begin{...}  2.2

\begin{abstract}  2.4

\begin{document}  Home, 1.5, 2.2, 2.2, 2.4, 7.2, 8.1

\begin{itemize}[nosep]  4.1

Berry, Karl  A

\bfseries  6.2, Home

biber  C.1, C.2

BIBINPUTS  5.3

biblatex  Credits, 1.2, 5.3, 5.3, Home, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3, Home, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3

biblatex-cheatsheet  5.3

bibliographies  5.3

bibtex  C.1, C.2

\bigskip  6.1

binary  1

biocon  5.4

BMP  4.4

book  2.6, 5.3

boxes  4.6

bp (big points)  1.9

bundle  3.2

C   (Back)

Chikrii, Kirill A   8.2

Chassell Bob  Preface

Clea F Rees   5.3

\c C  1.8

\c c  1.8

caption  4.2, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 5.3

Cascading Style Sheets (see CSS)  8.2

cc (Ciceros)  1.9

CD  Home, 8

cd  C.1, C.2

center  1.4, 1.9, 4.2, 4.2, 6.2

\centering  1.9, 4.2, 4.2, 6.2

Change Directory  C.1

\chapter  2.6, 2.6, 2.7, 5.1, 7.6

\chapter{Introduction}  1.5

characters  1.6, 1.8, 1.10, E

Chocolate Stout  Home

\cite  5.3, 5.3, 5.3, Home, 5.3, 5.4

\cite{fg}  Home

class  3.1

classes  3.1

\clearpage  Home

CLI  Preface, Intro.3

\cline  4.2

CM  Home

cm (centimeters)  1.9

CMYK  6.2

\color  3.1, 6.2

\colorbox  4.6, 6.2

colortbl  4.2

colour  6.2

columns  5.5

columnsep  5.5

\command  Home

Command-Line Interface (see CLI)  Intro.1

commands  1.4

comment character  1.6

commercial distributions  Intro.5

Common Gateway Interface (CGI)  Intro.1

commutative  6.2

Comprehensive TEX Archive Network (see CTAN)  3

Computer Modern (see CM)  6.2

ConTEXt  Preface

Continuous Acquisition and Life-cycle Support (CALS)  4.2

counter  Home, 1.4

cross-references  5.3

csquotes  5.3

CSS  Home, 6.2, 8.2, 8.2

CSV  4.2

csvtools  4.2

CTAN  Foreword, Preface, Intro.4, Intro.5, Intro.6, Intro.1, Home, 2.1, 3, 3, 3.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.2, 3.2, 3.3, 3.3, 4.4, 5.3, 5.4, 6.2, 6.2, 6.3, 6.3, Home, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, A, A, A.2, A.4, B.1, C.5, D.2

CTAN   5.4

curly braces  1.4

Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black (see CMYK)  6.2

D   (Back)

Dorner, Fernando   8.2

DuBois Paul   Home

\d s  1.8

dash  1.9, Home

datatool  4.2

\date  2.3, 2.3, 7.2, C.3, C.3

\datesubmitted  2.3

datetime2  1.4

\date{}  2.3

dcolumn  4.2, 4.2

dd (Didot points)  1.9

DEB  Intro.1

Debian (see DEB)  Intro.1

\def  7.4, 7.4

default  6.2

\definecolor  6.2

del  C.1, C.1

DELete  C.1

description  4.1

description*  4.1

desktop publishing (see DTP)  Preface

Device-Independent (see DVI)  C.4

diagram  4.2

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)  Preface

Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)  1

Digital Versatile Disc (see DVD)  Intro.1

dimension  2.7

dimensions  1.9

DOCTEX  3.2

document  Intro.4, 1.4, Home, 2.2, 2.3

document class  2.1

Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL)  8.3

\documentclass  1.4, Home, 2.1, 2.1, 2.4, 3.1, 6.2

\documentclass{article}  8.1

DOM  8.2

dots per inch (see DPI)  Intro.1

double-spacing  6.1

\doublespacing  6.1

Doug McKenna  6.2

DPI  Intro.4

draft  2.1

\dtae  C.3

DTD  Home

DTP  Preface, 4.2, 6.2, 6.2

DVD  Home, Intro.4, Intro.6, Intro.1, Intro.1, Intro.1, 6.2, 6.2, 6.2, 8, A, A, A.4, Home

DVI  Preface, Preface, 1.2, 4.4, 8.2, A.1, C.4, C.4

dvips -f testpage | lpr  A.1

dvips -R0 ... dvifile  4.4

dvipsnames  6.2

E   (Back)

ECDL  Intro.2

\editversion  2.3

\EF  7.1

Electronic Publication v3 (see EPUB3)  Home

em (relative measure)  1.9

\emph  6.2, 6.2

\emph{  8.1

empty  6.1

Encapsulated Postscript (see EPS)  4.4

\end  1.4, 2.2, 7.5, Home

endfloat  4.7

endnote  5.1

\end{...}  2.2, 4.7

\end{abstract}  2.4

\end{document}  1.4, 2.2, 8.1

\end{itemize}  1.4

\end{verbatim}  4.7

\enspace  Home

enumerate  4.1

enumerate*  4.1

enumi  Home

enumii  Home

enumiii  Home

enumitem  3.2, 4.1, 4.1, 4.1, 4.1, 6.1, 6.1, 6.1

enumiv  Home

environment  Home, 1.4, 2.2, 4.1

EPS  4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4

epsf  4.4

epstopdf  4.4

EPUB  8.2, 8.2

EPUB3  Preface, 8, Home

equation  1.10

error  C

Error messages  C.3, C.3, C.3, C.3, C.3, C.3, C.3

\EUR  1.6, 4.2

Euro  1.6

European Computer Driving Licence (see ECDL)  Intro.1

ex (relative measure)  1.9

example  4.1

exit  Home, Home, Home, C.1, C.1

extarticle  2.1

extbook  2.1

Extensible Markup Language (see XML)  8

Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)  8.3

Extensible Stylesheet Language: Formatting Objects (XSLFO)  8.3

Extensible Stylesheet Language — Transformations (see XSLT)  8.3

extreport  2.1

extsizes  2.1

F   (Back)

