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

[Michael S. Hanson]

On May 4, 2004, at 6:57 AM, Will Robertson wrote:

> 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)

	I understood Gerben was looking for existing documents, rather than a  
comprehensive example file, to place on the desktop.  That said, I have  
some additions to the proposed document below.

	However, I would recommend instead opening a web page of documents and  
other links upon completion of the installation, rather than placing  
things on the Desktop.  For example, a link to "A Not So Short  
Introduction..." could be included -- that way the user can choose to  
download the document(s) if he/she sees fit, to a directory of his/her  
choice (although one might recommend a specific location in the  
personal TeX tree), or bookmark that page for later reference, or just  
browse.

	Here is a partial list of links I have collected for myself and  
recommended to new LaTeX users over the years.  Feel free to  
add/subtract as desired.

* Introduction to (La)TeX
	http://www.tug.org/begin.html

* (La)TeX and Mac OS X
	http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/default.html
	http://www.rna.nl/tex.html
	http://latex.yauh.de/index_en.html
	http://www.nat.vu.nl/~sneep/tex/Mac-TeX-FAQ.pdf

* Writing documents with LaTeX
	http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/lshort/lshort.pdf
	http://sarovar.org/projects/ltxprimer
	http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/info/beginlatex/html/
	(or  
http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/info/beginlatex/beginlatex.letter.pdf)
	http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/symbols/comprehensive/symbols- 
letter.pdf

* Additional assistance and resources
	http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?introduction=yes
	http://latex.s-v-p.de/
	http://www.macrotex.net/texbooks/
	http://www.ctan.org/


(Aside:  I would strongly recommend PDF Browser Plugin  
<http://www.schubert-it.com/pluginpdf/> as a very handy way to view  
.pdf and .ps docs from within most common browsers.  It's free for  
personal, educational, and non-profit use.)


> I just whipped this up then, so I may have left some things out.
>
> Will
>
>
> %%% PREAMBLE
>
> MEMOIR CLASS
>
> GRAPHICX      % for graphics support. Lets 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

	I would recommend the following packages as well, especially if one  
goal is to assist those moving from a word processing environment to  
LaTeX:

\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}	% For setting page dimensions
\usepackage{setspace}				% For double-spacing text
\usepackage{natbib}				% For references and bibliographies


                                         -- Mike

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