Talk:LaTeX

About

 * Started: 19 January 2005
 * Size: 74,000 words. (Jun 2010)
 * Search: search the book in Google
 * Templates: /Templates.
 * Search: search the book in Google
 * Templates: /Templates.
 * Templates: /Templates.

This Wikibook Conventions
We aim to create a book uniform in look and consistent in reading and navigation. To help us achieve it, a few templates have been made (click the links to learn more):
 * To create TOC at the top of the page
 * To create navigation bar to main page, previous and next chapter
 * Is used to add coloring to LaTeX code in running text, like this:
 * Is used to color package names in running text, like this:
 * Is used to color parameters passed to packages or optional parameters to macros, like this:
 * Is used for coloring environment names in running text, like this:
 * Is used to show examples of LaTeX code together with rendering, like this:
 * Is used to show usage of particular LaTeX command as if it was used in a  file, like this:

This Wikibook Conventions (discussion)
I propose following conventions for writing LaTeX code:
 * all LaTeX excerpts on lines of their own
 * all LaTeX excerpts on lines of their own


 * 
 * package names

To see how it looks go to the LaTeX/Formatting chapter.

The only downside of this convention that I noticed, is that if we write about parameters to LaTeX macros or environment names in to force coloring (enclose the parameter in braces) --- ugly
 * Color using TEXT --- very ugly in the syntax, nice result
 * or use
 * style="padding-left:3em;"|Do not enter this room, it’s occupied by machines of unknown origin and purpose.
 * }
 * Instead of:

with a more formal (and new): Look in the chapters to see real examples. There are many advantages using this format, most notably is the highlighting of code to help users discern the elements of the code. Also, you can use direct source from your LaTeX projects, and not have to worry about converting  to , etc. (if you used  or   tags). However, I've seen a few disadvantages of using the syntax highlighting, which are the associated bugs. So far, I've identified one minor one: where the  is a valid escape, and not the beginning of a comment. I suppose if there are any other easily identifiable bugs, report them to the project page: GeSHi. Considering that these bugs can be fixed in future releases of WikiMedia, using this syntax highlighting to existing LaTeX code in this Wikibook is a compatible upgrade. Happy editing! +mt  02:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Still, I think that examples without rendering blend too much with the normal text, maybe that's because I have a very Arial-ish monospaced font used by default. IMO they need an additional indentation or the box added by
 * 1)  (1 space indent)
 * 2) (or  )

Reuse of LaTeX wikibook
JISC has published an invitation to submit proposals for the re-use of learning content. I'm considering applying for this, and would like to use this WikiBook as one of the sources to be reused.

I intend to use MathTran and something like Troy Henderson's LaTeX previewer to provide interactivity.

The best way to contact me about this is by email, to J.Fine at open.ac.uk. Applications close on 30th November 2007, but for other reasons I have to complete my work on this application by 20th November. So time is short.

Jonathan Fine 13:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism
I'm sorry, I tried to 'undo' the work of a vandal, but it appears that someone has to move the page back. 84.53.74.196 09:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Appendix Useful Size Commands Redundant
I would like to propose that the appendix Useful Size Commands be removed. It is redundant with LaTeX/Formatting Tully (talk) 03:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The page is meant to be an appendix and act as a reference. Since it links to the other page, I say we keep it as a helpful additional reference. -within focus 04:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. I moved it under 'Mechanics' because in my opinion the technical reference deserves a seperate part. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization
I would propose to capitalize the headings of the sections of this textbook in title case, as opposed to sentence case. Currently, the capitalization of section headings in this book is inconsistent. The Wikibooks naming convention requires the names of the chapters (not of sections) to be in title case. Interestingly enough, the policy itself uses sentence case in section headings. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * A downside to this proposal is that the majority of section headings in the book now seem to be in sentence case. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, we are quite popular
According to http://wikistics.falsikon.de/latest/wikibooks/en/, LaTeX textbook was 5th most popular wikibook in August. Yay! More than 800 hits per day for the table of contents is not so bad at all, and chapters like Floats, Tables, Mathematics and Formatting get 300-400 hits per day. --Derbeth talk 11:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Structuring the book
At its inception, the book was structured and the names of the chapters chosen by the task or aim the user wants to achieve (like "Creating Mathematical Graphics"), and not what the technical means there is for doing it (like "xyPic"). I propose this approach is continued.

For the purpose of quickly finding the right place in the book by a keyword, such as "xyPic", the right tool is index; the purpose of table of contents is different.

Put differently, this is much more a user guide than a reference manual.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 08:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Everything has been done following this approach for the past years. The 'graphics' part is quite different however. It is not possible to tackle the matter in one chapter, encompassing TikZ, PSTricks, and so on. That's why I suggest this part should be the only one where packages have their dedicated chapter. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Packages
Adding the individual packages to the table of contents can easily clutter the structure of the book. I propose that packages are added with care, possibly only as sections of either the Packages chapter or Package Reference chapter.

Also, creating chapters for tasks, not for packages, is IMHO preferable.

Examples:
 * LaTeX/Mathematical Graphics includes the XY-pic package.
 * LaTeX/Indexing includes the makeidx package.
 * LaTeX/Presentations includes the beamer package.

