Preface

LaTeX is high-quality, open source typesetting software that produces professional-quality print and PDF output. However, as LaTeX is a powerful and complex tool, getting started can be intimidating, and specific aspects such as layout modifications can seem rather complicated. Using Microsoft Word or other word-processing software may seem more straightforward, but once you've become acquainted with it, LaTeX's capabilities far outweigh any initial difficulties. This book guides you through these challenges and makes it easy to begin with LaTeX. If you are writing mathematical, scientific, or technical papers, this is the perfect book for you.

LaTeX Beginner's Guide, Third Edition, offers you a practical introduction to LaTeX, guiding you through the essential steps of LaTeX, from installing LaTeX to formatting, justification, and page design, including presentation slides. You will learn how to use macros and styles to maintain a consistent document structure while reducing typing. Beginning with installation and basic usage, you will learn how to typeset documents that include professional-looking tables, figures, mathematical formulas, and common book elements such as bibliographies, glossaries, and indexes. Lots of step-by-step examples start with fine-tuning text, formulas, and page layout, and proceed with managing complex documents and using modern PDF features. Detailed information about online resources such as software archives, web forums, and online compilers complements this introductory guide.

Finally, we'll look under the hood at the TeX engines and use artificial intelligence tools to support our work.

Who this book is for

If you are about to write mathematical or scientific papers, seminar handouts, or even plan to write a thesis, then this book offers you a fast-paced and practical introduction. Those studying at school and university as mathematicians or physicists will benefit greatly, as will engineers and humanities students. Anybody with high expectations who plans to write a paper or a book will be delighted by this high-quality, stable software.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with LaTeX, introduces LaTeX and explains its benefits. It guides you through the download and installation of a comprehensive LaTeX distribution and shows you how to create your first LaTeX document. It also introduces Overleaf, an online LaTeX editor. You'll also learn how to access package documentation.

Chapter 2, Formatting Text and Creating Macros, explains how to vary fonts, shapes, and text styles. It covers centering and justification of paragraphs, and how we can improve line breaks and hyphenation. It introduces logical formatting and explains how to define macros and use environments and packages.

Chapter 3, Designing Pages, shows how to adjust margins and line spacing, and how to work with portrait, landscape, and two-column layouts. It shows how to create dynamic headers and footers, control page breaks, and use footnotes. Along the way, you'll also learn how to redefine existing commands and make effective use of class options.

Chapter 4, Creating Lists, covers bulleted, numbered, and definition lists. It shows how to choose bullet and numbering styles and how to fine-tune the overall layout of lists.

Chapter 5, Creating Tables, shows you how to create professional-looking tables and goes deep into formatting details.

Chapter 6, Including Images, explains how to include external images with captions and how LaTeX handles figure placement automatically, with options to adjust it when needed.

Chapter 7, Using Cross-References, introduces smart referencing for sections, footnotes, tables, figures, and numbered environments.

Chapter 8, Managing Contents, Indexes, and Bibliography, explains how to create and customize the table of contents and the lists of figures and tables. It also shows how to cite sources, build bibliographies, and create an index.

Chapter 9, Writing Math Formulas, introduces mathematical typesetting in depth. It starts with basic formulas, then moves on to displayed and numbered equations and the alignment of multi-line expressions. You'll learn how to typeset math symbols such as roots, arrows, Greek letters, and operators, and how to build more complex structures, such as fractions, stacked expressions, and matrices.

Chapter 10, Using Fonts, introduces font selection in LaTeX and shows Roman, sans-serif, and typewriter fonts in various shapes and styles.

Chapter 11, Developing Large Documents, shows how to manage larger projects by splitting them into multiple files. You'll learn how to build complex documents from smaller parts, handle front and back matter with separate page numbering, and create custom title pages. Working through an example book, you'll also get familiar with templates, preparing you to write your own thesis, book, or report.

Chapter 12, Using Hyperlinks and Designing Headings, explains how to enrich PDF documents with hyperlinks, bookmarks, and metadata. It also shows how to customize chapter and section headings.

Chapter 13, Creating Presentations, walks through building slides with LaTeX, from incremental reveals to column and block layouts, and generating handouts.

Chapter 14, Troubleshooting, focuses on solving problems. You'll learn about typical LaTeX errors and warnings and how to read and use LaTeX's messages to track down and correct issues.

Chapter 15, Using Online Resources, shows you where to find reliable LaTeX information on the internet. We'll look at forums and Q&A sites, explore software archives and TeX user group pages, and point you to mailing lists, Usenet groups, and graphics galleries. The chapter also highlights where to download LaTeX editors and where LaTeX users meet on blogs and X.com.

Chapter 16, Exploring Technology: From Engines to AI, takes a look under the hood at TeX engines, compares them, and discusses when to use which one. The chapter also covers AI tools that can improve your coding, writing, and formatting workflows and concludes with recommended reading.

To get the most out of this book

You need access to a computer with LaTeX on it. An online connection would be helpful regarding installation and updates. We can install LaTeX on most operating systems, so you can use Windows, Linux, macOS, or Unix.

This book uses the freely available TeX Live distribution, which runs on all the mentioned platforms. You just need an internet connection or the TeX Live DVD to install it. In the book, we use the cross-platform editor TeXworks, but you can use any editor you like.

Without installing LaTeX, you can work with the code examples at https://latexguide.org, which comes with an online compiler.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book's GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid potential errors when copying and pasting code.

Download the example code files

The code bundle for the book is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/LaTeX-Beginner-s-Guide-Third-Edition. We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/gbp/9781805804574.

Conventions used

A number of text conventions are used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. For example: "The first line starts with the \documentclass command."

A block of code is set as follows:

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

Screentext: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on the screen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. For example: "Click Typeset and check out the result."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book or general feedback, please email us at customercare@packt.com and mention the book's title in the...