A LaTeX setup for Mac OS X

A simple workflow for a fairly standard LaTeX setup for the Mac.

1. Download the MacTex disk image. Instructions for downloading and installing the disk image are available at the MacTex site. This will install the Texlive distribution, the TeXShop editor, and the BibDesk bibliography manager.
2. To add version control support for your documents, install Bazaar for Mac OS X.
3. Nicola Talbot’s “LaTeX for complete novices” is a no-frills tutorial which gets you started immediately.  For writing a PhD thesis, follow this up with “Using LaTeX to write a PhD thesis”.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

A LaTeX setup for the Windows platform

A simple workflow for a fairly standard LaTeX setup for the Windows platform. YMMV.

1. Download the MikTex setup exe
2. Get the whole package directory from a nearby server using Internet Explorer or using the MikTex installer
3. Install MikTex by pointing to the local copy of packages. Install as “Administrator” and install for all users.
4. Install the Sumatra PDF viewer. This is required because Acrobat reader locks  a PDF file in use.
5. Install TexnicCenter, a highly capable IDE for LaTeX. Change the PDF build profile to use XeLaTeX instead of PdfLaTeX.  XeLaTeX is the unicode and works better for multi-language input.
6. Enable complex language input in Windows. In XP, go to Control Panel -> Regional and Languages (You will need your XP install disk for this).
7. To add version control support using bazaar for Windows and version control script for LaTex, install gawk for Windows.
8. Install gnu-gawk for Windows.
9. The vc.bat file and the corresponding bzr awk script for Windows should be copied in the directory of each document. After each bzr commit, run the vc. bat file. This updates the vc.tex file (include it in your LaTeX document via \input{vc} )
10. Bibliography management is handled by JabRef (a Java application).

Additional Notes:

1. ipe is a very good tool for vectorized illustrations and figures. It has a modern UI and is quite easy to use.
2. A good way to manage the document workflow in TexnicCenter is to start with a simple new document in a desired directory and convert it into a project with “Project->Create with active file as main file” from the menu. Multi-file projects will then show up in a file/structure explorer with hotlinks.
3. Use polyglossia instead of babel for multi-language localizations in  LaTeX documents.
4. Nicola Talbot’s “LaTeX for complete novices” is a no-frills tutorial which gets you started immediately.  For writing a PhD thesis, follow this up with “Using LaTeX to write a PhD thesis”.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

A LaTeX tutorial reference

A good tutorial introduction for the LaTeX typesetting system.

A Swirl Through Bibtex

Bibtex is a tool for bibliography generation and management for LaTeX. It is presentation-agnostic. Consistency of bibliography presentation is managed by styles which are independent of the content.

BibTeX has the following capabilities:

• convenient management of all our bibliographic data (in a single or multiple files/locations as desired)
• setting the presentation for the bibliographic data with a simple change of the \bibliographystyle command in our LaTeX document
• enforcing consistency of style across a complex document.

Cite As You Write

References are included in the .tex file with the \cite command. Multiple citations can be included in a single \cite command.

Tom and Jerry demonstrated the first experiment in time-dilation effects~\cite{tom_nutty_exp}

The above entry inserts the reference in the document, ensuring that formatting is consistent with the bibliographic style specified.

In order to refer to new work, simply add it’s details to the .bib file. This is the format understood by BibTex. Use the command \bibliographystyle in the .tex file to generate the bibliography at that location.

1-2-3… Cite Off

If a document is written in a file report.tex and the bibliographic entries are stored in the unimaginatively named mybib.bib:

• Use the \bibliography{file_name} command in report.tex to specify that the bibliography entries reside in mybib.bib. Like so: \bibliography{mybib}
• Specify a bibliography style: \bibliographystyle{plain} — here we specify a plain style. A few other styles are unsrt, alpha, abbrv.
• Build the output document with the following sequence of commands:
  • latex report
  • bibtex report
  • latex report
  • latex report

The .bib File

A typical .bib entry is as follows:

@article{tom_nutty_exp,
title = {A Time Trap for Jerry},
journal = {Proceedings of the 4th Toon Conference on Insidious Traps},
author = {Cat, Tom and Mouse, Jerry},
year = {2000}
},

Entries in .bib file can be one of the following, or any other as defined:

• article: an article from a journal or magazine
• book: a book with a publisher
• booklet: a work that is printed and bound, but without a named publisher
• inproceedings: an article in a conference proceedings
• inbook: a part of a book (may be a chapter, etc.)
• incollection: a part of a book with its own title
• manual: technical documentation
• unpublished: a document with an author and a title, but not formally published

.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.