Latex beginner guide

by Armaghan Saqib, Friday, December 16, 2022, 01:48 (469 days ago) @ Armaghan Saqib
edited by Armaghan Saqib, Friday, December 16, 2022, 02:01

Hello world in latex

Create a text file (hello.tex) in your home folder with following text:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\begin{document}
Hello world!
\end{document}

Compile this tex file into dvi file and use xdvi to view it:

latex hello.tex
xdvi hello.dvi


You can also convert it to pdf:
pdflatex hello.tex
xpdf hello.pdf

Structure of latex document

  • Latex commands start with a backslash (\).

  • Parameters can follow the command.

  • Optional parameters are enclosed in [ ] while mandatory ones are enclosed in {
    }.

  • { } can also be used to terminated a command mixed within some text (to
    make it easier for the compiler to understand the command).

  • Special characters in latex (#, $, %, ^, &, _, {, }, ~) are escaped with \ except for the \ character itself which is used to break a line.

  • To use literal backslash (\) you can use the special command $\backslash$.

  • Single line comments start with % while multi-line comments can be enclosed between \begin{comment} and \end{comment} structure.

  • Every latex document starts with \documentclass with parameters ([a4paper,11pt]{article})
    following it.

Exercises:

1. View latex templates in sql-ledger
2. View latex templates in a text editor like vim to see the color coded syntax which will help you understand the latex template structure in a better way.


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