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LaTeX Beginner's Guide

You're reading from   LaTeX Beginner's Guide When there‚Äôs a scientific or technical paper to write, the versatility of LaTeX is very attractive. But where can you learn about the software? The answer is this superb beginner‚Äôs guide, packed with examples and explanations.

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Product type Paperback
Published in Mar 2011
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781847199867
Length 336 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Tools
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Table of Contents (21) Chapters Close

LaTeX
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
1. Getting Started with LaTeX FREE CHAPTER 2. Formatting Words, Lines, and Paragraphs 3. Designing Pages 4. Creating Lists 5. Creating Tables and Inserting Pictures 6. Cross-Referencing 7. Listing Content and References 8. Typing Math Formulas 9. Using Fonts 10. Developing Large Documents 11. Enhancing Your Documents Further 12. Troubleshooting 13. Using Online Resources Pop Quiz Answers Index

Time for action – writing our first document with TeXworks


Our first goal is to create a document that's printing out just one sentence. We want to use it to understand the basic structure of a LaTeX document.

  1. Launch the TeXworks editor by clicking on the desktop icon or open it in the Start menu.

  2. Click on the New button.

  3. Enter the following lines:

    \documentclass{article}
    \begin{document}
    This is our first document.
    \end{document}
  4. Click on the Save button and save the document. Choose a location where you want to store your LaTeX documents, ideally in its own folder.

  5. In the drop-down field in the TeXworks toolbar, choose pdfLaTeX:

  6. Click the Typeset button .
  7. The output window will automatically open. Have a look at it:

What just happened?

You have just seen the first few minutes of the life of a LaTeX document. Its following hours and days will be determined by editing, typesetting, and so on. Don't forget to save your document frequently.

As announced in contrary to the classic word processor software, you cannot see the effect of changes immediately—but the result is just one click away.

Have a go hero – checking out advanced LaTeX editors

Do you have experience in working with complex programs? Do you like using a feature-rich and powerful editor? Then have a look at these LaTeX editors. Visit their websites to find screenshots and to read about their features:

The mentioned editors are free open source software.

You have been reading a chapter from
LaTeX Beginner's Guide
Published in: Mar 2011
Publisher: Packt
ISBN-13: 9781847199867
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