Fine, Jonathan  Home

fancybox  4.6, 4.6, 7.5

fancyhdr  6.1, 6.1

\fancyhead  6.1

fancyvrb  4.7, 4.7, 5.1

FAQ  Foreword, 3, 3.3

\fbox  1.4, 4.3, 4.6, 4.6, 6.2

fboxrule  4.6, 6.2

fboxsep  4.6, 6.2

fc-list  6.2, B.2

\fcolorbox  4.6, 6.2

figure  4.2, 4.3, 6.2

figure*  5.5

figures  4.3

File Name Database (see FNDB)  A.2

filenames  C

fix-cm  6.2

float  4.2, 4.6

floats  4.2, 4.3

flushleft  4.2, 6.2, 7.2

flushright  4.2, 6.2

FNDB  3.2, Home, 6.2

fnpara  5.1

\fnsymbol  5.1

font series  6.2

font shape  6.2

fontenc  1.8

fontname  6.2

fonts  2.1, 6.2, 6.2, 6.2, 6.2, B

\fontsize  6.2

fontspec  1.4, 6.2, 6.2, 8.2

\footcite  5.3, Home

\footcite{fg}  Home

footmisc  Home

\footnote  4.7, 5.1, 5.1, 5.1

footnotes  5.1

\footnotesize  Home

\footnote{...}  Home

\footnote{Like this}  5.1

\foreign  6.2, 7.3

\foreignlanguage  1.9

\frac{  1.10

Frequently-Asked Questions (see FAQ)  3.3

FTP  3

G   (Back)

Granzer, Andreas   8.2

Gregorio, Enrico  4.4

GELLMU  8.2

gellmu  8.2

Generalized Extensible LATEX-Like MarkUp (see GELLMU)  8.2

geometry  2.1, 2.1, 2.7, 3.1, 3.1, 3.1, 5.2, 6.1, 6.1

GIF  4.4

gloss  5.4, 5.4

glossaries  5.4, 5.4

\glossary  5.4, 5.4

\gls  5.4

\gls{esis}  5.4

GNU  Home, Preface, Preface, Preface, Intro, Intro.4, Intro.6, Intro.1, Intro.2, Intro.8, 1.4, 1.8, 3.2, Home, 3.2, 3.2, 5.3, 5.4, 6.2, Home, 8.2, 8.2, A, A.1, A.1, A.1, A.2, A.2, A.3, A.3, A.4, B.1, B.1, B.2, B.2, B.2, C.1, C.1, C.4

GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)  4.4

GNU’s Not Unix (see GNU)  Home

graphics  Home, 4.4, 4.4

Graphics Interchange Format (see GIF)  4.4

\graphicspath  4.4

graphicx  4.3, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4

grep  B.2

grid  4.2

group  1.9, 6.2, 6.2

grouping  6.2

groups  6.2

GUI  5.4, 8.1

H   (Back)

Hennings, Wilfried   8.2

Hans, Hagen   1.2

Hartmut, Henkel   1.2

\H o  1.8

Hagen Hans  Preface

hash mark  1.6

headings  6.1

help  3.3

hep-font  6.2

\hline  4.2, 4.2

\hrule  7.2

\hspace{1in}  6.1

HTML  Home, Preface, Home, Intro.8, Home, 2.1, 2.2, 2.7, 4.2, 4.2, 5.3, 6.2, Home, Home, 8.1, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.3

HTML v.5 (see HTML5)  8.2

HTML5  Credits, Home, 5.3, 8.2

HTTP  3

\huge  Home

\Huge  Home

hyperref  4.7

HyperText Markup Language (see HTML)  8

hyphen  4.7

hyphenation  1.9, 1.9, 1.9

hyphens  1.9, 1.9

I   (Back)

\i  1.8

IBM  Home

ICDL  Intro.2

ID  5.3

illustrations  4.2

image  4.2

images  4.4

in (inches)  1.9

\includegraphics  4.3, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4

\includegraphics[width=3in]{myhouse}  4.7

\index  5.4, 5.4, 7.4

indexes  5.4

\index{beer!lite!American}  5.4

\index{beer!lite}  5.4

\index{beer}  5.4

\index{Microbrew|see{beer}}  5.4

\index{Oregon Brewing Company@Rogue}  5.4

informal figures  4.2

informal tables  4.2

inline  4.1

inputenc  1.8, 1.10, E

\input{mygloss.tex}  5.4

Inria  8.2

Installation  A

Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique [originally Institut de recherche en informatique et en automatique] (see Inria)  8.2

International Organization for Standardization (see ISO)  Intro.1

ISO  A

ISP  3

\item  1.4, 4.1

itemize  1.4, 4.1

itemize*  4.1

\itshape  Home

J   (Back)