Users coming to grips with LaTeX have the names of tasks in their minds already present (such as "I want to create and Index, and I see the idea under the letter I, not under M of makeidx.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 10:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I have now added some packages to LaTeX/Index, so please, before you start a chapter on a package (which is IMHO a poor idea anyway), check whether the package is already covered, by looking in the index. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, creating a chapter on a package is not all that bad. Someone will need to edit it, and move it around, but the text will already be there. The point is: try to find out the task that the package should achieve, and create a chapter for that task, documenting the package in that chapter. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Glossary
The current Glossary chapter is not a glossary but an alphabetical index of LaTeX keywords. AFAIK, glossary defines terms used in the book, not keywords.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 10:24, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, so this actually is a glossary, provided it defines the commands, and what I have called "keywords" is usually called commands in the LaTeX context. I have moved the page to LaTeX/Command Glossary. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Order of chapters
I have moved "Importing Graphics" after "Letters", so that it neighbors "Creating Graphics". In any case, "Importing Graphics" was before "Formatting", which is suprising, as "Formatting" should be IMHO one of the first, basic chapters. Also, "Importing Graphics" was also before "Mathematics", another surprising fact, as LaTeX is AFAIK mostly used for mathematical typesetting, which does not always require graphics; and the mathematics support is built in, while the support for graphics comes through packages. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, 'Importing Graphics' should not be before the stuff about formatting text and paragraphs. But I do not agree with you when stating that LaTeX is used primarily for math typesetting. Anyway, the book is now organized differently, with a 'Common Elements' part featuring 'Importing Graphics'. The math stuff is in a seperate part. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Multiple parts about: Creating packages
There are some multiple parts about 'creating packages' See
 * LaTeX/Customizing LaTeX
 * LaTeX/Advanced Topics

And I think it should be under the section LaTeX/Packages.

I added some links to each other, but of course somethings should me merged/moved. -- LR (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * One way of ensuring that the coverage of topics in the book is documented, which can minimize duplication of content, is to add the topic to the index, as I did for the topic of "creating packages" in this edit. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Fixed this by moving 'Creating packages' to the 'Programming' part. Package installation comes at the beginning right after 'Installation', and the package reference is in the Appendices. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Book Errors
Found this on page 23, and I don't think it's supposed to be there (the spaces aren't there, but I don't know how to display it regardless):

Sectioning the book
Considering there is at least 3 dozen chapters, what about dividing the table of contents on main page into parts? For example, the first three chapters and the 'Errors and Warnings' may be chapters within Part 1 (perhaps called introduction too?), while structure, title creation, page layout, and fonts could be another part. --Sargas (talk) 18:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Just for the hell of it I made these changes, someone please comment on how it looks, revert if ya don't like. Looking at the tips and tricks and the advanced chapters I think those can be moved to the other pages, which is why they are in the category they are in.--Sargas (talk) 15:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks like someone has since reverted the changes. I do think it was a good idea using sections: the list is getting quite long, and the current order is rather arbitrary and confusing (why is fonts at the bottom, and not near formatting?). My ideas for headings:
 * Introduction and basics (first 5 of current list)
 * Formatting and layout (formatting, page layout, fonts, colours, labels, hyperlinks, etc.)
 * Mathematics (currently two, but could probably be split better)
 * Further material (graphics, captions, tables, indexes, bibliographies etc.)
 * Advanced LaTeX (customizing, packages, collaborative writing, etc.)

Comments?—3mta3 (talk) 13:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I followed your ideas for the complete reorganization. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Changing "Algorithms and Pseudocode" and adding Code
This chapter doesn't quite make sense. The listings package described works for code, not pseudo-code, so it is out of place. I think it is more useful then the algorithm typesetting packages listed, so perhaps we can combine listings (with the information in LaTeX/Packages/Listings with a section on the verbatim package. Anyone know any other techniques for programming languages? --Sargas (talk) 06:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Another package for pseudocode is clrscode. I would like to see it described but (1) there are already lots of alternative and (2) I don't have time myself to do a good job now :( 193.1.132.191 (talk) 17:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Listings is in the 'Source Code Listings' chapter. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No one for clrscode? --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Algorithms bundle
Hi. I am the maintainer of the algorithms bundle (i.e., algorithm.sty</tt> + <tt>algorithmic.sty</tt>). I was quite pleasantly surprised to see that my package is being featured in the LaTeX wikibook. If anybody desires, I can edit the document to highlight things that I have implemented and some ways to use the package. Rogério Brito (talk) 08:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course, any and all input (related to LaTeX) is highly welcome. It's rather hard to have too much documentation. Tomato86 (talk) 22:07, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Source .tex file for LaTeX PDF file
I believe that .tex sources for this wikibook would be really helpful. On the one hand, they would be excellent materials for self-learning and teaching LaTeX. On the other hand, it would facilitate a lot to transform PDF to different needings such as produce a DinA5 size PDF and printed book —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Poliorcetes (talk • contribs) 16:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The LaTEX sourcecode of the current PDF Version of this Wikibook is included as an attachment in the PDF Version. The Imprint of te PDF Version explains how to extract it.Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 09:09, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

In the most recent upload of the PDF, there are no file attachments; i.e. the source is no longer there. I had to find a file on commons from a couple of revisions ago to get the source. --Steelangel (discuss • contribs) 15:50, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Consider covering algorithmicx
Hi, great book (I use it a lot)... Anyway, just wanted to recommend that you briefly cover the algorithmicx package. The algorithmic package is great, but doesn't allow you to write recursive algorithms, it has no  command. If you don't think usage of algorithmicx should be the first recommendation, I would suggest that readers are encouraged to look at it, should they need something more than what algorithmic offers. If you think this is a good idea, I wouldn't mind writing a few lines about it, just email me jopsen at gmail dot com Jopsen (talk) 14:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Done by someone... --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

PDF should be updated...
The PDF version has some linebreak errors...You all did not find out??

