Talk:LaTeX

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the LaTeX article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (`~~~~`). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

[edit] LaTeX Query

My apologies, I'm a beginner... why is it that after I save my hello.tex, I am unable to compile, build and view the output? Can it be a program error or did I forget something? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jonarvs (talk • contribs) 2006-11-25T10:17:30.

Yes. But this is not the right place to ask these questions.--Oneiros 12:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of <math> to print "[[LaTeX]]"

There has been a bunch of reverts to the word "LaTeX" lately. I don't get the semantic argument. If using <math> is the best way to beatify the word LaTeX then does it really matter in which way it is internally represented? Most users will never edit the article so it is appropriate to have the word LaTeX in the most beautiful form as seen by the casual user. --Hq3473 07:04, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

I understand the point about using semantic markup tags to modify appearence, but I think in this case it's appropriate. LaTeX is after all a markup language.

Another point, is the <math> tag really semantic markup when used in Wikipedia? It looks to me like it just generates the other string of tags so that it's acting more as an alias. At the same time, the result of both markups should look the same:

In Wikipedia, typing this: <math>L^AT_EX</math>

Generates this: LATEX

in html.

If has to be one or the other, I would prefer the <math> tags.

I just have to remember to close whatever tags I use:)

--Tom harrison 11:51, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Ok, this is ridiculous, MediaWiki generated LaTeX looks UGLY(the A is out of whack). Psychonaut is not happy with either math or html markup. can he answer WHY? or rest in peace.--Hq3473 06:31, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] LaTeX wiki

A question: wouldn't it be a good idea to have a wiki especially devoted to (La)TeX. It could become some sort of dynamic TeX FAQ. Especially the fact that wikipedia can show actual TeX-generated formulas $\left(\int_a^b x\,dx = \frac{x^2}{2}\right)$ makes it a very interesting platform, in my opinion. An important decision then is whether to setup an entirely new wiki, or just do it under some existing wiki, like wikipedia.

What you described already exists as the UK TeX FAQ. I added a link to the UK TeX FAQ in the external links section. --Matt 23:16, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- It's worth mentioning that the UK TeX FAQ, whilst excellent, is not a wiki. It's the work of essentially one man. I think a wiki would be a great idea, although I'm not volunteering to set it up or host it :) Lupin 23:30, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  - Actually, the last paragraph of the introduction in the UK TeX FAQ names, in addition to the members of the UK TUG committee, at least 40 people who contributed to the FAQ. But I guess this still doesn't count as a wiki since public contributions are not possible? –Matt 09:52, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
    - OK, more than one person :) but all contributions are channeled through Robin Fairbairns AIUI, so it's far from wikidom. Lupin 10:47, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- PS http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:LaTeX could possibly be expanded into this given sufficient energy. Or another more suitable location on http://wikibooks.org/ Lupin 23:46, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Phonetics

this is a prime example of how "custom" phonetics are no good.

LAY-tekh or LAH-tekh, rhyming with "tack"

What does the 'h' do -- what would be the difference between 'tekh' and 'tek'?
I can't make 'tek' rhyme with 'tack' -- Tarquin 20:08 Oct 18, 2002 (UTC)
see TeX: where "kh" represents the sound at the end of Scotish "loch" (the X is meant to be the Greek letter χ) --rbrwr

The article now says "LaTeX is usually pronounced "LAY-tech" (where ch represents the sound of ch in German mich or German Technik, but not Scottish loch ...", which confuses me. I always thought the ch in the Scottish loch is the same as the ch in the German mich, represented by x in IPA. Note that the TeX article still says "The name TeX is intended to be pronounced "tekh", where "kh" represents the sound at the end of Scottish "loch" (but not English "loch")", which is equally confusing: what do they mean with English "loch"? -- Jitse Niesen 17:30, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

They are not the same, loch [x], mich [ç] (i.e., an unvoiced palatal fricative). However, I seriously doubt that LaTeX should be pronounced with [ç] as the article indicates. At least, Knuth's own words on the pronunciation of TeX in the TeXbook clearly describe [x], not [ç].