Jørgensen, Palle  6.2

Jørgensen, Palle  6.3

JATS  8.2, 8.2

Joint Photographic Experts Group (see JPG)  4.4

Jonathan Kew  6.2

JPG  Home, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4

JSON  8

K   (Back)

Kastrup, David  Home

Kew, Jonathan  1.2

Kay, Michael  Intro.1

Knuth, Donald  D

Knuth, Donald  7.4

Kew, Jonathan  Preface

Knuth, Donald  Preface

Knuth, Donald  Preface

Koch, Richard  A

komascript  Home, 2.1

L   (Back)

Luigi, Scarso   1.2

Lamport, Leslie  7.4

Ludwichowski, Jerzy  D.1

\l  1.8

\L  1.8

\label  4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3, 6.1

\labelitemi  7.6

\labelitemiv  7.6

Lamport, Leslie  Preface

landscape  4.2

\LARGE  Home, Home

\large  Home

\Large  Home

\LaTeX  1.4, 1.4, 1.5, 8.1

latex  3.2

latex testpage  A.1

latexmk  C.1, C.2

\leftmark  6.1

length  Home, 2.7

letterpaper  2.1, 2.1

letterspacing  Home

\linebreak  7.3

Linux  A

listings  4.7, 4.7, 4.7

\listoffigures  2.6

\listoftables  2.6

lists  4.1, 4.1, 4.1, 4.1, 4.1

longtable  4.2

Lotz, Manfred  A

\lowerbox  7.6

lrbox  4.6

ls -R  A.5

\lstinline  4.7, 4.7

lwarp  8.2, 8.2

M   (Back)

Maranget Luc   8.2

Malyshev, Basil K  Intro.5

Malyshev, Basil K  Home

M-x eval-buffer RET  1.2

Mac OS X  A

macros  7, 7

\makeatletter  7.2, 7.2

\makeatother  7.2, 7.2, 7.2

\makeglossary  5.4

makeidx  5.4

\makeindex  5.4, C.1, C.2

\maketitle  2.3, 2.3, 2.3, 2.3, 2.4, 2.4, 2.4, 2.7, 3.1, 7.2, 7.2, C.3

man makeindex  5.4

MARC  Preface

marginal notes  5.2

\marginal{Some text}  5.2

margins  6.1

\markboth  6.1

\markright  6.1

markup  1

marvosym  1.6, 4.2, 6.2

math characters  1.10

mathematics  Intro.5, 1.10

\mbox  1.9, 7.3

measurements  1.9

\medskip  6.1

memoir  Home, 2.1

metacharacters  1.6

metadata  2.3

Michael Sperberg-McQueen  A.3

Microbrew  Home

Microsoft Bitmap (see BMP)  4.4

Microsoft Windows  A

Minimal [Non-]Working Example (MWE)  3.3

minipage  4.6, 4.6, 4.6, 4.6, 5.1, 7.5

mirror  4.4

mkdir -p fonts/source/public/whatever  B.1

mkdir ~/Library/texmf  A.2

mkdir ~/texmf  A.2

mm (millimeters)  1.9

more  C.1

MoVe  C.1

MS-DOS  4.4, C.1

multicol  5.5, 5.5

multicols  5.5

\multicolumn  4.2, 4.2

\multicolumn{1}{c}{no data}  4.2

\multicolumn{3}{c}{The new heading}  4.2

multiplier  4.2

multirow  4.2

mv  C.1, C.1

myheadings  6.1

N   (Back)

natbib  Home

New Font Selection Scheme (NFSS)  B

New Typesetting System (NTS)  Preface

\newcommand  7.1, 7.4, 7.4

\newcounter{example}  4.1

\newfontface  6.2

\newfontfamily  6.2

\newgeometry  6.1

\newglossaryentry  5.4

NNTP  3.3

\noindent  4.5

noitemsep  4.1, 6.1

normalem  6.2

\normalsize  Home

nosep  4.1, 6.1

notomath  1.10

O   (Back)

Otten, Ton  1.2

Ota, Takaaki  4.2

\o  1.8

\O  1.8

octothorpe  1.6

\oe  1.8

\OE  1.8

\onehalfspacing  6.1

oneside  2.1

OpenType (see OT)  6.2

options  3.1

OS X  A

OT  6.2, 6.2, 6.2

OTF  1.2

\ovalbox  4.6

P   (Back)

Péter Szabó  4.4

\P  5.3

package  Home, 3.1

packages  2.1, 3.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.2, 3.2

page size  C.5

\pageref  5.3

\pagestyle  6.1, 6.1

panels  4.6

paper sizes  2.1

\par  4.2, 6.1, 6.2, 6.2, 7.2

\paragraph  2.6, 4.1

paralist  4.1, 4.1, C.3

\parbox  4.6, 4.6

\parbox[t]{3in}{...}  4.6

\parencite  5.3

\parencite{fg}  Home, Home

\parencite{keyname}  Home

parindent  2.7, 4.6

parskip  2.7, 2.7, 2.7

\part  2.6

\part*  2.6

pc (picas)  1.9

PCTEX  Home

PDA  Preface, 8

PDF  Home, Home, Preface, Preface, Preface, Preface, Home, Intro.4, 1.2, 1.3, 1.7, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.6, 4.7, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, A, A.1, C.4, C.4, C.4, C.4, C.5

