TeX FAQ for dissertators and advanced TeX students
TeX FAQ for dissertators and advanced TeX students
References:
Questions and Answers
- Making figures and labelling them.
- Using the showkeys package to make labels visible
- Making running heads
- A plain TeX mail merge package
- A guide to bibliographic utilities
- Making complex Commutative Diagrams
How do I make figures easily and label them with TeX fonts and symbols?
Answers
- First download and install Xfig
(for Unix) or Jfig (for Windows). This is a simple, free drawing program which allows
you to save your output as an eps or pdf file. Use Xfig or Jfig to great
your figure, placing simple labels (e.g. A,B,C,...) where you want to place
the latex labels.
- Next make sure that your TeX installation has the PSFRAG and
PSFRAGX packages. PSFRAG allows you to replace your simple
markers (created with xfig or some other graphical program) with TeX
fonts and symbols. Here is an
example and it's associated graphics files:
hat3.eps and venn.eps.
Another psfrag example and it's associated
eps file.
Sigurd
Angenent's Lecturer Notes provide a masterful example
of what you can do when you combine LaTeX with Octave (a matlab clone),
XFig and psfrag.
- If your figure does not have markers (e.g. you have a picture
which you downloaded or scanned), you can use PSFRAGX, the
extended version of PSFRAG. PSFRAGX is a package which allows you to
overlay latex symbols or text on an eps file. Here is an
example
and it's associated HOWTO file
- PSTRICKS is a package which allows you to use simplified
postscript commands to "draw" complex pictures while using LaTeX's math
fonts.
- Here is a pstricks example which shows
some of the capabilities of this package.
- Another trig.tex PStricks example showing trig
functions.
How do I make the labels I've assigned to my equations, sections, etc. visible?
Answer
Use the showkeys package. Invoke it by putting this in the prologue
of your latex file:
\usepackage[notcite,notref]{showkeys}
Here is an example.
How do I make running heads in a file?
Answer
- First, change your pagestyle by putting this line in the body of the
latex file:
\pagestyle{myheadings}
(if you don't want any heading on a particular page, use:
\thispagestyle{empty})
- Then, declare your headings with
\markright{right_head}
or
\markboth{left_head}{right_head}
- Here is an example
Is there a mail merge package for TeX?
Answer
Try the autoletter and autolabel files for plain TeX:
What Bibliography utilities are available for use with LateX?
Answer
BIBTEX was designed to be used with LaTeX. Here is a handy guide to
Bibtex tools. You might also be interested in using bibweb, a perl script for downloading bibtex
formatted entries from MathSciNet. You can download the
bibweb.dvi manual and a sample file
bibwebtest.tex. For the impatient, here is how
to process bibwebtest (to create test.bib) on any Math department unix machine:
latex bibwebtest
bibweb bibwebtest
How can I make complex commutative diagrams in LaTeX?
Answer
You could use the amscd package (part of amslatex), but
Paul Taylor's diagram package
works better.