And speaking about confusion: WTF is intended by "See the International Phonetic Alphabet article for more information" ??? There is nothing related to IPA in the whole section. (Unfortunately.) -- EJ 14:17, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As explained on Talk:TeX, I came to the conclusion that even in Greek, τεχ would be pronounced as [tεx], not [tεç]. Since this removes the last (already weak) reason for pronouncing LaTeX with [ç], I changed the article accordingly. -- EJ 15:51, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I never noticed that the final consonants in Dach and ich are pronounced differently. -- Jitse Niesen 16:02, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC). PS for EJ: Since you list logic as your interest, perhaps you could take a look at Ebbinghaus Flum Thomas and tell us what to do?

Someone edited in a plain [k] sound and even attributed this to Knuth, which I reverted. Knuth clearly says: it's the 'ch' sound in scottish words like loch or german words like ach (texbook, chapter "The name of the game"). Anyone still think it should be [k]?--84.188.167.204 13:10, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, maybe, yes. My issue is with the phrase 'usually pronounced'. I fully accept that Knuth favours a pronunciation with [x]; in my experience, however, most English speakers call it [ˈleɪ.tɛk]. This is hardly surprising: the majority of English speakers don't have the sound in their phonological inventory, even as an allophone. Perhaps this is a reflection of my limited experience, but I have my doubts. If [k] is the more common pronunciation, this should be noted in the article. I would add that appeals to Greek are not as convincing as they may seem. First, no one pronounces any other Greek loan with [x] (think 'technique', 'chronological' etc). Second, [x] is modern Greek. One might equally appeal to Ancient Greek, where χ was pronounced [k^h]. In other words, the only reason for pronouncing the word as [ˈleɪ.tɛx] is the personal preference of Knuth. garik 19:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I've changed it to reflect what I've said above. garik 13:08, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Components

A question: What are the components of a LaTeX-System. Which programs are minimally required. There seems to be a recommended directory structure every LaTeX-Systems has. How does it look like? For which purposes are the various directories needed. Some general overview information would be appreciated. --HHK

I added an external link to the TeX Directory Structure (TDS) doc to cover this question.Colin Marquardt 09:11, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] LaTeX Official Website and Spam filter

The link to official website is removed by me, due to the site being listed on the spam filter - for some reason. I have left a talk on the meta page of the spam filter. If another sysop sees this before the problem is solved, may you remove the site off the list and put the ext. link back... Squash 23:22, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Give an example!

Hi, I am just a "visitor" from the German Wiki. Have a look at their LaTeX article [1]: They have given a small example of input and output; that might give an idea about the basic concenpt to LaTeX newbies.

I'm on the case, I'll have something ready soon. Onco p53 09:59, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK can you please comment on the following: (is there a way to scale to a percent of the screen?) Onco p53 23:44, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The image below shows an example of a LaTeX input (left) and output (right).

Personally I prefer the approach on the german article where they have the input in html. This means the reader could actually try out the fragment for themselves and also seems cleaner somehow. Lupin 01:49, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK here goes: Onco p53 02:10, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

.
\documentclass[12pt]{article} \title{\LaTeX} \date{} \begin{document} \maketitle \LaTeX{} is a document preparation system for the \TeX{} typesetting program. It offers programmable desktop publishing features and extensive facilities for automating most aspects of typesetting and desktop publishing, including numbering and cross-referencing, tables and figures, page layout, bibliographies, and much more. \LaTeX{} was originally written in 1984 by Leslie Lamport and has become the dominant method for using \TeX; few people write in plain \TeX{} anymore. The current version is \LaTeXe. \newline % This is a comment, it is not shown in the final output. % The following shows a little of the typesetting power of LaTeX \begin{eqnarray} E &=& mc^2 \\ m &=& \frac{m_0}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}} \end{eqnarray} \end{document}	]

There are some layout problems that need to be solved; this looks completely different at different resolutions Onco p53 02:14, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Better now, but optimised for a 1024*768 display. background needs some work, feel free someone Onco p53 02:45, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Version

I removed this sentence from the article:

"As further versions come out, the version number will asymptotically approach LaTeX3.14..., i.e. LaTexPi."

Do we have a reference for this? I don't know of any plans regarding the version numbers of LaTeX, but the versions of TeX are supposed to converge to π. -- Jitse Niesen 00:28, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I didn't know it was for TeX and not for LaTeX. Couldn t find any confirmation of it on latex.org Paul Dehaye 01:33, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Logo

It would be nice to have the latex that created the logo in the intro as its caption. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 22:47, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)

The code to produce that is: \LaTeX (note the caps) Onco p53 03:01, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh and if you want the version number type: \LaTeXe Onco p53 03:06, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)</nowiki>

Would it be possible to describe how the logo was made into an svg file? I'm tried numerous methods and I'm having trouble with this, particularly for math markup. I realize this might not be the right place for this question but I feel like I've exhausted other methods.

