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Begin LaTeX in minutes

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Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#161

Post by eatbitseveryday »

pfooti wrote: post #22

The usual plug for sharelatex here. Check out sharelatex.com, it is amazing. Write LaTeX without having to install it, plus collaboration in the cloud. (I'm not affiliated, just a fan). And in general, LaTeX is a super worthwhile language to learn. It may be a bit more complicated than markdown or its cousins, but it can do pretty much everything. I've barely scratched the surface of what it can do, but since I live…

I find working in split-screen using something like sharelatex.com makes it difficult to actually read your PDF as you edit it. I keep the PDF open in a separate window, and compile from the command line.

Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#162

Post by zzleeper »

pvaldes wrote: post #153
zzleeper wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just you. Tables are a huge mess, and for every package I add to my .tex file to fix a problem, two new problems pop up.. (oh you added package a at the end? It will fail, because package b loaded package C which defined the same macro names, and of course every macro is global...

In 15 years using latex I thing that I had problems with the order of packages in one or two cases (and they were documented, so it was my fault in fact). The situation that you claim is not common at all. All that you need basically for tables is booktabs and, in very specific cases, longtable.

Not really...

\usepackage{tabulary} gives me the X column type

\usepackage{multirow} does what the name says

\usepackage{longtable} is the most useful one

\usepackage{booktabs} adds -toprule-, -midrule-, -bottomrule-

\usepackage{threeparttable} adds titles and notes to tables

\usepackage{threeparttablex} extends -threeparttable- to work with -longtable

\usepackage{siunitx} allows decimal alignment

\usepackage{array} some table column types require arraybackslash

\usepackage{varwidth} helps in setting a max column type

\usepackage{ragged2e} because \raggedright used in table footnotes would otherwise break hyphenation

\usepackage{afterpage} defers typesetting of the longtable environment to the top of the next page

\usepackage{etoolbox} helps to write monospace numbers in tables

And then I add all the newcommands, and end up with pretty tables but very fragile wrt changes in the latex environment

Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#163

Post by arca_vorago »

For those of you who like latex output but find learning it daunting, give emacs org mode a try, as it can export to latex easily, and you can always break into actual latex inside org if you are doing something more complicated.

Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#164

Post by scooke »

daurnimator wrote: post #84
supergarfield wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also very true in my experience, and seems to be in large part caused by the absence of proper namespacing, scoping, and general rules about how packages should be implemented to minimize bad interactions. I feel like this is a significant shortcoming of Latex, and it really is a mystery to me why no one has seriously tried to write an alternative typesetting system. I know Latex is good enough for lots of ap…

What about SILE? http://sile-typesetter.org/

What about it? If you use it could you say a bit more before I click the link please?

Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#165

Post by pvaldes »

zzleeper wrote: post #162
pvaldes wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 15 years using latex I thing that I had problems with the order of packages in one or two cases (and they were documented, so it was my fault in fact). The situation that you claim is not common at all. All that you need basically for tables is booktabs and, in very specific cases, longtable.

Not really... \usepackage{tabulary} gives me the X column type \usepackage{multirow} does what the name says \usepackage{longtable} is the most useful one \usepackage{booktabs} adds -toprule-, -midrule-, -bottomrule- \usepackage{threeparttable} adds titles and notes to tables \usepackage{threeparttablex} extends -threeparttable- to work with -longtable \usepackage{siunitx} allows decimal alignment \usepackage{array}…

I agree that multirow is a must. You can add it to my former list.

Otherwise you can easily avoid most of the other packages (if not all) in the 99% of the cases with some common sense, good style practices, and basic latex.

If you think that you need monospace numbers, X type columns, special decimal alignments and hyper-complex big tables with a lot of footnotes placed inside the floating environment, you are probably overthinking. Tex will allow you to have it in any case, even if is not really necessary, but it comes at a prize.

Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#166

Post by Ar-Curunir »

nxc18 wrote: post #137
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I don't find Word or LibrePffice documents to be very visually appealing. Maybe I spend a lot of time reading nicely typeset documents, but MS Office just doesn't cut it any more. You can compile from markdown to LaTeX, getting nearly the best of both worlds.

In 5 minutes you can configure your word document to look just like something LaTeX would output. It is interesting that learning LaTeX is a completely reasonable thing to spend time on but learning the basics of styles (surprisingly similar to how styles work everywhere else) is thoroughly unacceptable.

LaTeX is a more developer friendly tool than Office is, so it makes sense.

Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#167

Post by pvaldes »

pvaldes wrote: post #153
zzleeper wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just you. Tables are a huge mess, and for every package I add to my .tex file to fix a problem, two new problems pop up.. (oh you added package a at the end? It will fail, because package b loaded package C which defined the same macro names, and of course every macro is global...

In 15 years using latex I thing that I had problems with the order of packages in one or two cases (and they were documented, so it was my fault in fact). The situation that you claim is not common at all. All that you need basically for tables is booktabs and, in very specific cases, longtable.

s/ I thing that / I think that /

Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#168

Post by [deleted] »

pvaldes wrote: post #153
zzleeper wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just you. Tables are a huge mess, and for every package I add to my .tex file to fix a problem, two new problems pop up.. (oh you added package a at the end? It will fail, because package b loaded package C which defined the same macro names, and of course every macro is global...

In 15 years using latex I thing that I had problems with the order of packages in one or two cases (and they were documented, so it was my fault in fact). The situation that you claim is not common at all. All that you need basically for tables is booktabs and, in very specific cases, longtable.

[deleted]

Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#169

Post by pvaldes »

laxatives wrote: post #79
pfooti wrote: post #22

The usual plug for sharelatex here. Check out sharelatex.com, it is amazing. Write LaTeX without having to install it, plus collaboration in the cloud. (I'm not affiliated, just a fan). And in general, LaTeX is a super worthwhile language to learn. It may be a bit more complicated than markdown or its cousins, but it can do pretty much everything. I've barely scratched the surface of what it can do, but since I live…

I think one of the best features of sharelatex is that you skip the insanely bloated installation/package maintenance process. Some of those packages use GB of fonts and I remember having a complete installation with over 30GB of fonts. Not really an issue anymore, but 5-10 years ago, that was pretty excessive.

> insanely bloated installation/package maintenance process

(Lol) Just type "apt install texlive-full" in Debian and you are done.

Re: Begin LaTeX in minutes

#170

Post by alphapapa »

Steuard wrote: post #96
thomasahle wrote: post #12

From various tutorials I feel my knowledge of latex is very top down, and not very deep. I just recently realized that {} are not needed for singletons, so I may for instance write \frac12 for 1/2. Can anybody recommend a more bottom up guide? Something more similar to learning a programming language, where you start with the basic syntax and build on features iteratively? Is Knuth's book the best way to go? Or is th…

I really enjoyed learning the details from Lamport's own book: LaTeX: A Document Preparation System. It covers most of the essential features, but maybe just as importantly it describes the philosophy behind LaTeX (which is rather different from the philosophy behind an editor like Word, and thus calls for a correspondingly different mindset while writing). Yes, the book is 20 years old, but then, so is most of LaTeX…

> the philosophy behind LaTeX (which is rather different from the philosophy behind an editor like Word, and thus calls for a correspondingly different mindset while writing)

Could you explain a bit about this? How does it change one's mindset while writing?

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