Text, style, and grammar
Grammar check
Try Queequeg
Prevent hyphenation at once
\hyphenpenalty=5000
\tolerance=1000
Using limit-mode in summation
Force limits to place at above and below (useful for inline equation):
\sum\limits_{x=1}^{n}\frac{1}{n}
Equal by Definition
i^2 \stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=} -1
Self-defined function in equation mode
To make foo appears like \sin or \exp, use
\operatorname{foo}(x)
or to save space, define the following in preamble:
\newcommand{\foo}{\operatorname{foo}}
Modifying counters
Counters available: part, chapter, section, subsection, subsubsection, paragraph, subparagraph, figure, table, equation, enumi, enumii, enumiii, enumiv, footnote, mpfootnote
Setting counter value:
\setcounter{page}{1}
Setting style:
\part_style{arab}
Font size
To adjust font size by “zooming”, use this:
\usepackage{scalefnt}
Normal size - \scalefont{2}Linear double - \scalefont{0.5} Normal -
\scalefont{1.414}Double size (area) - \scalefont{0.707} Normal
{\scalefont{2}Double size} - Normal again
If the scaling is in terms of “levels”, use this:
\usepackage{relsize}
Normal size - \relsize{1}Linear double - \relsize{-1} Normal -
\relsize{2}Double size (area) - \relsize{-2} Normal
{\relsize{1}Double size} - Normal again
Complicated Matrix
For creating matrix (in math mode) but with part of the stuff outside the
bracket, there are several ways to do. First one is to use Knuth’s
\bordermatrix macro, like this one (copy from Cambridge’s
web)
\begin{math}
\bordermatrix{&a_1&a_2&...&a_n\cr
b_1 & 1.2 & 3.3 & 5.1 & 2.8 \cr
c_1 & 4.7 & 7.8 & 2.4 & 1.9 \cr
... & ... & ... & ... & ... \cr
z_1 & 8.0 & 9.9 & 0.9 & 9.99 \cr}
\end{math}
The above will have the matrix with only the number and those letters on the top
and left outside the matrix. If you want not the topmost row and leftmost column
outside the bracket, you can use \bordermatrix*,
\begin{math}
\bordermatrix*{
1.2 & 3.3 & 5.1 & 2.8 & b_1 \cr
4.7 & 7.8 & 2.4 & 1.9 & c_1 \cr
... & ... & ... & ... & ... \cr
8.0 & 9.9 & 0.9 & 9.99 & z_1 \cr
a_1 & a_2 & ... & a_n & \cr}
\end{math}
which, in turn, show the rightmost column and the bottom row outside the bracket.
However, if you want a LaTeX version instead of plain TeX, one may use K. Border’s kbordermatrix package. The documentation is here.
Furthermore, if you want to show the matrix/determinant operations (i.e. the arrows showing which row is multiplied by what and add to which row, etc.), you may found the gauss.sty package useful.
Collection of math mode tricks
See the documentation of mathmode, written by Herbert Voss with 130+ pages. Very detail and contains almost everything you need for typesetting equations.
Fonts
Beautiful CM Fonts
To use a much better CM font for LaTeX, get cm-super package (optionally for X11: cm-super-x11) in Debian. The add the lines in your LaTeX document preamble:
\usepackage{type1ec}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
Then your output would include no bitmap CM fonts.
Times font for everything
The times package can only make you have times font for main text but not for equations. To make everything including equation to use times font, call this:
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\DeclareSymbolFont{largesymbols}{OMX}{cmex}{m}{n}
The second line make the big symbols like summation to use computer modern font instead of times which is bigger and look nicer.
Package bm for Bold Greek
For getting a bold Greek letter, \mathbf{\alpha} doesn’t work. We have to put
\usepackage{bm}
in the preamble and use $\bm{\alpha}$ in math mode.
mathcal style
Sometimes, we may use \mathcal or \cal in LaTeX for a calligraphic font.
However, what is happening may not be what you expected.
In normal case, the calligraphic font would be the one in cmsy.pfb
If you are using mathptmx package, the font will be a script font.
If you loaded with eucal package, the font will be the “Euler Script” font, which looks like an upright version of cmsy.pfb.
