Welcome to the LaTeX forum!

Time Magazine

This is a friendly, laid-back forum for discussing LaTeX. There are two rules:

1. Don't be a dick
2. No jokes about rubber clothing. (Technically encompassed by Rule 1.)

If you need help with your LaTeX problems, no matter how trivial, feel free to start a new thread.

Now, introduce yourselves

oscarBravo

\o/ yay! One of my favourite apps finally has a home on boards.ie.

robbie_998

so is there details or description about what this forum is about ?

the title and rules dont make sense at the moment !

Flamed Diving

Wiki article on LaTeX.

Tar.Aldarion

I think I'm using this wrong, wrote a paper with it there, most painful experience of my life.

Time Magazine

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I think I'm using this wrong, wrote a paper with it there, most painful experience of my life.

It's not much harder than HTML and thankfully it gets far, far easier after the initial hill is conquered.

What were you trying to achieve and what did you find difficult?

Flamed Diving

Two things I would recommend is going through the Wikibooks guide and then using templates to work off. Once I get comfortable with the latter, I will attempt building my own styles.

Tar.Aldarion

Time Magazine wrote: »

It's not much harder than HTML and thankfully it gets far, far easier after the initial hill is conquered.

What were you trying to achieve and what did you find difficult?

I was jsut writing a peper in IEEE format, like i had it all written out, so it would take 20 mins to format in word, took 5 hours + in LaTeX or whatever flavour I was using. How do you stop images appearing in the wrong place? if an image was slightly too big it would just skip to the next page and the text that was supposed to be after it was before it.
Yes it's like HTML but I don't see why I had to use a program that /includes pictures instead of going control + v etc.

Time Magazine

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

I was jsut writing a peper in IEEE format, like i had it all written out, so it would take 20 mins to format in word, took 5 hours + in LaTeX or whatever flavour I was using.

Five hours for formatting sounds mental. Formatting is what's particularly easy in TeX because, well, you don't do it. You just let the compiler do it. When I started using TeX I was still in "MS Word mode" where I wanted to micro-manage every little thing. Then I realised it's much prettier to step back and let algorithms do it.

How do you stop images appearing in the wrong place? if an image was slightly too big

One thing you could do is make it smaller. (Yes, this is slower in LaTeX because you have to specify parameters rather than click and drag, but I got the hang of knowing what will fit pretty easily.) FWIW I use this code:

\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\caption{My favourite picture ever}
\includegraphics[width=5in]{tar-naked.png} \label{omg}
\end{figure}

You can copy and paste that and it doesn't take much longer than Ctrl+V in Word. By specifying h as the argument in \begin{figure}, you indicates that you want the picture here. If you really want to force the point, use H. You can alternatively pick top, bottom, etc. See here.

it would just skip to the next page and the text that was supposed to be after it was before it.

Preferable in the long-run, imho, to Word's approach of "let's leave 40% of the previous page empty and push everything down".

Yes it's like HTML but I don't see why I had to use a program that /includes pictures instead of going control + v etc.

LyX has copy and paste facilities. Also the advantage of coding it rather than copying and pasting is that the updates are much cleaner. If you come back and add an image/figure in Section 3.4, and you reference Figure 7 in Section 4.8, the update is far less error-prone than in Word.

Tar.Aldarion

Ye I am a predant about managing every little thing in these things, has to be perfect. I found a lot of even the vspace{5mm} stuff was jsut not working properly, it wouldn't skip, or it would do something random, prob me not knowing exactly what to do yet.

oh no, tar naked :P
I have something similar, jsut lets me change teh scale of the photo, it's ok, once you have it written the first time I suppose!

Time Magazine

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Ye I am a predant about managing every little thing in these things, has to be perfect. I found a lot of even the vspace{5mm} stuff was jsut not working properly

There's your problem. Go on, I dare you to just let it go. Go on. I promise it won't kill you.

oh no, tar naked :P
I have something similar, jsut lets me change teh scale of the photo

Aye, could do with a bit of a zooming in :pac:

Tar.Aldarion

Never! What would the Spell Czech forum members think?
I'm sure it will be less painfull next time.

L'prof

Just started writing my project up in LaTeX and it drives me insane :mad:
I do like the output, but the things are done is annoying at times.

oscarBravo

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Never! What would the Spell Czech forum members think?

When they see your spelling here, you'll be ridden out of town on a rail.

I'm sure it will be less painfull next time.

LyX is a fairly painless introduction to LaTeX, but if you insist on micro-managing the layout, you shouldn't be using LaTeX anyway.

Enlightenment is discovering that Knuth knows better than you do how you want your document laid out

Tar.Aldarion

Yes I shouldn't be, I have to for this one guy that only accepts LaTeX. Well i was using some thing called protex or something...

Surely you have to manage the layout? Or it looks ****? What are these algorithms peeople use

oscarBravo

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Surely you have to manage the layout? Or it looks ****?

Only for values of **** where **** == "not how I would have done it in Word".

Time Magazine

oscarBravo wrote: »

Enlightenment is discovering that Knuth knows better than you do how you want your document laid out

Hear bloody hear!

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Surely you have to manage the layout? Or it looks ****?

Not at all. Have a gander at this, for example.

What are these algorithms peeople use

People have done their PhD dissertations on the topic. Or, for a quick and dirty guide, see here.

Time Magazine

jasonorr wrote: »

Just started writing my project up in LaTeX and it drives me insane :mad:

What are you trying to do that's causing problems?

