Typeset in this format in 1 minute.
You have a 100 page report. Your boss/teacher tells you to rearrange the sections. Now your contents page, citation/reference numberings etc. are out of order. You removed two citations from the text while you were editing - then you needed to remember to remove those from the bibliography at the end too. Don't forget to re-number all the references after those 2 citations. Double-check the citation style for each reference you made, make sure all of your page breaks remain correct...
A lot of work? Now you have to "print preview"... shift around a few text boxes that 'float' your pictures/accompanying text, 'justify' a few paragraphs so that they look neater, format line spacings etc.
Then you don't get it... MS Word keeps giving you those green squiggly lines for grammatical errors. You RIGHT-CLICK - Ignore all, but after a few seconds, it pops up again... You press ENTER and it gives you a two-line spacing instead of one. You press TAB and it doesn't indent by the same width as it previously did. At the end of it all, your formatting still looks amateurish and un-neat.
Familiar problem? Definitely. Only that I had a 120 page report for Project Work and it was a 70 +MB file, because all of the pictures were embedded in the same Word document, and that kept crashing my cheap laptop while I had to revise all of the formatting. LaTeX solves all of these problems for you, and gives you uninterrupted time to focus on the content by drastically cutting down your formatting time. So this is particularly useful to high school students who haven't done academic research, e.g Singapore-Cambridge GCE 'A' Level takers who have to do Project Work, if you're reading this...
1. Getting started: WYSIWYG vs WYSIWYM
I don't subscribe to format wars, OS wars etc. However, I have to differentiate between WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) and WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Meant) for the advantages to make sense.
The underlying principle of a WYSIWYG word processor like MS Word can be understood from the Print Preview function... it gives you what you see. LaTeX is a little smarter when it comes to typesetting/formatting... it gives you what you meant.
I must preface - I still recommend MS Word, Notepad, Excel etc. to get my work done. There are times when it's just more efficient to flout formatting rules, like writing a pre-draft plan. But when it comes to the actual writing, LaTeX wins. I also recommend everyone to use at least dual screens. I know it's possible to "RESTORE" your window size, and resize the edges yourself so that you can fit two windows (e.g. plan + report) into one screen, but wait till you have more windows to fit in there... someone else's share of your report workload in a Word document, a picture that you're checking out before you place it in your report, reference material in a PDF document, a web browser, someone messaging you on an instant messaging service, a few folders where you keep your documents... It gets very messy OK?
I recommend that you start with a LaTeX document processor until you're used to it - then you can make do without the processor, in which case you probably won't be reading this post. I started with LyX, and I still use it because it has many advantages to seeing the pure LaTeX source code - e.g. I can close and open 'Notes', and formulae get separated from standard text. I will base the rest of this article on the usage of LyX.
After installing LyX, and playing around, looking at the tutorial a little before getting bored, it's time to take a look at your document settings.
2. Settings: Article type
There are some pre-installed, common article types, which are basically a collection of formatting rules typically associated with each article type. I personally like the AMS's article format for reports. There are formats for APA, MLA style, books etc. too.
3. Settings: LaTeX preamble
You can also customize the formatting rules further by adding strings to your LaTeX preamble, e.g. removing the fixed time stamp under your author name, renaming a "Nomenclature" list to "List of Symbols" as I'll be doing here. There are a lot of possibilities, and a Google search will become necessary some time when you need it.
4. Environments
There are some things you will have to get used to. For instance, no matter what you do, you can't press "SPACE" twice after a character. You can't press "ENTER" twice at the end of paragraph either.
However, you separate things with environments. This is one of the best things about LaTeX. Each article type provides a different set of environments but they are generally the same... of course, you can add your own with the preamble, but it's usually unnecessary - there are many standard options, and you are likely to be using the wrong article type if you can't find what you want.
Select a string of text which is meant to be the title, and put it in the "Title" environment. Do the same with "Author" etc. You can throw it "Acknowledgements" at the end, and make section titles with "Part", followed by "Subsection"... The asterisk gives you unnumbered subsections.
5. Objects: Lists/Tables
Lists and tables of content can be added with a click - your work is just to add entries to these as you type the content. For instance, by setting "Parts" and "Sections", you are adding entries to your Contents page. I can't explain everything, so you might have to read the tutorial here.
