Rensselaer EWP - Using LATEX

LATEX runs on a variety of computers at many different sites. This document tells you how to use LATEX on Rensselaer at Hartford Unix sites running the standardly distributed Unix version of TEX and LATEX. It is not about LATEX itself, which is described in the manual-LATEX: A Document Preparation System, available from Addison-Wesley (ISBN 0-201-15790-X).

If you have a question that you can't answer by reading the manual and this document, ask Technical and Information Services Staff. They should also be informed of any possible LATEX bugs or undocumented anomalies.

1 Getting Started

1.1 Running a Sample File
Before preparing your own documents, you may want to get acquainted with LATEX by running it on a sample input file. First make your own copy of the file sample.tex by typing the following Unix command:

cp /home/common/tutorials/latex/sample.tex .
(You must type the space followed by the period at the end. This and all other Unix commands are ended by typing return.) A copy of the file sample.tex is now in your current directory; you can edit it just like any other file. If you destroy or mess up your copy, typing the above command again gets you a fresh one.
Next, run LATEX on the file sample.tex by typing:

latex sample
When LATEX has finished, it will have produced the file sample.dvi in your directory. You can print this file by typing the command:
dvips [-Pprinter] sample.dvi

The output will be produced on your site's local postscript printer. The ``-P'' and printer arguments are optional. After it has been printed, you can delete sample.dvi by typing
rm sample.dvi
LATEX users can use the dviselect command on the file sample.tex by typing:

dviselect -i sample.dvi -o outfile.dvi firstpage:lastpage
For example, if you have a 6 page LATEX dvi file called paper.dvi, a two page dvi file, temp.dvi, consisting of only the third and fourth pages can be created using the following command:
dviselect -i paper.dvi -o temp.dvi 3:4
The temp.dvi file can be printed on the laser printer using the standard dvips command. See the dviselect manual page for further details.

1.2 Preparing and Running LATEX on Your Own Files
You must use a text editor to prepare an input file for LATEX. Contact your computer's administrator for more information on the text editors available to you. The easiest way to start learning about LATEX is by examining the file small.tex with your text editor. You can obtain your own copy of this file, in your directory, by typing the command

cp /home/common/tutorials/latex/small.tex .
After you have prepared your file, whose name should have the extension tex, you must run it through LATEX and print the output. Follow the instructions in Section 1.1, except substitute the first name of your file for ``sample''. Remember to save disk space by deleting the dvi file after printing the output.

When running LATEX on your own file you will probably get error messages ending with a ?.

Some of your options are:

TEX may write an * and stop without any error message. This is probably due to a missing \end{document} command, but other errors can cause it. Type \stop <return> to continue.

If you want to stop LATEX in the middle of its execution, perhaps because it is printing a seemingly unending string of uninformative error messages, type Control-C (press C while holding down the key labeled CTRL ). This will make LATEX stop as if it had encountered an ordinary error, and you can return to Unix command level by typing X, as described in the manual. If typing Control-C doesn't work, typing Control-Z will get you immediately to Unix command level, but this will leave a stopped job hanging around. A stopped job won't hurt anything and will usually disappear when you log out, but it forces you to type two successive logout commands to log out.

To use the spell program for finding spelling errors in a LATEX input file named myfile.tex, type the following command:

detex myfile.tex | spell
This will type a list of possibly misspelled words on your terminal. If you'd rather have the output written to a file named foo.bar, type
detex myfile.tex | spell >foo.bar

1.3 Previewing LATEX Documents
LATEX documents may be previewed on the Sun workstations by using the following command.

1.3.1 xdvi
Under X or OpenWindows environments use xdvi command by typing:

xdvi myfile.dvi
See the xdvi manual page for more information.

2.1 LATEX on Unix
The only special problems in using LATEX caused by the Unix operating system involve the way Unix handles files. The first problem arises because, when a program starts to write a file, Unix destroys the previous version of that file. Thus, if an error forces you to stop LATEX prematurely (by typing Control-C or Control-Z ), then the files that LATEX was writing are incomplete, and the previous complete versions have been destroyed. You probably don't care about the output on the dvi file, but, if you are making a table of contents or using cross-referencing commands, then LATEX also writes one or more auxiliary files that it reads the next time it processes the same input file. If the auxiliary files are incomplete because LATEX was stopped before reaching the end of its input file, then the table of contents and cross-references will be incorrect the next time LATEX is run on the same input file. You will have to run LATEX a second time to get them right. If you want to avoid having to run LATEX twice after making an error-for example, if your input is very long-then you should save copies of these auxiliary files before running LATEX. An input file named myfile.tex and all the auxiliary files produced by LATEX from it are included in the Unix file specifier myfile.*. Use the Unix cp command to save copies of these files.

The second problem in using LATEX on Unix involves the files that LATEX reads. The file whose name you type with Unix's latex command is called the root file. In addition to reading the root file, LATEX also reads the files specified by \input and \include commands. With the Unix directory system, LATEX must know not only the names of these file but also on what directories they are. It will have no problem finding the correct files if you follow two simple rules:

If you follow these rules, you never have to type an Unix path specifier when using LATEX.