\person  7.4, 7.4

Personal Digital Assistant (see PDA)  Intro.1

Personal TEX Directory  A.2

Personal TEX Folder  A.2

\person{Don Knuth}  7.4

\person{Leslie Lamport}  7.4

picas  1.9

picture  4.3

pifont  4.1

plain  6.1

plaintext  1

PNG  Home, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4, 4.4

points  1.9

polyglossia  1.8, 2.7, 5.3

Portable Graphics Format (PGF)  4.3

Portable Document Format (see PDF)  4.4

Portable Network Graphic (see PNG)  4.4

PostScript (see PS)  8.2

Preamble  Home

preview  C.4

preview-latex  Home

\printbibliography  Home, 5.3

Printer Control Language (PCL)  4.4

\printglossaries  5.4

\printindex  5.4

printing  C, C.5, C.5

\product  6.2, 6.2, 7.3, 7.3

prompt  C.1

\protect  5.1, 5.1

PS  1.2, B

pt (points)  1.9

Q   (Back)

\qquad  Home

\quad  1.9, Home

quotation  Home, 4.5, 6.2

quotation marks  1.7

R   (Back)

Raggett Dave   Home

ragged2e  1.9

\raggedleft  1.9, 1.9, 4.2

\RaggedLeft  1.9

\raggedright  1.9, 1.9, 4.2, 4.6

\RaggedRight  1.9

Rahtz, Sebastian  A

\raisebox  7.6

Red-Green-Blue (see RGB)  6.2

RedHat Package Manager (see RPM)  Intro.1

\ref  4.1, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3, 5.3

references  5.3

\ref{normalxref}  Home

\reindex  7.4, 7.4

ReMove  C.1

ren  C.1, C.1

REName  C.1

\renewcommand  2.4, 2.4, 2.6, 4.2, 7.2, 7.6

\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.5}  4.2

\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.75}  6.1

report  2.6

\RequirePackage  6.2

RGB  6.2

Rich Text Format (see RTF)  Home

\rightmark  6.1

RIS  5.3, 5.3

rm  C.1, C.1

Rogue  Home

rotate  4.4

rotating  4.2

RPM  Intro.1

RSS  3.3

RTF  Home, Home, 8.2

rtf2latex2e  Home

rule  Home, 4.2

S   (Back)

Schenk, Christian  A

Stallman Richard  Preface

Sath­yam Ujwal   Home

Stephani, Philipp  4.4

\S  5.3

Sbox  4.6, 4.6, 7.5

Scalable Vector Graphics (see SVG)  6.2

scale  4.4

Scale=MatchLowercase  Home, 6.2

scaled  4.4

Scott Pakin  6.2

\scriptsize  6.2, Home

\scriptstyle  6.2

\scshape  Home

secnumdepth  1.4, 2.6

section  Home, 1.4, 2.6, 2.6, 2.7, 5.1, 6.1, 7.6

section numbering  2.6

sections  2.6

\section{Interest Rates}  Home

\section{Introduction}  7.6

sectsty  2.6, 6.1

\selectfont  6.2

\selectlanguage  1.9

\sentinel  7.4

\setcounter  1.4, 2.6, 2.7

\setlength  2.7, 4.6, 4.6

\setmainfont  1.4, 6.2

\setmonofont  6.2

\setsansfont  6.2

setspace  6.1

\sffamily  Home, 7.2

SGML  Home, 2.1, 2.2, 8, 8.2, 8.3

\shadowbox  4.6, 7.5

sidebar  4.6

sidebars  4.6

SIL  6.2

\singlespacing  6.1

size (fonts)  6.2

\slshape  Home

\small  4.5, Home

\smallskip  6.1

soul  1.9, 6.1, Home

sp (scaled points)  1.9

space  6.1

spaceskip  1.9

spacing  6.1

special characters  1.6, 1.10

\ss  1.8

Standard Generalized Markup Language (see SGML)  8.3

strut  4.2

style (fonts)  6.2

\subparagraph  2.6, 4.1

\subparagraph*  2.6

\subsection  1.4, 2.6

\subsubsection  2.6

sudo su -  Home, Home, Home

sudo texconfig  A.1

summaries  2.4

SVG  Home

svgnames  6.2

system fonts  6.2

T   (Back)