6. BibTeX bibliography
A bibliography is very common, and the topic is a little obfuscated in the LyX tutorial, so I will say a little about it here. Basically, after adding a BibTeX bibliography (from step 5), you are given these options. BibTeX databases are basically .bib files, which can be edited using Notepad. I
Now, firstly, you can actually add ALL the databases available to you. Not all of the reference materials in your databases will show up in the final product - it's just the ones that you added which will. This way, you can just keep track of your reading list, and then add the materials which you've cited from.
As for editing the databases, it's easy to get the hang of it... just add the example databases available to you for now. Then right click and choose to edit the database externally, and a few notepad windows will open for you, and you'll understand how it's done. There are also tutorials written specifically for writing BibTeX databases out there, so make sure you do a search here if you need help that's specific to your needs.
There's another thing about the bibliography... there are different citation styles out there... e.g. APA, MLA, AMS, AIPS or whatever journal you're talking about. You can download these out there, browse your folder, and set the chosen one as your citation style. You don't have to learn the citation style fully and slowly write it out for each bibliography entry. Personally, I have most of the physics citation styles in my folder.
7. Inserting citations
Now, you've got a bibliography, you have a database of reference materials that you've been keeping track of... but you have to insert a citation before any entries appear in your bibliography.
8. Inserting mathematical formulae
Now, one very convenient element of LaTeX is the typesetting of mathematical formulae. Usually you need MathType, or the new Math Input Panel in Windows 7 for this. Let's add a formula inline.
9. Inserting labels and nomenclature entries
10. Export!
You can download the complete article which I wrote for this tutorial to see the complete work and how nicely it compares to MS Word typesetting. Excluding the time taken for the content, it really took me about 1 minute to get this done.
Optional: Some tricks...
There are some additional tricks, like INSERT - Formatting, where you can add vertical spacings , page breaks etc. if you really desire them. However, the philosophy of WYSIWYM is that you don't need these at all. I used about 4 of these for a 50~ page report.
There are also many other objects and embeddable stuff which I didn't cover. Floats, figures, tables etc. The LyX tutorials explain everything in simple detail, so just take a look at them.
1. Getting started: WYSIWYG vs WYSIWYM
I don't subscribe to format wars, OS wars etc. However, I have to differentiate between WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) and WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Meant) for the advantages to make sense.
The underlying principle of a WYSIWYG word processor like MS Word can be understood from the Print Preview function... it gives you what you see. LaTeX is a little smarter when it comes to typesetting/formatting... it gives you what you meant.
I must preface - I still recommend MS Word, Notepad, Excel etc. to get my work done. There are times when it's just more efficient to flout formatting rules, like writing a pre-draft plan. But when it comes to the actual writing, LaTeX wins. I also recommend everyone to use at least dual screens. I know it's possible to "RESTORE" your window size, and resize the edges yourself so that you can fit two windows (e.g. plan + report) into one screen, but wait till you have more windows to fit in there... someone else's share of your report workload in a Word document, a picture that you're checking out before you place it in your report, reference material in a PDF document, a web browser, someone messaging you on an instant messaging service, a few folders where you keep your documents... It gets very messy OK?
I recommend that you start with a LaTeX document processor until you're used to it - then you can make do without the processor, in which case you probably won't be reading this post. I started with LyX, and I still use it because it has many advantages to seeing the pure LaTeX source code - e.g. I can close and open 'Notes', and formulae get separated from standard text. I will base the rest of this article on the usage of LyX.
After installing LyX, and playing around, looking at the tutorial a little before getting bored, it's time to take a look at your document settings.
2. Settings: Article type
There are some pre-installed, common article types, which are basically a collection of formatting rules typically associated with each article type. I personally like the AMS's article format for reports. There are formats for APA, MLA style, books etc. too.
3. Settings: LaTeX preamble
You can also customize the formatting rules further by adding strings to your LaTeX preamble, e.g. removing the fixed time stamp under your author name, renaming a "Nomenclature" list to "List of Symbols" as I'll be doing here. There are a lot of possibilities, and a Google search will become necessary some time when you need it.
Basic settings. Showing the source code is optional, but I find it useful.
4. Environments
Notice that changing the article type/editing the preamble adds certain formatting rules.
There are some things you will have to get used to. For instance, no matter what you do, you can't press "SPACE" twice after a character. You can't press "ENTER" twice at the end of paragraph either.