You should never break the first rule, otherwise LATEX will have trouble finding auxiliary files. (To run LATEX on someone else's file, copy the file to your directory.) If you break the second rule, specifying a file from another directory in an \input or \include command, you must use a complete path name. For example, to include the file hisfile.tex from Jones' directory /foo/bar, you can type

\include{/udir/jones/foo/bar/hisfile}

A ~ character may not appear in the argument of an \input or \include command, so you can't use a file name such as ~jones/foo/bar/hisfile.

For people who don't like to obey rules, here is exactly how LATEX finds its files. The root file is found by Unix according to its usual rules. LATEX's auxiliary files are read and written in the directory from which it is run. All file names specified in the LATEX input, including the names of document-style (sty) files specified by the \documentstyle command, are interpreted relative to the directory from which LATEX is run. If LATEX does not find a file starting in this directory, it looks in the system directory /usr/local/lib/tex/inputs. You can change the directories in which LATEX looks for its input files by setting the environment variable TEXINPUTS. Putting the command

setenv TEXINPUTS :.:/udir/jones/myown:/usr/local/tex/macros:

in your .login file causes LATEX to look for files first in the current directory, then in Jones' /myown directory, and then in the system directory. You might want to do this if your name is Jones and you have your own personal document-style files in your /myown directory.

2.2.1 Special Styles
The only document styles or style options currently available here that are not described in the manual are the proc and the galley style options for making camera-ready copy for conference proceedings.

2.2.2 The proc Style Option
The proc option is used with the article document style. It produces two-column output for ACM and IEEE conference proceedings. The command \copyrightspace makes the blank space at the bottom of the first column of the first page, where the proceedings editor will insert a copyright notice. This command works by producing a blank footnote, so it is placed in the text of the first column. It must go after any \footnote command that generates a footnote in that column.

LATEX automatically numbers the output pages. It's a good idea to identify the paper on each page of output. Placing the command

\markright{Jones---Foo}
in the preamble (before the \begin{document} command) prints ``Jones-Foo'' at the bottom of each page.

2.2.3 The galley Style Option
The galley option is used with the article document style. It produces two-column output for Rensselaer at Hartford Computer Science Conference Proceedings.

A sample document, galley.tex, can be copied to your directory by typing the following command:

cp /home/common/tutorials/latex/galley.tex .
You can run LATEX on galley.tex in the usual way.

2.3 Where the Files Are
All LATEX files mentioned in the manual, including the sty and doc files, are in the directory /apps/net/tex/inputs. Fonts are stored in /apps/net/tex/fonts. The *.tfm files are used by TEX and LATEX. The *.*pk files are pixel files used by pstex and other device drivers.

2.4 Running lablst.tex and idx.tex
A list of labels and citations in an input file is printed by running LATEX on the input file lablst.tex, which is done by typing

latex lablst
LATEX will then ask for the name of the input file, which should be typed without an extension, and for the name of the main document style (e.g., article), used by that file.
The index entries on an idx file are printed by running LATEX on the file idx.tex, which is done by typing

latex idx
LATEX will ask for the name of the idx file, which is typed without an extension.

2.5 Differences from the Manual
All LATEX features described in the manual are provided by the Unix implementation.

2.6 Fonts
Almost all the symbols available on our fonts can be generated by ordinary LATEX commands. However, there are type sizes not obtainable by LATEX's size-changing commands with the ordinary document styles. Consult a local TEX expert to find the TEX name for such a font.

Tables and allow you to determine if the font for a type style at a particular size is preloaded, loaded on demand, or unavailable.

size default (10pt) 11pt option 12pt option
\tiny 5pt 6pt 6pt
\scriptsize 7pt 8pt 8pt
\normalsize 10pt 11pt 12pt
\large 12pt 12pt 14pt
\Large 14pt 14pt 17pt
\LARGE 17pt 17pt 20pt
\huge 20pt 20pt 25pt
\Huge 25pt 25pt 25pt

Table 1: Type sizes for LATEX size-changing commands.

\it \bf \sl \sf \sc \tt
5pt D D X X X X
6pt X D X X X X
7pt P D X X X X
8pt P D D D D D
9pt P P D D D P
10pt P P P P D P
11pt P P P P D P
12pt P P P P D P
14pt D P D D D D
17pt D P D D D D
20pt D D D D D D
25pt X D X X X X

Table 2: Font classes: P = preloaded, D = loaded on demand, X = unavailable.

Table 1 tells you what size of type is used for each LATEX type-size command in the various document-style options. For example, with the 12pt option, the \large declaration causes LATEX to use 14pt type. Table 2 tells, for every type size, to which class of fonts each type style belongs. For example, in 14pt type, \bf uses a preloaded font and the other five type-style commands use load-on-demand fonts. Roman (\rm) and math italic (\mit) fonts are all preloaded; the \em declaration uses either italic (\it) or roman.

2.7 Special Versions
No foreign-language or other special versions of LATEX are currently available at Rensselaer at Hartford.