So if you are using mathptmx package, but want to get back the old script font (which is bold and easier to read), then issue the following command in the peamble:
\DeclareMathAlphabet{\mathcal}{OMS}{cmsy}{m}{n}
FdSymbols
A lot of symbols are defined in FdSymbols but if we use
\usepackage{fdsymbol}, some pre-existing symbols will be overwritten
(integral sign and summation sign, for example). To introduce just one symbol
at a time from FdSymbol, we use the following
\DeclareFontFamily{U}{FdSymbolE}{}
\DeclareFontShape{U}{FdSymbolE}{m}{n}{<-> s * FdSymbolE-Book}{}
\DeclareSymbolFont{fdbigsign}{U}{FdSymbolE}{m}{n}
\DeclareMathSymbol{\divslash}{\mathrel}{fdbigsign}{"87}
There are font families FdSymbolA to FdSymbolE and the code number (87 in
above) is the hex code for the symbol on that family. To find which is which,
we can print out all symbols using the following document:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fdsymbol}
\usepackage{fonttable}
\begin{document}
\xfonttable{U}{FdSymbolA}{m}{n}
\xfonttable{U}{FdSymbolB}{m}{n}
\xfonttable{U}{FdSymbolC}{m}{n}
\xfonttable{U}{FdSymbolD}{m}{n}
\xfonttable{U}{FdSymbolE}{m}{n}
\end{document}
Figures
Side-by-side figures
Make two figures side-by-side, use this:
\begin{figure}[hbtp]
{\scriptsize
\hbox{
\input{plot-e-alp09}
\input{plot-i-alp09}
}
\hbox{\hspace{38mm}\hbox{(a)\hspace{83mm}(b)}}
}
\caption{(a) elastic and (b) inelastic utility vs $\alpha$ with $\rho$=0.95}
\end{figure}
Alternative way: using minipage
\begin{figure}[hbtp]
\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{.45\textwidth}
\epsfig{file=figure1.eps, scale=0.5}
\caption{figure 1}
\end{minipage}
\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{.45\textwidth}
\epsfig{file=figure2.eps, scale=0.5}
\caption{figure 2}
\end{minipage}
\hfill
\end{figure}
Yet another way: using subfigure package
\usepackage{subfigure}
\begin{figure}[htbp]
\mbox{
\subfigure[Honda]{\scalebox{0.3}{\input{prelude.pstex_t}}} \quad
\subfigure[Toyota]{\scalebox{0.3}{\input{celica.pstex_t}}} \quad
\subfigure[Nissan]{\scalebox{0.3}{\input{Fairlady.pstex_t}}}
}
\caption{I like these!}
\end{figure}
Four figures in a square
\begin{figure}[htbp]
\mbox{
\subfigure[Honda]{\scalebox{0.3}{\input{prelude.pstex_t}}} \quad
\subfigure[Toyota]{\scalebox{0.3}{\input{celica.pstex_t}}}
}
\mbox{
\subfigure[Nissan]{\scalebox{0.3}{\input{Fairlady.pstex_t}}} \quad
\subfigure[Subaru]{\scalebox{0.3}{\input{Outback.pstex_t}}}
}
\caption{I like these!}
\end{figure}
Spacing
Setting paper margin
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{verbose,a4paper,tmargin=1.75cm,bmargin=2cm,lmargin=2cm,rmargin=2cm,footskip=1cm}
Alternative method (specifying paper size and print region only)
\usepackage[vcentering,dvips]{geometry}
\geometry{papersize={170mm,240mm},total={124mm,185mm}}
Line spacing
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.4}
Reduce space around captions
Remove the extra space between figure and captions, as well as the space between two adjacent figure blocks:
\setlength{\abovecaptionskip}{0pt}
\setlength{\floatsep}{0pt}
Removing large margins at print by pstops
If you got a doc with A5 content centered at an A4 paper, use this for two-pages-on-one-sheet:
pstops -pa4 '2:0L@1(25.35cm,-3.075cm)+1L@1(25.35cm,11.775cm)' onepage.ps twopages.ps
If it is in Springer LNCS format, use this:
pstops -pa4 '2:0L@1(26.6cm,-3.075cm)+1L@1(26.6cm,11.775cm)' onepage.ps twopages.ps
But sometimes, it is a bit larger than A5, the following is what I will use (I got this by trial and error):
pstops -pa4 '2:0L@.87(24cm,-1.5cm)+1L@.87(24cm,13.35cm)' onepage.ps twopages.ps
Spacing around display equations
Two set of skip length for normal and short lines.