Seeing that the PDF has been done in september 2008 (2 years ago!!), I think it could be updated sometimes (say, once to six times a year)... --XonqNopp (T 15:57, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I created a collection and turned it into a pdf, which I think should be the easy way to get it. I would like to know if there are objections to me uploading it as the updated pdf version which, even though it is far from the way it should look like, It is up to date and is easier to mantain. The collection is at LaTeXwikibook. Thanks--Avila.gas 29th September 2011
 * Thanks Avila.gas for the collection. I see that the latest PDF version of LaTeX book was recently updated (generated at 2011-09-26 17:13:06), but that book (pdf) has wrongly formatted blocks. Please compare any example LaTeX code on the Wikibooks page with the PDF file and you will see the difference, for example page 29. Thank you. 195.99.160.66 (discuss) 09:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The book still needs improvement and updates. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

The PDF version is quite outdated. It was created in July, 2012. Since then a lot of changes have been made in the online version. An updated pdf should be created. (Today is 8 Feb 2013)

Book general organization and duplicates
I noticed several duplicates and arguable organization in the book:


 * Absolute Beginners and Basic could be merged (their titles does not show much difference). ==> DONE.
 * Move Document Structure to Formatting (should be first IMO). ==> DONE.
 * Move Useful Measurement Macros at the beginning of Formatting (I can't see what is Advanced in it). ==> DONE.


 * Remove Useful Size Commands since it is in Formatting/Formatting#Text Formatting. ==> DONE, page should be removed.

==> DONE. The Boxes and Rules would take better place in the Formatting chapter. ==> DONE. Besides, List Structure makes use of counters, so it should link to the new Counters section. ==> DONE.
 * Split the much-too-long formatting section into several sections.
 * Text formatting
 * Paragraph formatting (along with Special Paragraph)
 * Footnotes (along with margin notes)
 * Rename the section having the same name than their parent chapter (e.g. Formatting and Advanced Topics). ==> DONE.
 * Merge Basics#Big Project and Multiple files to General guidelines, keep link in Basics. I don't think the title General guidelines speaks for itself.Something like Project guildelines perhaps. ==> DONE.
 * The beginning of Packages could be merged with Basics#Packages. The end eventually tends to serve as a package reference, so why not merging this part with the Package Reference section? The documentation for every package could be found from there. But obviously it should not be displayed in the TOC. Besides, the other part of the current Package page shoud be renamed to Creating your own packages or sth like that. ==> DONE.
 * I think that Advanced Topics should be split into the following section for the sake of clarity (even if those sections are short)
 * Counters
 * Boxes
 * Rules and struts
 * Merge 'Installation' and the same section from the introduction. Introduction could link to the page in the Appendice. ==> DONE.
 * Move 'Labels and Cross-referencing' to the Formatting part. ==> DONE.


 * Move Tips_and_Tricks#Graphics_and_Graph_editors to Formatting#Importing Graphics and PDF files.
 * Move Bibliography Management to Special Pages merged with More Bibliographies (it does not really belong to the Getting Started part). ==> Moved, but need to merge the two pages.
 * Move Creating Graphics to a new chapter, and create section for the different solutions. In fact, graphics in LaTeX is a huge topic, if not as huge as LaTeX itself. ==> DONE.
 * Besides, move the Linguistics#tikz-qtree to a TikZ dedicated section, and add a link to it on the Linguistics page.

If you see any arguable suggestion or have better ones, feel free to share them. I will commit the changes in a few days. Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 11:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Work in progress... Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 14:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Back to business! It has been a long time, sorry for the delay. I did a major overhaul of the overall book structure. Hopefully it will be more clear and consistent. I've added a description of the organization on the main page: I think it is important for everyone to understand where to find / edit stuff. I believe this lack of clarity in organization has been responsible for the mess for all these years just because it wasn't straightforward where things should go! However this is obviously not perfect by now, so feel free to suggest improvements. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:07, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

LaTeX Version of LaTeX Wikibook
I generated a LaTeX Version of this Wikibook and compiled it to pdf. The first draft is available:



Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 10:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Missing Image
In the section LaTeX/Tables in the last paragraph there is a missing image as denoted by 450px on the right. Please correct that.Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 17:43, 16 April 2012 (UTC) I fixed that Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs)

The follwing images should be redone in svg
Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 07:59, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
 * File:LaTeX-xfrac-example.png requires a quite recent version of LaTeX
 * The images in the section LaTeX/Floats, Figures and Captions. Although this is technically nontrivial sine raster graphics file, which should be kept in their original formated for file size reasons and text are mixed.