However, you separate things with environments. This is one of the best things about LaTeX. Each article type provides a different set of environments but they are generally the same... of course, you can add your own with the preamble, but it's usually unnecessary - there are many standard options, and you are likely to be using the wrong article type if you can't find what you want.
Select a string of text which is meant to be the title, and put it in the "Title" environment. Do the same with "Author" etc. You can throw it "Acknowledgements" at the end, and make section titles with "Part", followed by "Subsection"... The asterisk gives you unnumbered subsections.
Let's make this our title.
Inserting an abstract. Tip: you can type 'abst', 'bst' etc. on LyX and it works like a search function and suggests the environment type that you're looking for, if there are many available for the article type you're using.
5. Objects: Lists/Tables
The standard options for lists and tables of content.
Lists and tables of content can be added with a click - your work is just to add entries to these as you type the content. For instance, by setting "Parts" and "Sections", you are adding entries to your Contents page. I can't explain everything, so you might have to read the tutorial here.
6. BibTeX bibliography
A bibliography is very common, and the topic is a little obfuscated in the LyX tutorial, so I will say a little about it here. Basically, after adding a BibTeX bibliography (from step 5), you are given these options. BibTeX databases are basically .bib files, which can be edited using Notepad. I
Now, firstly, you can actually add ALL the databases available to you. Not all of the reference materials in your databases will show up in the final product - it's just the ones that you added which will. This way, you can just keep track of your reading list, and then add the materials which you've cited from.
As for editing the databases, it's easy to get the hang of it... just add the example databases available to you for now. Then right click and choose to edit the database externally, and a few notepad windows will open for you, and you'll understand how it's done. There are also tutorials written specifically for writing BibTeX databases out there, so make sure you do a search here if you need help that's specific to your needs.
There's another thing about the bibliography... there are different citation styles out there... e.g. APA, MLA, AMS, AIPS or whatever journal you're talking about. You can download these out there, browse your folder, and set the chosen one as your citation style. You don't have to learn the citation style fully and slowly write it out for each bibliography entry. Personally, I have most of the physics citation styles in my folder.
Browse and find the citation style that you need. I recommend "unsrt" if you don't have one in mind.
Choosing a citation style.
7. Inserting citations
Now, you've got a bibliography, you have a database of reference materials that you've been keeping track of... but you have to insert a citation before any entries appear in your bibliography.
Inserting a citation
The citation dialog is really detailed, but simple to use. You can:
- add multiple citations at the end of the cited text if you've referred to two or more materials to paraphrase it, or you can simply add one citation (most of the time).
- see a preview of how the entry will look on the bibliography is immediately shown below.
- search for the reference material, if you are managing a particularly large database.
- choose the formatting for the citation (varies with citation style you've chosen)
Citations dialog
8. Inserting mathematical formulae
Now, one very convenient element of LaTeX is the typesetting of mathematical formulae. Usually you need MathType, or the new Math Input Panel in Windows 7 for this. Let's add a formula inline.
Note: Display and numbered formulae are also quite useful.
LyX recognizes all your LaTeX codes for mathematical symbols, so you can type \omega followed by SPACE and it will produce a lower case omega for you. Or \Omega, for an upper case omega. The toolbar at the bottom is useful if you don't know the LaTeX code for the symbol.
9. Inserting labels and nomenclature entries
When you reach a point in your content where you feel like adding something to your Index, List of Symbols etc. (nomenclatures), just add a Nomenclature Entry.
Let's describe the omega symbol that we had just added in the inline formula.
10. Export!
Check everything... a spellchecker is available if you need it.
Preview in your chosen format. I like pdflatex. ps2pdf has a higher compression, but less metadata.
Take a look at the citation added and how it went straight to the bibliography without manual effort.
You can download the complete article which I wrote for this tutorial to see the complete work and how nicely it compares to MS Word typesetting. Excluding the time taken for the content, it really took me about 1 minute to get this done.
Optional: Some tricks...
There are some additional tricks, like INSERT - Formatting, where you can add vertical spacings , page breaks etc. if you really desire them. However, the philosophy of WYSIWYM is that you don't need these at all. I used about 4 of these for a 50~ page report.
There are also many other objects and embeddable stuff which I didn't cover. Floats, figures, tables etc. The LyX tutorials explain everything in simple detail, so just take a look at them.
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