ample resources for TeX users
ample resources for TeX users
This page aggregates blog entries by people who are writing about TeX and related topics.
The beta version of MiKTeX 2.9 has been released.
’I had an e-mail recently pointing out that I don’t say much about TeX’s mathmode in my blog. I guess that this is mainly because as a chemist I don’t do anything particularly advanced. So things like \begin{document} \usepackage{fixltx2e} % \( and \) are not robust otherwise \begin{document} \( y = mx + c \) [...]
This post has nothing to do with LaTeX, but if you’ve enjoyed using LaTeX, I think you’ll enjoy reading about this very well-researched write-up about the various writing systems (scripts) (Part 1) (Part 2). Simply beautiful.
A beta version of MiKTeX 2.9 is now available. The main new feature is the integration of LuaTeX (see the relesae notes). You can download MiKTeX 2.9 Beta here. If you find a bug, then please write a bug report or post a message to the MiKTeX mailing list. Bug fixes will be made available via the update wizard, hence I don't think that there will be second Beta. MiKTeX 2.9 will be released in October.
This post provides a guide to getting started with Beamer, a popular LaTeX package for preparing slide presentations.The post:(a) Lists some of the benefits of Beamer in comparison to PowerPoint;(b) Links to tutorials and suggestions for learning Beamer for both people who do and do not know LaTeX;(c) Documents problems that I encountered when learning to use Beamer and the solutions that I developed to overcome them.Overview Of BeamerBenefits of BeamerIn contrast to Microsoft PowerPoint, the following are some of the benefits of Beamer:Outputs to PDF which allows for consistent appearance across versions and Operating systemsFree as in no cost and free as in the ability to view and modify the source codeSimple generation of slide navigation toolsRobust incorporation of mathematical formulasText based format enables programmatic incorporation of slides and use of text manipulation tools to alter presentationEasier to create different versions of slides for handouts, articles, and the main presentationAs with LaTeX in general, it is easier to create reproducible researchEncourages good practice in slide construction and formatting (e.g., consistent formatting; useful defaults; strong support for navigation; encourages a focus on content rather than fancy effects; etc.)Sequencing and highlighting of presentation text is easy (i.e., overlays)Getting StartedThe starting point ...
Issue 4 of the LaTeX3 news has been published today.
For those who don't already know, Beamer is a useful package in LaTeX for preparing slide presentations.I have a Beamer template of preamble and slide templates.I found having a template was useful: (a) when first learning Beamer commands, and(b) in order to save typing.Thus, this post shares and explains the template in case it was of interest to others.It includes both my standard preamble and templates for individual slides.It is designed so that it is easy to compile both a presentation and a 2 x 2 handout. Overview of Using the CodeAt the risk of stating the obvious, I use the template as follows.When beginning a new presentation three text files are created (substituting the word "content" for the name of the talk): (a) handout_content.tex, (b) presentation_content.tex; (c) content.tex.presentation_content.tex contains just the two lines as shown under (1) below.handout_content.tex contains just the two lines as shown under (2) below.content.tex contains the preamble as shown under (3) below.The slide templates under (4) are copied and pasted into content.tex as needed to prepare the presentation.presentation_content.tex is compiled while preparing the talk. handout_content.tex is compiled only once the presentation is finalised. The Beamer Template Code%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 1. Presentation header file (in separate file)%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\documentclass[t]{beamer}\input{texfile} % ...
Recently there was a discussion on the MacOSX-TeX about compilation time with the microtype package. Under some circumstances (particularly when using latexsym), very large increases in compilation time were seen with microtype enabled. The full solution was given by Robert Schlicht, the maintainer of microtype. In the end it comes to adding these few lines [...]
In late June, the TUG 2010 conference was held in San Francisco to great success. Most of the LaTeX3 project team were able to attend, and for Will it was the first time to meet members of the TeX community face-to-face. Extra travel plans after the conference meant this news issue has been slightly delayed, but it's now here. For full details on our progress this year see the LaTeX3 news page.
From the org-mode mailing list, here's a link to Beamer demo using org-mode. Just goes to show what org-mode is capable of. Of course, you need to know a bit of Org-mode AND Beamer AND Emacs to make sense of it. Otherwise it's a bit of magic to you. ;) Writing PPT with org-mode and beamer in EmacsSince there's no voice over, you definitely need to know all the above stuff to figure it out. And oh, LaTeX too.
Doing a post on typesetting Tamil and Hindi is only natural after sorting out Jawi and CJK! Just after I managed to get them working using the itrans package and the devanagari fonts, this exact question was asked on the TeX-LaTeX Stack Exchange site, to which I posted what worked for me. So this post is essentially a re-write of my answers there.(These instructions are LaTeX-only; I’ve not dabbled much in XƎLaTeX.)Installation on Ubuntu (TeXLive)This one’s easy. Grab the itrans and itrans-fonts packages for Tamil, and also the texlive-lang-indic package for the Hindi fonts via synaptic (or apt-get).Installation on Windows XP (MikTeX)Grab the devanagari package using MikTeX’s Package Manager. As for itrans, since it’s not packaged properly in MikTeX, so we’ll need to install it manually. Download itrans53-win32.zip from CTAN. After unzipping the contents (say C:\itrans53\), assuming <texmf> being your local TEXMF tree,Move the contents of the lib folder into <texmf>\tex\latex\itransMove the contents of the fonts folder into the appropriate locations, i.e.*.mf in <texmf>\fonts\source\itrans*.afm in <texmf>\fonts\afm\itrans*.tfm in <texmf>\fonts\tfm\itrans*.pfb, *.pfa, *.pfm in <texmf>\fonts\type1\itrans*.ttf in <texmf>\fonts\truetype\itrans*.fd in <texmf>\tex\latex\itransRefresh the file name database (e.g. via MikTeX Options/Settings)Using itransitrans doesn’t let you type in Tamil or Hindi (or Marathi, Sanskrit, Telugu and Gujarati) directly, ...
Sometimes, for example when sending a review of a paprt, I do not want the pdf file to contain any metadata. Ideally, the editorial process should take care of this, but I do not want to take any chances. This is how I strip all metadata from my pdf files.
I posted recently about a new site being set up for TeX questions: tex.stackexchange.com. This is developing nicely, I think, and there is already a good set of questions and answers. The aim of the site is to be something that mixes the best of forums, wikis and so on, with the key idea being [...]
For those of you who missed the UK TeX Users Group and University of East Anglia course back in July, there’s another LaTeX training session happening at Oxford this October. An Introduction to LaTeX The Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University is organising a full-day course on October 16th. It is aimed at beginners and [...]
There will be elections for Chair and Committee later this year. After four years as Chair Jonathan Fine intends to stand down, as does our Treasurer, David Saunders. The committee has not yet made arrangements for these elections, but closing dates for nominations will be no earlier than mid-September. So if you’d like to contribute [...]
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