Getting started with LaTeX –
frequently encountered
issues
Ronja Addams-Moring
Kie-98.1601 English Oral Skills Test
10. February 2009

Disclaimer
• The facts about LaTeX you can verify
• The experiences, interpretations and
opinions, however, are mine
• There certainly are similarities with some
other persons' views but that is not their
responsibility
• Feel free to copy, distribute, criticize,
ignore or form derivative opinions as you
see fit 
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Presentation outline
• First: some unlearning may be needed
• Task analysis: What we researchers do
• Requirements: What we need
• Historical overview
• To LaTeX or not to LaTeX?
• Typical issues when one begins
• After this presentation: LaTeX demo
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Unlearn first?
• Documents are created and maintained
with quite varying software
– vi, emacs, pico, jEdit, OO Writer...
– notepad, WordPad, MS Word...
– Adobe Acrobat, FrameMaker...
– TikiWiki, MediaWiki, Joomla!, Mambo...
• LaTeX has its own philosophy and logic
• Do not expect “just another X” - you will
frustrate yourself and make mistakes
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Task analysis 1(2)
• A simplified ”circle of life” of scientific-
scholarly knowledge
1) Researcher A publishes a new result
2) Based on A’s result, other researchers
create more new knowledge
3) Researcher A uses other researchers’
results as input for more research
4) The process repeats: Body of Knowledge
grows larger and better with each ”round”
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Task analysis 2(2)
• Necessary precondition for publishing:
presenting research results
accurately in scientific/scholarly works
– Readable, precise language
– Exact and fault-free citing
– Unambiguous symbols
– Effective-to-read typescript and layout
– Clear layout for tables and figures
• Writing/drawing/editing tools needed
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Requirements for tools
• Some essential necessities
– Re-use of references in new works
– Correct word divisions (in any language)
– Correct cross-referencing in the article
– No orphan lines or other layout
“uglinesses”
– etc
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Historical overview 1(3)
• Before ca. 1975 only proprietary printing
systems, typesetting far from author
– Problem: typesetting introduced mistakes
– Solution: author corrected proof prints manually
– New problem: corrections entered incorrectly ->
more mistakes!
• 1977 Donald Knuth (comp.sci.) had enough
• 1982 TeX: formulae, symbols - free software
• 1984 LaTeX (document structure) by Leslie
Lamport (CS, math), 1986 The Book
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Historical overview 2(3)
• The TeX innovation: device independence
– This was news back then...
• Some limitations
– WYSIWYM, not WYSIWYG
– need to learn the markup
• Some advantages
– free software: Windows (MiKTeX), Unix/Linux
(TeX-live) and MacOS X
– keeps document neat through changes
– no-hassle references, footnotes etc.
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Historical overview 3(3)
• Today de facto standard for (most) IEEE
and ACM journals and conferences
• Stable, bug-free, genuinely multi-lingual
• Future: depends on MiKTeX - ?
• Personal experience & opinion:
– since 1983 have heard of one friend-of-
a-friend who had a bug-like problem
with LaTeX (around 1988-1992)
– anything longer than 8-12 pages ->
LaTeX
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To LaTeX or not to LaTeX?
• How large a work? 15+ pages -> LaTeX
motivated
• Need to structure work / use many files
-> LaTeX motivated
• If e.g. mathematical or Greek alphabet
symbols needed -> LaTeX motivated
• If journal / conference only has LaTeX
templates: use them, don't argue
• More brains, less money -> using free
software makes sense
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Typical beginner's issues 1(4)
• What are all these files?!?
• You must edit
– one .tex (the actual article text)
– one .bib (your bibliography = literature)
• You may create and/or edit
– .eps (figure files: pictures, graphs...)
– other input files
• You must not edit
– .sty (text layout style) and related
– .bst (bibliography style) and related
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Typical beginner's issues 2(4)
• Don't panic about the many details -
you only need to learn what you use
• LaTeX resembles HTML or wiki markup:
tags inside text
• Extra whitespace in .tex or .bib will not
show in end result -> use as you please
• The “magic” characters - must “quote”
in .tex or .bib : \\ { } $ ^ _ % ~ # &
– don't use in file names of input files!
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Typical beginner's issues 3(4)
• Only the cited works from .bib listed by
default -> when in doubt, make entry
• Where to put \\cite{AuthYEAR} in .tex?
• \\cite or \\citet or \\citep?
• How do I get (also in demo)
– bolded text (italics not so readable)
– lists (numbered / bulleted)
– tables, pictures
– chapter, section and subsection headers
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Typical beginner's issues 4(4)
• BibTeX entry types = ? (Article,
InProceedings, Proceedings...)
• How do I get that nice-looking PDF?
• Why “acm” not “ACM” in the PDF's
reference list? -> add {} around
• Other questions?
• Learn to use (on-line) manuals!
• Google: LaTeX OR BibTeX tutorial OR
beginner OR guide -> 7.5 M hits!
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A few useful guides
• Oetiker: The Not So Short Introduction
to LaTeX 2 (PDF - do save a copy!)
• http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/LaTe
XPrimer/
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BibTeX
• http://www.hep.manchester.ac.uk/u/jenn
y/jcwdocs/latex/bibtexbasics.html
• http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/osbo
rne/latex/BIBTEX.HTM
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Thank you
• Questions?
•
• My contact info
– http://www.iki.fi/~ronja/
– http://www.linkedin.com/in/addamsmoring
– ronja [AT] iki [DOT] fi
– skype: ronja-am
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please!
• This work (= these slides) is licensed under the
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Commercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
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• Attribution info: Ronja Addams-Moring: \"Getting
started with LaTeX – frequently encountered
issues\". Presentation 10th February 2009 at
Helsinki University of Technology (TKK),
Espoo, Finland, EU.
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