LaTeX

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LaTeX is a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. LaTeX is most widely used by mathematicians, scientists, engineers, philosophers, ... As a primary or intermediate format (e.g. translating DocBook and other XML-based formats to PDF), LaTeX is used because of the high quality of typesetting achievable by TeX. The typesetting system offers programmable desktop publishing features and extensive facilities for automating most aspects of typesetting and desktop publishing, including numbering and cross-referencing, tables and figures, page layout and bibliographies.

How to Install LaTeX in Linux

1.- check that latex is not already installed by typing "latex"

2.- if you have root or sudo rights, you coult try to install the following packages (if you have problems ask Martín for help):

• Ubuntu sudo aptitude install texlive-latex-base

• General sudo aptitude install tetex

LaTeX Examples

The following example is a very simple one,example.tex

To compile it, you just need to type

latex example.tex
xdvi example.dvi

The first command will compile the TeX file and create a dvi file. If any typo/error appears on the TeX file, the errors will appear on the screen. The second command will open the output file with dvi. You could use the command dvipdf to convert the dvi to pdf. Or you could directly form the pdf from the TeX file by using:

pdflatex example.tex

LaTeX Guides

There are many guides over internet, and several books you can buy. Some nice and popular material is:

• The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX. File:Lshort.pdf

• LaTeX – A document preparation system. It is a LaTeX guide available on the lab's bookcase, the book number 20.