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Using Latex

I write some articles in Latex because it is great for formatting equations, and makes reports look really nice =). Do a google search for specific Latex guides; these notes assume some familiarity.

Personal Observations

• As pretty as Latex is, save it for documents that really need it. Sometimes it can be a hassle.
• My article template : just copy in the necessary text and compile.
• Separating format from content is cool: it allows you to edit easily, and make global changes quickly. The drawback is non-instantaneous feedback of what the document will look like, but in most cases you just trust that the program will arrange it nicely. I'm doing this for my HTML articles as well, writing them in text (.txt) format and doing a txt -> HTML conversion.

TIPS

Sometimes the fonts in .ps (postscript) files look really bad. To make the ps=>pdf conversion better,

        dvips -p0 -pPDF filename -o output.ps
        prints filename.dvi to output.ps
        http://www-h.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/tpl/textprocessing/makingWWWdocs.html

There is also pdflatex, to make pdf files directly.

USEFUL TOOLS

        latex                   : latex parser, outputs .dvi
        tth                     : tex-to-html
        latex2html              : latex-to-html
                                  Both are good, use your favorite

        dvips                   : dvi to postscript
        ps2pdf                  : postscript to pdf
        pdflatex                : latex to pdf

Kalid at [email protected]