Attention Please!
There are some line-break errors in the PDF version!(e.g.,P10,P11 of the file.) The web version is fine. From some unknown user.

Can we discuss my copyright?
Dear editors,

Andy Roberts here - writer of Getting to Grips with LaTeX...

There's no doubt about it, the LaTeX wikibook is excellent. I am honoured to have been part of the project from the very early stages as my content was possible the first batch to be included. And as you'd expect permission was granted.

I don't want to be a PITA about this but the original permission was granted on the understanding that there was a clear acknowledgement of my work (it used to be at the bottom of a page where my content was included). Although the book has deviated significantly from the structure of my tutorials, I can look at a random sample of pages and find my writing all over the place, and in some places it's very similar to my original text.

So similar in fact that I get two types of email: 1. Wikibooks has plagiarised your tutorials. 2) You've plagiarised Wikibooks.

Neither are satisfactory and I did begin wondering why such messages were getting more frequent, and that's because some time ago the acknowledgement that a page contained my material was taken away. It is no longer straight-forward to deduce the source of the content. Ok, it's possible to browse to the authors page and see my name acknowledged, fair enough. But I'm not convinced people are likely to take the trouble. It's not like a paper book where it's almost impossible to miss the names of the contributors before beginning flicking through the pages. The likelihood being that users land on a page via a search engine, and if they do navigate back to the TOC it's to view other sections and not to discover more about the writers.

I'm not expecting special treatment but I do feel the spirit of the original understanding is no longer being adhered to. I'd rather have the acknowledgement reintroduced at the bottom of each page containing my content. Or perhaps there's an alternative you can think of? Because the final option is to assert control of my copyright and remove my content from the book. Obviously my contribution now looks pretty small and I dare say it wouldn't be missed.

I am anxious to not come across as a complete jackass about this but I want manage my copyright fairly.

Arooaroo (discuss • contribs) 17:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm probably not the right one to speak about it since I was not involved in the Wikibook when it first started. There is still a lot of A-Roberts template here and there. Regarding the ones you would be expecting and that are missing, I guess this kind of agreement is hard to maintain on a Wiki system. The content gets heavily modified all the time, pages are split and merged, many contributors are anonymous and casual users who are not necessarily aware of the agreement, etc. As time goes by, it gets very hard to keep track of specific parts in this chaos. That's how wikis work. Perhaps I'm getting wrong here, but I fear that this kind of agreement is not possible at all in the long run. What are the other users thinking about it? Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:43, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I do understand the mechanics but that's not my problem to handle. As you can see at the top of this page there is a Wikibooks Convention section that does outline the policy to adopt regarding my content. I'd have thought regulars at least would consult that and be on top of whether minor edits done by infrequent contributors adhere. Anyway, I think there's little appetite to do anything about it which I also understand - you'd be better off not being encumbered with my content. I presume editors won't be upset if over the next few weeks I remove all content that is identifiably mine. --Arooaroo (discuss • contribs) 17:26, 28 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Create an author's/copyright attribution page and include it in the work, making sure that default print versions generators include it. There is no way to enforce specific notices elsewhere in the work but no one can remove you your rights over the work, that includes the right of attribution. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 18:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Book title typesetting?
A few days ago, I changed the typesetting of the title from "LaTeX" to "". However, I'm not so sure that is a good idea anymore, due to Wikipedia's manual of style for article titles containing trademarks. Yes, that is Wikipedia, but I wasn't sure how to find the corresponding manual of style for Wikibooks.

On the other hand, maybe it is different for book titles, which is what this is about. So, anyone knows how the title for this book should be typeset? —Kri (discuss • contribs) 08:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

All article navigation boxes have to be updated
As it seems, no one has been looking after the navigation boxes in the article footers for a long while – all of them seem to be pointing to the wrong pages, or someone has recently been rearranging the table of contents and forgot to update the navigation boxes. Anyone knows what happened?

I corrected all navigation boxes up to the page LaTeX/Useful Measurement Macros; then I got tired. The rest of the navigation boxes on the other pages also have to be fixed in order to make them point at the right pages. —Kri (discuss • contribs) 12:53, 27 June 2012 (UTC)


 * By the way, isn't there some way to get this automated?? —Kri (discuss • contribs) 13:26, 27 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I fixed all the bottom boxes. Hopefully everything is much less messy now. I did it by hand, but if there is a way to do it automatically, I'd be really glad to know it! Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 17:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I worked on developing a way to do such things automatically. Got distracted by other things ( Wikinews ) a little before it reached the point where it was really quite ready for prime time, as it were, and haven't gotten back to it (yet :-).  But you can see it in action on the Conlang book.  It generates the TOC and top-and-bottom nav boxes, and could in principle generate different styles of any of those, a side nav box, presumably also a "Print version" page transcluding all the pages in order with suitable section headings.  All from a single master file specifying the book outline.  The price is, that master file is a somewhat peculiar-looking template (I meant, and still mean, to rearrange the package so that template would be in template space, because really that's where it belongs).  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:36, 19 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow, nice work indeed! This kind of template should definitely belong to all Wikibooks! --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 15:40, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Events
Does anyone know an exhaustive list of the LaTeX events such as ???