Taco, Hoekwater   1.2

t  4.6

\t oo  1.8

T1  1.8

tabcolsep  4.2

table  4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.3, 6.2

table of contents  2.6, 2.6

table*  5.5

\tableofcontents  1.4, 2.6, 2.6, 2.6, C.3

tables  4.2

\tablesfont  6.2

tabular  4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.2, 4.3, 4.6, 4.6

tabularx  4.2

tabulary  4.2

Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)  4.4

TDS  3.2, 3.2, 3.2, 3.2, 3.2, 3.2, 3.2, 3.2, 6.3, 6.3, B

TEI  Home, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2

temporary directory  3.2

term  Home

terminal  C

TEX Directory Structure (see TDS)  3.2

TEX Users Group (see TUG)  D

texconfig  A.1

texdoc  3.1

TEXMFSYSVAR  Home

Text Encoding Initiative (see TEI)  D.1

text-only interface  C.1

\text..  5.4

\textbackslash  1.6

\textbf{text}  Home

\textbrokenbar  1.10

\textbullet  4.1

\textcite  5.3

\textcite{fg}  Home, Home

\textcite{keyname}  Home

\textcolor  6.2

\textcolor{red}{like this}  6.2

textcomp  1.6, 1.6, 1.10, 4.1

\textdegree  1.10

\texteuro  1.6

\textit  1.4, 6.2

\textit{Star Trek}  1.5

\textit{text}  Home

\textlangle  1.10

\textrangle  1.10

\textsc{text}  Home

\textsf{text}  Home

\textsl{text}  Home

\textsterling  1.6

\textsuperscript  1.6

\texttrademark  7.3

\texttt{text}  Home

textwidth  Home

\the...  7.6

\thechapter  7.6

\theenumi  Home

\theenumii  Home

\theenumiii  Home

\theenumiv  Home

\theexample  4.1

\TheSbox  7.5

\thesection  7.6

\thinspace  1.7, 1.7, Home

\thispagestyle  6.1

Thành, Hàn Thế  1.2

Thành, Hàn Thế  Preface

tikz  4.3

tilde  1.6

\tiny  Home

\title  2.3, 2.3, 5.1, 7.2

\titlecite  5.3

titlepage  2.1

titles  2.3

\tmproduct  7.3

\tmproduct{Velcro}  7.3

tocdepth  2.6, 2.6

tocloft  2.6

\today  1.4, 1.5

tools  5

tracking  Home

TrueTEX  Home

TrueType (see TT)  6.2

TT  6.2, 6.2, 6.2

TTF  1.2

\ttfamily  Home

tth  8.2

TUG  Foreword, Preface, Preface, Intro.6, Home, Intro.1, Intro.5, 3.3, 6.2, 6.2, 6.2, 6.2, A, A, Home

twocolumn  5.5

twoside  2.1

typographics  6

U   (Back)

\u u  1.8

ulem  6.2

\uline  6.2

unboxed  4.1

Uniform Resource Locator (URL)  4.7

Uniform Resource Indicator (see URI)  4.7

units  1.9

Unix  A

unscoped  6.2

Unternehmensberatung Rubow Weber (URW)  6.2

\upshape  Home

URI  2.1, 3.3, 4.7, 4.7, Home, 4.7, A.4

url  1.4, 1.4, 4.7, 4.7, 4.7, 5.1, 8.1

US  Home

\usepackage  1.4, 2.1, 3.1, 3.1, B, B.1, C.3

\usepackage{graphicx}  4.4, 4.4

\usepackage{url}  4.7, 8.1

\usepackage{xcolor}  6.2

utf8x  1.8

V   (Back)

\v u  1.8

varioref  5.3, 5.3

\verb  4.7, 4.7, 4.7, 4.7, 4.7, 5.1

verbatim  4.7, 4.7

Verbatim  4.7, 4.7

verbatim text  4.7

\VerbatimFootnotes  5.1

viewer  C

\vspace  6.1

\vspace*{19pt}  6.1

\vspace{18pt}  6.1

VTEX  Home

W   (Back)

Wawrykiewicz, Staszek  4.4

What You See Is What You Get (see WYSIWYG)  Intro.1

white-space  1.9, 6.1, 6.1, 6.1, Home

WYSIWYG  Preface, Preface, Home, C.4

X   (Back)

xcolor  Home, 3.1, 3.1, 3.1, 3.1, 3.1, Home, 4.6, 6.2, 7.2

XDV  1.2

xelatex  Intro.3, 1.3, C.1, C.2

XHTML  5.3, Home, Home, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2

XML  Home, Home, Foreword, Preface, Preface, Intro.4, Intro.8, 1, Home, 1.5, 2.1, 2.2, 4.2, 4.7, 8, 8, Home, Home, 8.1, 8.1, 8.1, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.2, 8.3, D.1, D.1

XML version of HTML (see XHTML)  Home

XSLT  Home, Foreword, 8, 8.1, Home, 8.1

XSLT2  Intro.8

XSLT3  Home

XƎTEX  Preface

Z   (Back)

ZIP  3.2, 3.2, 3.2

[   (Back)

\[  1.10, 1.10, 1.10

[GNU] INFOrmation (INFO)  Preface

]   (Back)

\]  1.10, 1.10

^   (Back)

\^e  1.8

\^w  1.8

`   (Back)

\`e  1.8

~   (Back)

\~g  1.8

\~n  1.8

␣   (Back)

\␣  1.9

List of Tables

List of Figures

    Prefaces

List of Exercises

    Prefaces

Revision history

RSS returns

The RSS feed is back after a long absence due to hosting problems. There is a linked icon in the social media/contact links at the bottom of the menu/sidebar.

Publication history

The November 2003 edition of ‘’ was published as a single-topic issue of TUGBoat (). Subsequent editions have been published on the Silmaril LATEX web site at http://latex.silmaril.ie/formattinginformation/.