You might check out dvisvg

According to the image’s source code, it was “Created with Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/)”. Try that. —Frungi 22:46, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I'd do:

Create the following LaTeX document foo.tex:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\LaTeX
\end{document}

Produce PostScript output:

$ latex foo.tex
$ dvips foo.dvi

Convert the PostScript file to SVG using your favourite conversion tool. I don't know of any command-line tool, but I'm pretty sure that the Inkscape SVG editor can import PostScript files.

If anyone knows of an easier way, let me know. —Psychonaut 23:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is the "Document in Adobe Reader on Linux" image representative?

Is the "LaTeX Document in Adobe Reader on Linux.png" representative in any way for this article? --Hritcu 19:52, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Useful / Interesting LaTeX packages

Seeing as we already have a Frontends section, why not add another section for useful packages such as LaTeX-beamer? Liyang 06:52:26, 2005-08-19 (UTC)

[edit] Babel

I've added LaTeX to the Wikipedia:Babel project. Feel free to put it in your babelbox! -- Smjg 12:36, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inverse search

I have written a stub about Inverse search, which I added a link to. Feel free to merge it with this article.

Also, I find the following sentence in the Community section confusing:

Several commercial implementations, however, use a synchronous typographic display like other DTP systems (as does the non-commercial and open source LyX)

Several commercial implementations? Of what? There seems to be no reference to these implementations.

[edit] External links

This article has a massive number of external links. Normally I do a slash and burn with an edit summary of "per Wikipedia:External links" or something. However, I will always have a special place in my heart for L^AT_EX, so does anyone who is closer to the article want to make a little trim? - brenneman ^(t)^(c) 23:59, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changed Screenshot

I changed the screenshot showing a LaTeX document in Acrobat on Linux to one showing a document in Preview on OS X for a few reasons:

The Acrobat shot doesn't show any actual content but rather just one sentence repeated over and over. The Preview shot shows an actual (linguistic) use of LaTeX.
The Acrobat shot does a good job of showing the titling, sectioning, and page numbering features of LaTeX, but nothing more advanced than that. The new shot shows figures, references, formatting, and subscripting, along with trees and numbered examples (through the use of packages).
In my opinion, the font rendering on Linux makes the LaTeX output look kind of ugly.

[edit] File generation

There doesnt appear to be anything about file generation in LaTeX, .tex → .dvi → .eps (and .log files etc e.g. with BibteX files). There doesnt appear to be information about usage of pdfLaTeX either compiling a pdf file directly, .tex → .pdf.

Zven 18:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Would that be encyclopedic? I could add something about using latex, xdvi, dvips, ggv, ps2pdf, etc for *nix systems but I get the feeling that such information is a bit too "how to" and platform specific for this kind of article. Thoughts? DukeEGR93 02:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On Portal:Free software, LaTeX is currently the featured article

Just to let you know. The purpose of featuring an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. It will remain the feature for a week or so. The previous feature was Linux kernel. Gronky 20:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The current "name" used in the article, the bold, sans serif thing, is fugly as hell

The logo used to look nice. it used the proper serifed font, which the word LaTeX should always be typeset in. The current one is a piece of crap IMO. We should either remove the complicated and unnecessary markup, leaving it as "LaTeX", or revert to the one that looked decent. --jacobolus (t) 21:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Amen to that, IMHO the the san-serif font looks exceptionally ugly. Opposition? — Mobius 02:50, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tools section

IMO, the tools section is useless, and should be deleted. It's a random collection of relatively unimportant software. A lot of it seems pretty spammish. I'm going to go ahead and delete it, but feel free to revert me if you think I'm out of line.--24.52.254.62 00:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Add-on packages

I think the same things I said about the tools section also apply to the add-on packages section: low in value, and spammish. Feel free to revert my deletion if you disagree.--24.52.254.62 00:56, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

LaTeX2RTF and Beamer (LaTeX) are obviously both notable and relevant, so I've started a new list with only these tools. --Karnesky 04:16, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What do you use to write in latex?

Emacs? What else? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.151.48.83 (talk • contribs) 08:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC).

This question is addressed by LaTeX#Editors and IDEs --Karnesky 17:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../l/a/t/Talk%7ELaTeX_d3ec.html"