I cannot find something complete on the web and I do not know at which LaTeX topics I should look... I think it should have its place in this wikibook. -- XonqNopp Tk 11:42, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I've added a few details about this in Macros and Creating Packages. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 21:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Major change in organization
I recently reorganized the complete book:
 * I removed many duplicates (still a lot wandering around I guess).
 * I've put chapters in their appropriate part
 * Chapters now follow a more natural progression. For example, Installation regroups the 2 and a half chapters that where all around the book before, and is placed at the beginning, 2nd chapter.

I've added a brief description of the organization logic on the main page. I hope the overview of the organization is much more straightforward now.

I hope the new organization will reduce the number of duplicates due to newcomers lost among the confuse titles and the lack of natural order.

Feel free to contribute. Any suggestion is welcome. And if you find duplicates or inappropriate locations, tell us!

Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 17:29, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Renaming Formatting part + Modular Documents
Following my previous message, this is about the new organization. There is still one big mistake in my opinion: the Formatting part. Well, actually, most chapters are not really about formatting. I'd even say there is only 2 formatting chapters, the Text and the Paragraph ones.

I dare say this is an insult to LaTeX to talk about formatting for a whole part: LaTeX actually does the formatting for the user, it is the whole purpose of the LaTeX macros, so why should we speak so much about it?

Formatting is definitely a bad title, but I cannot think of a correct one.

Suggestions:
 * Common documents
 * Elements
 * Common elements
 * Writing documents

Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 17:29, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I chose 'Common Elements' for the moment. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 09:35, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

End of contribution wave
For those who have been checking the book recently, you may have noticed constant changes. Don't worry, that is going to stop right now. I've been fixing, rewriting, sorting, completing the content of the book for the past 3 weeks. I've removed/merged a lot of duplicates and added cross-references here and there. Finally I've tried to replace as much 'tt', 'code' and 'source' tags as possible, using the LaTeX templates instead. I've been focusing on the following parts: You can check a more detailed list of changes on my user page. Hope you'll appreciate it!
 * Getting Started
 * Common Elements
 * Mechanics
 * Programming
 * Help and Recommendations/FAQ

I guess this ungrateful work was made largely easier thanks to Emacs. But I've had enough for now, I'll leave it there. Hopefully it will be a bit more stable for the next few months! --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 21:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Ambrevar, I've been using this book as a tutorial for LaTeX and appreciate that it's still being updated. Thanks alot.--Shiyaoay (discuss • contribs) 12:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I appreciate all the work that you've done in the creation of the wikibook! However, the font is absolutely atrocious in the pdf version. Is it possible to change the font to the LaTeX standard Computer Modern, or is there a limitation in the system that prevents this? --Steelangel (discuss • contribs) 15:45, 31 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the support. Regarding the PDF version, it is fairly outdated and does not contain any of the 2012-2013 changes (so this has nothing to do with my work). I surely agree the PDF should be updated (and I do not like the font either). Sadly, this is not that simple since there is no trivial way to convert Mediawiki syntax to LaTeX. This has always lacked to this book in my opinion. For the past few years, this wikibook was using Dirk's all-in-one conversion system (see above), which is an almost complete TeX distribution with some scripts. This system is not very flexible and it takes time to generate a new version of the book, that's partly why it gets updated so rarely. I'm currently working on another system that would hopefully ease the process. I'm doing some shell scripting, AWK and using pandoc for wiki->LaTeX conversion, so it should basically run on any Unix system. I'll keep you up to date. --Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 18:09, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

New PDF Book
I uploaded a new version of the book. I used todays wiki data as source. I used the latin modern roman font, which is the vector version of computer modern roman. The Latex source code of the book is attached to the pdf file. So if you want an other font, other paper format or stuff like that you can just recompile it and upload yourself. I do check the dicussion pages of the pdfs / books I did regularly and try to fix any issues reported there.--Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 15:31, 11 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the new update! I've skimmed through it and that's quite an impressive work ! However I've found some mistakes. Here is my bug report:

''I will fix this tomorrow. I currently use this User:Dirk Hünniger/latex but I can regenerate this page from the toc in the wiki.'' I try to avoid color since that has got advantages in printing. This will hopefully go away with the new TOC This will hopefully go away with the new TOC I can put them in a noinclude ''I think this is because their targets don't exist. Example <tt>xy</tt> package. First its a redirect, and I don't consider any redirects second the section XY-pic does not exists on that page. So this is your job you need to make all links point to existing places without any redirects.  For now I don't think that a large problem. You can exclude them with noincludes if you like.'' --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 17:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * First the chapter order does not follow the new one. There is only 6 parts in your book, againt 11 on the Wiki page. The book has been heavily reorganized to feel more natural and progressive. It was an attempt to be more KISS, not having two separate installation or bibliography chapters, etc. If you want to suggest another chapter organization, we can discuss it on this page.
 * The links could be in color (dark red or dark blue for instance), since it's not obvious that you can follow hyperlinks otherwise. Debatable request though.
 * The Advanced Topics chapter does not exist anymore, and appears empty in the book.
 * Several chapters seem to be missing, among them the PlainTeX chapter and the FAQ. These two chapters are essential in my opinion.
 * Chapter Links: the first line w:TeX1 w:LaTeX2 is strange...
 * Some References sections do not display links correctly.
 * You should not include the inter-language links. I could find a few of them. Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 17:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I made a new version based on the new toc. So most issues should be resolved now. You will still have to edit some details in the wiki source. And after that you can send me an Email and I will recompile it again. But the version as is should be ok for most users.--Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 22:23, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I uploaded a new version. I am happy with it now. The only remaining issues are that still a few references are pointing to the web instead of the pdf although I correct a lot. Further more there are some links that you want removed. You can simply put them in noincludes. Send me an Email, an I will make a new version after you did your corrections to the wiki code. But for now I think its ok. --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 10:42, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh and if you want the LaTeX source of the book you have to click on the pin icon on the back of the titlepage of the book.--Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 10:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Again, nice work, and thanks for this precious contribution!

Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:20, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Some TOC problems:
 * Glossaries and Bibliographies are swallowed by Index.
 * References and External Links from Linguistics appear as separate chapters.
 * Index and Command glossary: you should remove the TOC entries (and the PDF bookmarks) as I believe it's rather useless and it make the TOC look bloated.
 * Figures
 * Many pictures display in the wrong size, see Tables and Math for instance. (I know how it's hard to get working.)
 * Colors: well, PDF has the nice ability to behave differently on-screen and when printed. hyperref can use this ability to print links in black and to display then in color. I'm not sure if it works everywhere though (every PDF viewer, every printer), but it's worth trying.

I will fix the two first TOC issues soon. The third toc issues seems technically to complicated and not that much of a problem. The size of the figure can by change with 400px in the wiki text for full text width and 200px for half the page width and fractions thereof of course. You can do these edits if this is important to you. I am also afraid that the trick about colors you proposed won't work everywhere, so I will just leave it the way it is for now.--Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 07:29, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I just uploaded the new version fixing the first two toc issues.--Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 08:14, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I have tried downloading the PDF version ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/LaTeX.pdf ) but everytime the download never finishes as if something was corrupted. At first I thought it was just the bad internet connection I was using at uni, but after trying again from other places it seems to fail here as well. I'm very excited to see this pdf :) 177.192.169.91 (discuss) 02:10, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've had what sounds like the same problem downloading large audio or video files from commons. My problem has evidently nothing to do with the content of the file, just its size.  My solution, inconvenient but, fortunately, possible for me:  switch platforms, from the one I use most of the time &mdash; a laptop running Windows 7 &mdash; to an Ubuntu desktop.  Sometimes I have to try a few times even there, but eventually I've gotten it to work.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 04:24, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Wiki LaTeX converter
A few months ago I mentionned a new wiki->latex system. I've been working on it for a while and I achieved a decent result, until I hit a major hindrance: templates. Pandoc does not handle them. So I thought I could do a naive implementation in AWK, but that was actually hopeless since templates can be used anywhere and can even be nested. So it needs a real grammar and that's too much for AWK I guess. Meanwhile I was busy with other projects, so I have no finished solution yet. If I have time I'll write a real parser and finish my work. Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 17:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I wrote a real parser in Haskell with parsec it is part of my project it can handle templates. Of course the source it is a available. Pandoc is also written in Haskell and uses parsec. I do not recommend you to learn haskell and write your own parse since you can use mine and it was an extreme amount of work to learn all these technologie and write a parser. --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 17:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I completely agree, however there is no solution that seems completely satsifactory to me. Besides I believe you wrote your haskell parser after javalatex, so I guess you didn't like it either in the first place! ;) Your solution is great and I (together with a lot of contributors too I guess) would like to contribute. But there a huge problem in your project (which I should have mentionned earlier I confess): the packaging. Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems like there is no source code versioning at all, only this huge archive with an almost complete TeX distribution. Can you explain why you are embedding the distribution, and not leaving it as an external dependency? It would be light and simple. -- Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:51, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

The source code is managed by svn as you can see on the sourceforge page. I made an .deb file including the dependencies. See http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Benutzer:Dirk_Huenniger/wb2pdf/ubuntu. Its an old version and I currently only update the windows version. It is still possible although not trvial to build the current revsion on Linux. See http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Benutzer:Dirk_Huenniger/wb2pdf/ubuntu_microtype. And I am currently using it this way. The major problem is that I need a special font, which is a merge of several GPLed fonts, which legal but will not be accetepted by debian since it is not beautiful enough. I included the full latex distribution because it is awfully hard to install that special font. I need this font since I need to cover full unicode and there is no font covering the full range, so I can just merge existsting fonts.--Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 15:02, 12 March 2013 (UTC)