v. 7.98 — 31 January 2023
Added many more exercises. Corrected many bits of poor grammar and wordy explanations. Completely rewrote the section on fonts. pdflatex and plain LaTeX are now omitted (ie XeLaTeX only).
v. 7.97 — 1 November 2022
Started work on adding exercises. Added Discord to help section.
v. 7.96 — 11 October 2022
Added docx2tex converter and rationalised the section.
v. 7.95 — 23 September 2022
Rewrote the terminology and description of floats.
v. 7.93 — 13 August 2022
Rewrite of the TTF and OTF font installation section, updates to the accuracy of the other font installation sections.
v. 7.92 — 9 August 2022
Updated BachoTEX conference cancellation.
v. 7.91 — 9 June 2022
Updated BachoTEX conference.
v. 7.9 — 20 February 2022
Updated conferences. Changed the Quick Start to use XeLaTeX and updated the commentary on the commands used.
v. 7.85 — 10 July 2021
Updated list of commercial implementations to remove companies no longer trading.
v. 7.84 — 16 February 2021
Added new favicon.
v. 7.83 — 10 December 2020
Updated reference to csvtools in tables to datatool, and added image of tabled being edited in LYX.
v. 7.82 — 23 April 2020
Added footnote in verbatim about the alignment of the end command in other packages
v. 7.81 — 19 November 2018
Updated and rewrote the section on image file formats
v. 7.8 — 25 February 2018
Updated BachoTEX and MarkupUP
v. 7.7 — 14 February 2018
Updated conference dates; added details of lwarp; fixed bibref pointer to PDF pages where given.
v. 7.6 — 14 May 2017
Added salient comments about how to choose an editor from Michael Sperberg-McQueen, and slides from TUG 2017 from Barbara Beeton on how to handle LATEX errors.
v. 7.5 — 21 January 2017
Full update of Mac and Windows installation with new screenshots and a new layout for procedures; introduction of an XSLT routine to test when an element is immediately preceded by another element with only white-space intervening, and to generate a space token if needed (this overcomes the design flaw alluded to in the revision comments to v3.7 below); many updates to phraseology, and removal of obsolete mentions of packages and practices.
v. 7.45 — 4 November 2016
Updated details of TDS package installation
v. 7.44 — 11 October 2016
Updated details of meetings
v. 7.43 — 15 April 2016
Updated comments on superscripted ordinals, spacing around em rules, and details of loading OTF/TTF fonts
v. 7.42 — 1 March 2016
Edited all sections, corrected spellings, updated package details and all examples to XƎLATEX/biblatex/biber, fixed stray typos, checked links,. This is preparatory to v8, due for later in 2016.
v. 7.41 — 30 January 2016
Minor typos, updated event dates
v. 7.4 — 16 November 2015
Started updating converters
v. 7.3 — 26 October 2015
Updated meetings for 2016
v. 7.2 — 12 July 2015
Several sections re-ordered to present the material is a more logical fashion. Numerous grammatical elisions corrected, and some late typos (thanks to Rob Borland).
v. 7.1 — 10 June 2015
Minor changes to accommodate revised PDF format.
v. 7.0 — 30 July 2014
Completely re-edited, large sections rewritten, obsolete material removed, including installation changes for the 2014 DVD, and a completely new responsive web site launched.
v. 6.0 — 30 December 2013
Updated links, replaced references to obsolescent packages, rewrote installation for the 2013 DVD
v. 5.7 — 21 December 2011
Moved and expanded the details of creating a Personal TEX Directory. Added new section on using the LaTeX Font Catalogue.
v. 5.6 — 1 November 2011
Revised installation details for TL2011.
v. 5.5 — 25 May 2011
Minor revision; added details of page references in citations, a warning about the broken harvard.sty and its solution with natbib and har2nat, and a reference to bibunits.
v. 5.4 — 27 April 2011
Minor revision; added details of packages for body type size options; fixed bug in HTML bibrefs which were failing to retrieve the date.
v. 5.3 — 22 March 2011
Minor revision; removed mention of VTeX as a synchronous typographic editor and replaced with BaKoMa TeX. Located and fixed XSLT bug which was preventing cross-reference IDs being used correctly. Finally tracked down the non-appearance of italics in some places (no Lite Italic in my copy of Antique Olive).
v. 5.2 — 13 March 2011
Minor revision; even finer details of the problems Windows users face at installation.
v. 5.1 — 5 March 2011
Minor revision; spellings and font selection errors repaired; missing rule in HTML table example; better details of the problems Windows users face at installation.
v. 5 — 28 January 2011
Major revision; Installation and Editors sections rewritten, remaining package references updated, and more new ones added.
v. 4 — 1 April 2009
Major revision; Installation and Editors sections reorganised, all package references updated, and new ones added.
v. 3.7 — 22 December 2006
There have again been some small but significant improvements, both in the LATEX code, and in the default installations and implementations. The default colour package is now xcolor; the default output for many people is now PDF; and the advent of XƎTEX means that TrueType fonts and Unicode are now much more easily supported. The DocBook DTD has been updated to 4.4, and the TypeBook DTD shim likewise, and the IGNOREd code from 3.5 and earlier versions has now finally been dropped. XSLT still has the notorious design flaw of ignoring whitespace nodes in mixed content when a DTD is used, but this seems to have gone unnoticed except by the publishing industry. The use of the citetitle element for bibliographic references has been replaced by biblioref.
v. 3.6 — 31 March 2005
Since the publication of the November 2003 edition in TUGboat, several new books on LATEX have been released, and this edition reflects some of the new material and approaches contained in them. See the Bibliography for details of these publications. The only technical change has been to use empty elements for the TEX, LATEX, and other logos instead of the more usual entities so that the HTML version can use CSS to produce better logos. Thanks to whoever wrote the CSS for TEX4ht, which is where I found the styles.
v. 3.5 — 29 July 2004
Modified DTD to add span element type to allow use of external entities for formatted TEX, LATEX, and other logos in the HTML version. Changed entity declaration in the internal subset to enable this, and switched declarations and marked sections in the DTD. This now means it needs Saxon 7 or 8 to process, as Saxon 6 does not handle parameter entities values used as parameter entity declarations.
v. 3.4 — 9 November 2003
Applied all Barbara Beeton’s corrections (see separate emails) and rewrote a few formatting macros to allow the document to fit more easily into US Letter shape. It would be nice if it would also format for A5 so that it could become a paperback but that’s another day’s work. Started on writing the missing sections (Installing Type 1 CM Fonts and Going beyond LATEX, but these are not finished yet) and rewrote entirely the existing (non-CM) Type 1 font installation procedure in line with the new (unreleased) Gutta-Percha script. Added hidden meanings for CD, DVD, IBM.
v. 3.3 — 20 August 2003
Fixed XSLT bug which wrongly lettered appendices. Fixed problem which called wrong font for examples of Times and Helvetica (thanks to William Adams). Updated numerous typos, added comments about pdftex option to color. Rewrote formatting for TUGboat.
v. 3.2 — 5 March 2003
Finished rewrite. Revised and expanded almost everything.
v. 3.1 — 28 August 2002
Recast in DocBook and reworded some sections. Started the big rewrite.