L'prof

Time Magazine wrote: »

What are you trying to do that's causing problems?

I don't like the continual process of building your pdf's to make sure they look as you would like, I'm sure confidence comes with time and this becomes less of a necessity.

Also resizing images to make sure they fit where you want them is quite annoying but, I can see why it's done like that.

I'm currently using TeXnicCenter which is quite nice but, I was using LyX and that drove me insane.

Just there I read about a plugin for gedit and I installed it using the package manager but, it doesn't seem to be working.

Time Magazine

jasonorr wrote: »

I don't like the continual process of building your pdf's to make sure they look as you would like, I'm sure confidence comes with time and this becomes less of a necessity.

Can I ask what are you doing? Is it mostly text, mostly maths, mostly graphics?

If it's mostly text, then forget about formatting etc. Just type away and fix anything that might come up later. I do bunches of equations at a time for maths, about 6 lines at a go, then PDF to make sure I didn't make mistakes.

Also resizing images to make sure they fit where you want them is quite annoying but, I can see why it's done like that.

What code are you using for images?

I'm currently using TeXnicCenter which is quite nice but, I was using LyX and that drove me insane.

LyX also drove me mental.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Doing my first serious bit of work with LaTeX at the moment, a report on a statistics project. Using LyX (don't laugh :P) but the whole thing just looks delicious.

L'prof

Time Magazine wrote: »

Can I ask what are you doing? Is it mostly text, mostly maths, mostly graphics?

If it's mostly text, then forget about formatting etc. Just type away and fix anything that might come up later. I do bunches of equations at a time for maths, about 6 lines at a go, then PDF to make sure I didn't make mistakes.

Early days, so at the moment it's mostly text. I may throw in a bit of graphics and a few equations at a later stage.

Time Magazine wrote: »

What code are you using for images?

\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.48\textwidth]{D:/Project/google_query.png}
\end{figure}

DirkVoodoo

Great idea, a lecturer of mine was a huge proponent of Latex and as a result I think nearly half of our graduating year wrote up their final year projects in Latex.

Unfortunately I have my undergrad and postgrad days behind me, but I'll let those who are finishing up their PhDs know about the forum.

Best of luck with it!

Time Magazine

jasonorr wrote: »

Early days, so at the moment it's mostly text. I may throw in a bit of graphics and a few equations at a later stage.

Grand so. Just type away, forget about formatting (bar the odd \section{My Lovely Horse}) and get the bulk of the work out of the way. No need to be PDF'ing it all the time, even if you make a mistake the good bits will remain in your .tex file.

\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.48\textwidth]{D:/Project/google_query.png}
\end{figure}

Good stuff. I'm going to give you a few tips, whether you want them or not :pac:

The code I suggest for graphics is:

\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\caption{Irish GDP, 1990-2000}
\includegraphics[width=5in]{gdp.png} \label{omg}
\end{figure}

The \label{omg} command tells LaTeX to keep this name, "omg", in mind. One way to alleviate fears about the precise placement of graphs is by making use of this. If you phrase you command like this:

"As can be seen in Figure \ref{omg}, Irish GDP rose considerably during the 1990s."

Then the \ref{omg} command will return a number, resulting in (something like):

"As can be seen in Figure 4, Irish GDP rose considerably during the 1990s."

When you have commands like that, it doesn't matter if Figure 4 goes onto the next page or whatever.

Just roll with it and don't be worrying

L'prof

Time Magazine wrote: »

Good stuff. I'm going to give you a few tips, whether you want them or not :pac:

The code I suggest for graphics is:

\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\caption{Irish GDP, 1990-2000}
\includegraphics[width=5in]{gdp.png} \label{omg}
\end{figure}

The \label{omg} command tells LaTeX to keep this name, "omg", in mind. One way to alleviate fears about the precise placement of graphs is by making use of this. If you phrase you command like this:

"As can be seen in Figure \ref{omg}, Irish GDP rose considerably during the 1990s."

Then the \ref{omg} command will return a number, resulting in (something like):

"As can be seen in Figure 4, Irish GDP rose considerably during the 1990s."

When you have commands like that, it doesn't matter if Figure 4 goes onto the next page or whatever.

Just roll with it and don't be worrying

I had those in, but removed the label when I couldn't tell what it was doing and I removed the caption when it meant I had to reduce my image even more!

oscarBravo

jasonorr wrote: »

I don't like the continual process of building your pdf's to make sure they look as you would like, I'm sure confidence comes with time and this becomes less of a necessity.

At the risk of labouring the point, what comes with time is not worrying so much what it looks like, and accepting that it looks good - even if it's not how you would have done it in a word processor.

Also resizing images to make sure they fit where you want them is quite annoying but, I can see why it's done like that.

Again, "where I want them" is "in the document somewhere". I mostly use LyX ('cos I'm lazy), and it has nice shortcuts for inserting cross-references that come out like "Figure 4 on the following page" automatically.

antiselfdual

Placing images in LaTeX is surprisingly frustrating, another thing you can change is to declare it as

\begin{figure}[ht]

or

\begin{figure}[hb]

where "ht" means LaTeX will try to position the picture either here or at the top of the page, and "hb" means here or the bottom of the page. Generally though resizing the picture and then possibly moving it forward or back a paragraph so it turns up roughly where you want it is the only thing to do... If you're writing something lengthy you should definitely leave doing this to the very end when you have all the text you want.