 * My mistake for the source code, I guess I got fooled by the new SourceForge layout (not pretty new actually; but I haven't been there for a long time). Still, I do not understand the need to package everything together. I believe you can make a simple shell script (or python script, but I'm not sure that's the best idea) to automate everything. Can you explain why it is necessary to have a megafont? I mean it's fine to tell LaTeX to use several fonts, or use special environment for CJK and so on. I may be wrong, but if you have a look at the UTF-8 definition, the coverend Unicode range is far from complete. Besides, I think you do not need to edit the files in the root tree (/usr/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf) you can do a per-user modification so that you do not need root rights, and leave everything clean (see TEXMFCONFIG and TEXMFHOME). I'll see what if I can install your parser in a more portable manner in the next few days. Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 11:18, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I always ran into probelms when switching fonts in the middle of a document with pdflatex. lualatex was ruled out because it takes a large amout of computing resources when dealing with huge fonts and xelatex does not allow for the microtype package and was ruled out because of this. I will happyly accept any solution that works without the megafont. But for now it is the only working solution I found. I often received comments asking for smaller download without the full compiler if you want to work on this point you are happily inviter to do so, just make a sourceforge account for you and send me an Email, I will give you access to svn. --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 11:52, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

And about javalatex. I used the same ideas in the eary stages of my project. Now I could proof that the grammer is not context free. That means BNF are to weak to describe the grammer and in particular this means that regexes are to weak. See proof http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Benutzer:Dirk_Huenniger/wb2pdf/parser .--Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 15:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Very interesting proof. Nice job! Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 11:18, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

It would be nice if you could sign up http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/LaTeX_Export. This should be some kind of petition that we want a latex export. Because it is really not helpful if everybody tries to write his own converter. --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 17:41, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Ambrevar (discuss • contribs) 13:51, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

A plain Unix command line version of my program is now available on its website. --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 11:42, 5 June 2013 (UTC) You can also expand templates with Special:ExpandTemplates --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 11:42, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Why is there no .tex file available for download?
I find it strange that a book about LaTeX cannot be downloaded in the format it is teaching the user to use. Why not format the book into a .tex?--Presentime (discuss • contribs) 22:26, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

The tex source code of the book is attached as an attachment to the pdf version of this book. See the imprint of the pdf version on how to retrieve it. --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 20:55, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Recommendation
I want to recommend this LaTeX book by Nicola Telbot (LaTeX for complete novices). It looks very precise. -- T.seppelt 18:43, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Maya script
Dear friends! At https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most-perfect_magic_square#Maya I referenced to mathabx Mayan Digits → Maya script (Q1481626) · Unicode range: N/A · Unicode numerals: N/A · Unicode alias: N/A

→ MLaTeX (Q5310) · mathabx Mayan Digits page 72 table 200 Can you please let me know how to generate the Mayan digits:?
 * \maya{0}
 * \maya{1}
 * \maya{2}
 * \maya{3}
 * \maya{4}
 * \maya{5}


 * \maya{0}
 * \maya{1}
 * \maya{2}
 * \maya{3}
 * \maya{4}
 * \maya{5}

marvosym digits
special:Search/marvosym · w:en:special:Search/marvosym Table 197 lists the / some marvosym digits

found at [|LaTeX/Special Characters#Euro € currency symbol] simplified to: LaTeX/Special_Characters


 * \usepackage{marvosym} \MVZero
 * \usepackage{marvosym} {MVZero}
 * \MVZero
 * \MVOne
 * \MVTwo
 * \MVThree
 * \MVFour
 * \MVFive
 * \MVSix
 * \MVSeven
 * \MVEight
 * \MVNine

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} \usepackage{marvosym} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{20AC}{\EUR{}}
 * \usepackage{marvosym} \MVZero
 * \usepackage{marvosym} {MVZero}
 * \MVZero
 * \MVOne
 * \MVTwo
 * \MVThree
 * \MVFour
 * \MVFive
 * \MVSix
 * \MVSeven
 * \MVEight
 * \MVNine

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} \usepackage{marvosym} \DeclareUnicodeCharacter{20AC}{\EUR{}} question: How can the Maya and the marvosym glyphs be displayed? Thanks for any help in advance! Best regards lɛʁi ʁɑjnhɑʁt (Leri Reinhart)

‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏[//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/user_talk:%D7%9C%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%99_%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%98?action=history Th]‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 06:10, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * BTW: LaTeX/FAQ shows some code but not what is finaly generated with LaTeX. ‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏[//meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/user_talk:%D7%9C%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%99_%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%98?action=history Th]‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 06:20, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Is the PDF version supposed to be equivalent to the HTML one?
I've read several chapters of the PDF version assuming it was the same as the HTML one. Then I found something that didn't make sense and came to tell about it, but the HTML version was correct. I downloaded the PDF again, but it still contains the nonsense and so is probably very old. My conclusion: the PDF is not updated as the HTML pages are modified. Isn't this something to be fixed? Will I have to save pages manually, since wget is forbidden by robots.txt? 179.199.230.75 (discuss) 21:28, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi, indeed the pdf version is not updated on a regular bases. It the version you read was last updated about a year ago. Just now I updated the PDF version again. So now the PDF and HTML version should match again, until someone changes the html next time. Just leave me a message on my talk page if you need a pdf to be updated. --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 17:53, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Again, I thought the file was generated by Mediawiki. But it's fine if you'll do it when I need. Thank you. 179.199.230.75 (discuss) 22:42, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Well I wrote my own software for the conversion process its here


 * https://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Benutzer:Dirk_Huenniger/wb2pdf

MediaWiki is also able to generate PDF version, just click "Download as PDF" on the sidemenu on the left. Alternatively you can configure the details of the conversion process clicking on "create a collection" in the same menu. You will have to use the following page as input