Copyright

This document is copyright © 1998–2023 by Silmaril Consultants under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (copyleft).

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the last appendix ‘License’ below.

You are allowed to distribute, reproduce, and modify this document without fee or further requirement for consent subject to the conditions in § F.5 below. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this document. If you make useful modifications you are asked to inform the author so that the master copy can be updated for the benefit of others.

The PDF edition was typeset with XƎLATEX in Charis, Raleway, and Nimbus15 from the XML master document also used in the web and eBook editions, transformed with XSLT3, Calibre, and kindlegen. Readers of the Kindle (.mobi) version may notice that the TEX and related logos are reproduced in plain text rather than with the special spacing and alignment normally seen; this is to compensate for the many deficiencies of the Kindle file format and the Kindle devices, which are not capable of reproducing microtypographic adjustments. Standard Electronic Publication v3 (EPUB3) format eBook readers are not affected by this and show the logos in their correct form.

  1. See, for example, the list of TEX vendors in Table 3 below, and the list of consultants published by TUG. 

  2. A guesstimate. With free software it’s virtually impossible to tell how many people are using it. 

  3. GNU’s Not Unix (GNU) is a project to create a completely free computing system — ‘free’ meaning both free from encumbrances and restrictions as well as free of charge. 

  4. Knuth still fixes bugs, although the chance of finding a bug in TEX these days approaches zero. 

  5. Y&Y, Mackichan Software, PC-TEX, Blue Sky, True TEX, and BaKoMa TEX [RIP Basil K Malyshev], who produced TEX distributions for many years, all appear to have ceased trading. Some of the Y&Y add-on fonts are still distributed by the TEX Users Group (see the appendix ‘User Groups’ below), or have been replaced by Open Source implementations, and there is a mailing list at the TUG web site for the support of former Y&Y users. 

  6. Some which are straightforward are shown in Figure 1.1 below. 

  7. Remember not everyone is lucky enough to be able to install new software: many users on business and academic networks still use old versions of TEX because they or their system managers don’t know how to update them. Local user groups may be able to provide help and support here. 

  8. Bear in mind that the degree symbol is a non-ASCII character, so you must specify what input encoding you are using if you want to type it: see the example of the inputenc package in § 1.8 above. If you don’t want to use non-ASCII characters (or if you are using a system which cannot generate them), you can use the command \textdegree to get the degree sign. 

  9. You will also see dollar signs used for math mode. This is quite common but deprecated: it’s what plain TEX used in the days before LATEX, and the habit got ingrained in many mathematicians. It still works as a convenient shorthand like $x=y$, as do double-dollars for display-mode math like $$E=mc^2$$, but they are only mentioned here to warn readers seeing them in other authors’ work that \(...\) and \[...\] are the proper LATEX commands. 

  10. Readers familiar with SGML, HTML, and XML will recognise the concept as similar to the Document Type Declaration (it’s still called a ‘type’ there, not a ‘class’). 

  11. Theses and dissertations require an Abstract, which is provided in the report class but not in the book class. Many universities provide a special thesis class of their own. 

  12. The built-in letter class is rather idiosyncratic: there are much better ones you can use which you will find in the memoir package and the komascript bundle. 

  13. ‘Letter’ size is 8½″×11″, which is the trimmed size of the long-obsolete Demy Quarto, still in use in North America. Other common US office sizes are ‘Legal’, which is 8½″×14″, a ‘bastard’ (variant) cutting close to the old Foolscap (8¼″×13¼″); Ledger or Tabloid (11″×17″, which is exactly twice ‘Letter’, in the same way that A3 is twice A4); and ‘Executive’ (7″×10″). ISO standard ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ paper sizes, used everywhere else, are still largely unknown in many parts of North America. 

  14. Note that the standard built-in document classes (book, article, report, or letter) only use the paper size to adjust the margins: they do not embed the paper size name in the PostScript or PDF output. For this you need the geometry package in order to ensure that the paper size name gets embedded correctly in the output, otherwise printers may select the wrong paper tray, or reject the job. 

  15. A few publishers’ journal style packages ask for the Abstract to be typed before the \maketitle because they do special formatting with it along with the title block. 

  16. It is arguable that chapters also have no place in reports, either, as these are conventionally divided into sections as the top-level division. LATEX, however, assumes your reports have chapters, but this is only the default, and can be changed very simply (see § 7.6 below). 

  17. Paragraph spacing and indentation are cultural settings. If you are typesetting in a language other than English, you should use the babel or polyglossia packages, which alter many things, including the spacing and the naming of sections, to conform with the standards of different cultures, countries, and languages. 

  18. As at December 2022. 

  19. As at December 2022. 

  20. MiKTEX users note that you cannot process TEX Installer (.ins and .dtx) files inside MiKTEX’s own installation folders: you have to process them elsewhere first, hence the need for a temporary directory. 

