[OS X TeX] TeX is not for the faint of heart

[Will Robertson]

Gerben Wierda wrote:

> 
> Who can get me a basic set that I can put on the Desktop (after asking the
> user of course and only during non-expert install)
> 

Like I said, I was going to put something together like this, but it was 
going to be along the lines of the following "LaTeX algorithm". I will 
start working on it slowly (I know it's not tricky, I'm just busy!), but 
feel free to comment/flesh out. I'd like it to be a collaborative 
project. Note that the point is not to be definitive, but to be concise 
and provide clear pointers, and to be especially helpful with regard to 
platform specific information.

I just whipped this up then, so I may have left some things out.

Will


%%% PREAMBLE

MEMOIR CLASS

GRAPHICX      % for graphics support. Let's you use PDF,JPG & PNG
BOOKTABS      % to create nice looking tables
HYPERREF      % to create hyperlinks in the final pdf document
AMSMATH       % to typeset complex math

Maybe
FANCYREF      % for advanced referencing within a document

...

%%% DOCUMENT

\chapter{Intro}

This is a simple example LaTeX document. It will demonstrate the bare 
necessities of a basic document. It is designed to be used as a template 
for new users to copy/paste from.

More extensive help can be obtained from "The not so short introduction 
to LaTeX2e" [with an external hyperlink to the installed document]

The default on Mac OS X is to use pdfLaTeX for documents. It is not 
mandatory, but we like it.

IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGY:

LaTeX is the typesetter. You write plain text files, feed them to LaTeX, 
and LaTeX gives you a PDF file. For new users, the most simple method 
for writing the LaTeX documents and typesetting them is TeXShop. Some 
people use more complex programs as they become more proficient, such as 
iTeXMac, Alpha, and Emacs.

\section{Basics}

...I don't know how detailed this should be. Don't want to duplicate 
lshort, after all...

Section commands, \emph, \verb etc
...

\subsection{Referencing}
Look how cool fancyref is! You can reference things on other pages and 
LaTeX automatically tells you what page it's on. Betcha MSWord can't do 
that.

BibTeX is used for bibliographic referencing. It's easier to understand 
in isolation. Please see [another example that will be put together?].


\section{Maths}

Brief examples. Main focus is to stop people from using eqnarray.
[External hyperlink to amsmath.pdf]


\section{Graphics}

PDF graphics are used for vector diagrams:
---
PDF example
---

JPG graphics are compressed; usually used for photos:
---
JPG example
---

PNG graphics are lossless raster images; used for everything else:
---
PNG example
---


\section{Tables}

[=]
This is a regular LaTeX table. Note how it's ugly.

[=]
This is a booktabs table. Note how it's not.
[External link to booktabs.pdf]


\section{How to change headings/page size}

Very brief
[External hyperlink to memman.pdf]


\section{Fonts}

These are all the fonts you can choose with gwTeX:
Default
Concrete
Times
Palatino
etc
etc

This is how you do it:
\usepackage{whatever}

[external hyperlink to pfnss.pdf]

To install your own fonts, see [bruno's tutorial] [eddie's opentype 
tools] [peter lehmann's font tutorial]


\section{Anything else you need to know}

Margin kerning
PDFSYNC
lettrine package? It's a nice demo

-----------------------------------------------------
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