 * https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Dirk_H%C3%BCnniger/latex

Unfortunately nobody is able to receive satisfying results using the procedure in more complex cases like the latex wikibook. This is why I still develop and update my own software for approx 10 year now. Currently there seem to be extremely many extremely professional computer since experts on this planet, not to mention artificially intelligent masterminds. But for each of them creating a good looking PDF version of a wikibook seems to be a task so trivial, that publishing a such a pdf version, might cause a significant loss of reputation. But for me as an ultra long term unemployed worker in a cow shed, I got no reputation to loose an will thus publish updated pdf version upon request. --Dirk Hünniger (discuss • contribs) 10:39, 19 June 2016 (UTC)


 * hi, the version u compiled that time (June 18, 2016) is still the latest available one. I think it needs updation. thanks a lot for all the work you have done and are doing.
 * One things i spotted which is updated in the web (rest 3 I've made edits and published - are under review, so, please wait for them to be approved)
 * Page 53 (68) | (pending) : Document Class Options : Missing  option
 * Page 231 (246) : Floats : improves the wording: "limitations on the number of unprocessed (placed) floats in line."
 * Page 233 (248) | (pending) : Missing references : refer `\renewcommand` to "Creating your own packages"; Page 247 (262) : (--do--) for "listings" package.
 * Yashpalgoyal1304 (discuss • contribs) 20:03, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Quality issues with the current version of this wikibook
This wikibook is meant as a resource for beginners to start and a quick-look-it-up for regular users.

This wikibook started a decade ago, some of the information is outdated, some is good, some information is just wrong. This wikibook needs some fixes and improvements. This problem came up before on TeX.stackexchange, an information resource where (La)TeX experts answer the questions of beginners and regular users. |How can we, as a community, improve the LaTeX WikiBook?

This wikibok recently came into focus on the eduTeX mailing list, a list dedicated to spread the word about LaTeX and encouraging people to learn LaTeX and even to teach it to others. http://tug.org/pipermail/edutex/2017/000104.html

I would like to hear some feedback on where we are on this wikibook. Is there anyone willing to contribute some time to do at least a maintenance check once in a while? Is anybody interested in improving some of the chapters/articles this wikibook has? Anybody up for rewriting parts to get the wikibook back to current developments and the state of the art?

At the early stages, this wikibook was translated into other languages, and those translated works moved forward each one on its own. If you are willing to help, would you mind having a look into the LaTeX wikibook of your native language every once in a while? Maybe raise issues on the respective discussion site? Invite any active writers to join the english wikibook, which i am declaring1 right now as the main LaTeX wikibook.

I am very interested in any feedback by wikibook users or users who want to contribute to the LaTeX wikibook in the future.

Thank you, --Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs) 09:22, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

1I just decided to give me the power to declare it, this is of course not official.

I am willing :) --Borisveytsman (discuss • contribs) 18:19, 30 July 2017 (UTC)


 * if anybody is not familiar with the name, Boris is the current president of TUG, The TeX Users Group, an organization for people who are interested in typography and font design, and/or are users of the TeX typesetting system invented by Donald Knuth.  . Boris, welcome to wikibooks--Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs) 18:32, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Areas of focus for modernization
This wikibook is still incredibly useful for learning the basics of LaTeX - it was my primary resource for learning it around 2012-2013, and I still use it regularly as a reference. However, as mentioned above, there's parts of it that really show their age. In the coming weeks, I hope to focus on a few areas:
 * Unicode and LuaTeX/XeTeX: This book spends lots of its time handling encoding issues for various languages and instructions for inserting special characters using the original TeX mechanisms, designed in a time long before Unicode. Using a modern, Unicode-aware engine such as LuaTeX or XeTeX makes all of this much simpler. The book currently mentions the two, but it (IMO) should take a much more active voice in steering new users towards them.
 * Font handling: More focus should be placed on  and how to manipulate TTF and OTF fonts - claiming that they must be "converted" to work with TeX is misleading at best. We should also discuss optical weights, and how they work in Computer Modern and Latin Modern. More historical context here (e.g., why Knuth designed METAFONT) might also help.
 * Output formats: Similarly, there's lots of discussion of DVI output and a TeX -> DVI -> PostScript -> PDF workflow. Except for some corner cases, I assume the average user is looking for PDF output, so we should encourage pdfTeX/LuaTeX/XeTeX and discuss DVI second - mainly as historical context.

I don't presume to know what the workflow of the "average" LaTeX user is, but these certainly seem like important areas to cover for anybody getting started with LaTeX in 2018. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Mkline (discuss • contribs) 21:23, 30 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I highly welcome updating the wikibook, but it should be noted, that some journals do not like the modern engines. --Johannes Bo (discuss • contribs) 08:10, 1 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Why is this the case? Are there criticisms of what the newer engines do, or is there just a reluctance to switch to them when pdftex already serves their needs? Mkline (discuss • contribs) 05:49, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Contents vs. Index
The "Index" link at the bottom of every page takes you to the contents page, not to the index. I recommend relabeling the link as "Contents." JKW~enwiki (discuss • contribs) 13:40, 11 March 2018 (UTC)