  21. For example, there is no separate xcolor.dtx and xcolor.ins for the xcolor package because it forms part of the graphics bundle, which is included with all LATEX systems anyway. Such packages change very rarely, as they form part of the kernel of LATEX and are very stable. You should never try to update these packages in isolation. 

  22. Almost all of these have been updated to work with LATEX2ε, so they should be installed as in step 3 below, but there are a few remaining. 

  23. Note that this means newsreaders for the Usenet News (NNTP) service. It does not mean syndication readers for RSS, which are a different thing entirely — these are unfortunately also sometimes referred to as ‘newsreaders’. 

  24. It’s worth pointing out that ‘technical’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘computer technical’ or ‘engineering technical’, least of all ‘mathematical technical’: it just means it contains a lot of τέχνη, Greek for specialist material or artistry. A literary analysis such as La Textualisation de Madame Bovary (on the marginal notes in the manuscripts of Gustave Flaubert’s novel) is every bit as technical in the literary or linguistic field as the maintenance manual for the Airbus 380 is in the aircraft engineering field. 

  25. In fact, any time you define a counter in LATEX, you automatically get a command to reproduce its value. So if you defined a new counter example to use in a teaching book, by saying \newcounter{example}, that automatically makes available the command \theexample for use when you want to display the current value of example. 

  26. You can use the tabular environment anywhere you need stuff aligned in rows and columns, not just in a figure. 

  27. Note that this use of the double backslash to signal the end of a row is subtly different from the use we saw in § 1.9.5 above to terminate a normal text line prematurely. Here it marks the end of a table row. 

  28. You may find a lot of old files which use a package called epsf. Don’t use it: it’s obsolete. The graphicx package has an ‘x’ because it's an extension on the older package called graphics. 

  29. The original term Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is now deprecated in favour of the more accurate Uniform Resource Indicator (URI). For details see http://www.w3.org/Addressing/. The older term still persists, especially in this LATEX package and its command, and in some XML markup vocabularies. 

  30. A number of environments which do complicated things with the category codes of characters have this requirement to end the environment with the \end{...} command on a line by itself, at the start of the line. These include the Verbatim environment from the fancyvrb package, and any of the \end{...} commands taken over by the endfloat package. 

  31. Like this. 

  32. Be aware that in some disciplines where cross-references are not much used, the word ‘references’ may be used to mean ‘bibliographic references’. 

  33. This section is labelled normalxref, for example. 

  34. So I can refer here to the label of this section as \ref{normalxref} and get the value ‘§ 5.3.1’.  

  35. The major differences between BIBTEX’s use of these files and biblatex’s use of them is that biblatex allows many more different types of fields, and is generally more up-to-date; and biber sorts UTF-8 correctly, and is more configurable. 

  36. It’s not clear how they refer to conventional footnotes, or if they even use them. 

  37. On Unix & GNU/Linux systems (including Apple Macintosh OS X, just type the command man makeindex; the page is also available in many reference sites on the web. 

  38. Some authors — and perhaps some designers — believe that consistency is undesirable, and that double-page layouts in printed books should each be designed independently. Valerie Kirschenbaum’s magnificent Goodbye Gutenberg expresses this both eloquently and attractively, but the cost of such design labour and the cost of four-colour printing on all pages places it beyond the reach of most publishers’ budgets until the economics of on-demand four-colour ‘printing’ makes it possible. 

  39. This does not apply for the German technique in blackletter type of using letter-spacing instead of (non-existent) italics. The defaults in the soul package were designed to cater for this. 

  40. In some cases, FontBook may believe them to have missing tables, and in others, they may duplicate existing Mac system fonts, and FontBook’s behaviour seems to be to use the TEX Live fonts in preference to its own. 

  41. The licence for Utopia does not allow it to be distributed automatically to users, but you can download it personally. 

  42. Although if you’re a typographer wanting to experiment with typewriter typefaces with and without serifs, you can use METAFONT or FontForgeto do exactly this kind of thing. But that’s way outside the scope of this document. 

  43. If you move all this Preamble into a package (.sty) file of your own, you don’t need these commands: the use of @ signs in command names is allowed in package and class files. 

  44. Don’t try this at home alone, folks! This one is safe enough, but you should strictly avoid \def for a couple of years. Stick to \newcommand for now. 

  45. The former OpenOffice was taken over by Apache, and is no longer regarded as a contender. 

  46. Strictly speaking it isn’t output at this stage: XML processors build a ‘tree’ (a hierarchy) of elements in memory, and they only get ‘serialised’ at the end of processing, into a stream of characters written to a file. 

  47. There was one once, in the mid-1990s, actually made by Microsoft: SGML Author for Word. It wasn’t an editor as its name suggested, but a converter that used Named Styles to convert losslessly from SGML to Word and back, repeatedly, so that non-tech management could edit tech documents. Just as XML was taking off, they dropped it on the floor. Go figure. See https://cora.ucc.ie/bitstream/handle/10468/1690/Human-Interfaces-to-Structured-Documents.pdf#page=393 and http://xml.silmaril.ie/downloads/sgml-author-review.pdf for more details 

  48. On UNIX & GNU/Linux systems, including Apple Macintosh OS X, the easiest way to do this is in a Terminal window, in your Personal TEX Directory, using the command mkdir -p fonts/source/public/whatever, as this creates any intervening subdirectories for you. Under Windows, you have to create each subsubdirectory individually.