[LUGSB] How many of you know LaTeX?

Fri Apr 8 12:17:49 EDT 2011

I don't mind compiling it -- I just figured something like a REPL would
benefit it. I really like interactive programming -- so it'd be nice to see
something similar all over the place.

Tikz you say... that sounds like it would be immensely useful.

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Jan Kasiak <j.kasiak at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've used it for my math homework (AMS 301/310 + CSE 350/CSE 373)
> along with Tikz to draw out graphs and state diagrams. They're really
> pretty :D but also time consuming.
> You might also want to check out Gummi, which is a Latex Editor that
> shows your code on one side of the screen, and compiles it live on the
> other side.
>
> -Jan
>
> On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 3:59 AM, Justin Seyster <justin at seyster.org> wrote:
> > I use LaTeX a lot for writing papers (I'm a grad student).  Truth be
> told, there aren't many other things I could use it for!  (Grad students are
> not often permitted out of the lab for other activities.)  On the rare
> occasion I need to send a printed letter, I usually type it up in LaTex.
>  There is a nice template for letters out of the box, actually.  I once
> typeset a short story with LaTeX.  It came out pretty slick.
> >
> > The best way to learn LaTeX is pretty much like any programming language.
>  Just get the basics (what you see in my homework example, more or less),
> and then Google around whenever you want to do something and you can't
> figure it out with what you've got.
> >
> > As for interactivity, I guess that's just not the way Knuth and the other
> hacker geeks who develop the system ever envisoined it.  There is a
> simplicity to it: you just edit in your favorite text editor and then run
> make (I have Makefiles for all my papers) to see how it came out.  It's also
> pretty decent for collaboration if you all your sources in version control.
>  You might be interested in trying LyX, which is a graphical editor for
> LaTeX.  It looks pretty good, but I've never tried it myself.
> >
> > If you have both PDF and EPS version of a figure, then LaTeX will choose
> the appropriate one.  If you run the latex command, then it uses the EPS
> version; if you run pdflatex, then it uses the PDF version.  That's why it's
> useful to omit the extension: it makes your sources compilable with both
> latex and pdflatex.
> >
> > Oh, I forgot one word of warning!  Be careful about using transparency or
> gradients in your Inkscape graphics.  If you do, Inkscape will rasterize
> them when you convert to EPS, which looks ugly.  I got bitten by this a few
> times.
> >        --Justin
> >
> > From: lugsb-bounces at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu [mailto:
> lugsb-bounces at fsl.cs.sunysb.edu] On Behalf Of Ehtesh Choudhury
> > Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 2:09 AM
> > To: Linux Users Group at Stony Brook
> > Subject: Re: [LUGSB] How many of you know LaTeX?
> >
> > Do you use it for other things now that you know it? It really ought to
> be taught, along with REPL testing and editor/IDE usage, in some lower level
> classes. Would be more valuable to a CS student than UML, I think.
> >
> > Haha, what happens in the case you have both a .eps and a .pdf  with the
> same 'filename'?
> >
> > Also, when did you start picking it up? Why isn't it more... interactive
> -- less compiling, more generating on the fly? Although I guess some
> variants of LaTeX must do that by now?
> > On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 4:23 PM, Justin Seyster <justin at seyster.org>
> wrote:
> > The learning curve can be steep.  It is fun though, and your results
> > will look a lot nicer than anybody else's in the class.  Basically,
> > LaTeX is easy to use until you hit one of the things it just doesn't
> > want to do.  Then you have to either accept that you won't get exactly
> > the output you want or tear you hear out for hours trying to figure out
> > what magic incantation will soothe the great LaTeX deities.
> >
> > Here's a homework I submitted a while ago as a template.  It defines
> > this cool "question" command!  I'm not sure where it came from (most
> > likely it came from Professor Stark, who taught this particular class).
> >
> > I recommend Inkscape for including figures and diagrams.  (It's Free
> > Software and available for all major platforms.)  First save your figure
> > in Inkscape's native SVG format and then save a copy as EPS (if you are
> > using the latex command) or PDF (if you are using the pdflatex command).
> > Then you can insert the figure with:
> >
> > \begin{figure}
> >  \center
> >  \includegraphics[width=0.9\textwidth]{filename}
> >  \caption{An impressive figure demonstrating my extensive knowledge.}
> > \end{figure}
> >
> > Don't include the .eps or .pdf extension in the filename, LaTeX will
> > infer the correct extension.  Also, you can change the 0.9 value to
> > whatever size you want (as a fraction of the width of the text column).
> >
> > Finally, make sure to use lots of pompous wording, as in my example, so
> > as to intimidate graders.
> >       --Justin
> >
> > On Thu, 2011-04-07 at 15:27 -0400, Ehtesh Choudhury wrote:
> >> Just wondering about the learning curve. I can do simple expressions
> >> and stuff, but... I'm wondering if I should be using it for future
> >> homeworks. It's more appropriate than handwriting, I think. But I was
> >> wondering how certain things would be displayed... like diagrams? Do
> >> you just include them as a reference to a file?
> >>
> >> Or maybe there's some nice simple homework outputting method that
> >> involves minimal LaTeX, meaning, no worrying about uh... templates and
> >> where things go (for the most part).
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