\setlength{\abovedisplayskip}{11pt}
\setlength{\abovedisplayshortskip}{0pt}
\setlength{\belowdisplayskip}{11pt}
\setlength{\belowdisplayshortskip}{11pt}
To find the default of these values, we can use this LaTeX document:
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\the\abovedisplayskip{}\\
\the\belowdisplayskip
\end{document}
Presentations
BibTeX
Using BibTeX. Put these at the end of the document:
\bibliographystyle{ieeetr}
\bibliography{fair}
then run LaTeX by:
$ latex document # To generate *.aux
$ bibtex document # Base on *.aux to generate *.bbl
$ latex document # Learn about the existence of *.bbl
$ latex document # Regenerate the document
then you will have to dvi file
Presentation using seminar class
Template for “seminar” slides:
\documentclass[A4,16pt]{seminar}
\begin{document}
\begin{slide}
\newslide
\section{Hello}
world?
\begin{itemize}
\item Here
\item There
\end{itemize}
\end{slide}
\end{document}
Other
Fancy headers
Look for the fancy header package
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
Single column ACM SIG Proceedings
My way to make a double column style template use for single column mode is use the following prologue:
\documentclass[a4paper]{sig-alternate}
\makeatletter
%Remove ACM copyright notice at the lower left corner
\renewcommand{\@copyrightspace}{}
%Make the ACM template into single column
\renewcommand{\twocolumn}[1][1]{\onecolumn #1}
\makeatother
Modifying section headers (as well as others)
For example, section numbers should be in romans instead of arab:
\renewcommand\thesection{\roman{section}}
also like this:
\renewcommand{\thefigure}{\thechapter.\arabic{figure}}
see http://www.iam.ubc.ca/~newbury/tex/numbering.html for more
Acknowledgment as footnotes
You may want footnotes without numbers or symbols. Here is the way:
\def\blfootnote{\xdef\@thefnmark{}\@footnotetext}
Remember to enclose the definition block with \makeatletter and \makeatother.
Source: http://help-csli.stanford.edu/tex/latex-footnotes.shtml
Tabular with different justifications
Do in this way:
\begin{tabular}{p{1cm}p{3cm}}
ROW 1 & left justified
ROW 2 & \makebox[3cm]{centered}
ROW 3 & \makebox[3cm][r]{right justified}
\end{tabular}
more tablar tricks from http://amath.colorado.edu/documentation/LaTeX/reference/tables/ex3.html and http://www.msu.edu/user/harris41/latex_tablespacing.html and http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/andyr/misc/latex/latextutorial4.html
Parboxes
Make a box of text in paragraph mode as a “character” in a line:
\parbox[b]{3cm}{blah blah blah}
where b is for bottom-aligned (choice: c, t) and 3cm is the width.
Similar function can be achieved by minipage:
\begin{minipage}{3cm}
blah blah blah
\end{minipage}
If you want framed version, enclose them with \fbox{...}
Beautify tables
Use the booktab package by Simon Fear. The way to make tables beautify (and
look professional) is to use as little decoration as possible, e.g. don’t use
vertical lines. The table elements shall have their own common region and
aligned to make it sound like a table. This is what we called the Gestalt
Principle: things that are seen as forming a known shape are seen as being
together.
Spliting PostScript
Enlarging an A4 document into A3 size, with two sheets of A4 output make up one page of A3:
# psresize -pa3 -Pa4 a4document.ps a3.ps
# pstops -pa4 '1:0@1L(42cm,0)' a3.ps a4-upper.ps
# pstops -pa4 '1:0@1L(21cm,0)' a3.ps a4-lower.ps
In the above, (42cm,0) means to shift the sheet left 42cm and up 0cm. It is required because you rotated the sheet left a right angle (origin is on the lower left corner). Hence I move the pictures to fit it into an A4 sheet.
If your printer cannot create zero-margin, you may need to change the shift amount to cover those lost margin.