abstract
array
center
description
displaymath
document
enumerate
eqnarray
equation
figure
filecontents
: Write an external fileflushleft
flushright
itemize
letter
environment: writing letterslist
math
minipage
picture
quotation
& quote
tabbing
table
tabular
thebibliography
theorem
titlepage
verbatim
verse
\newcommand
& \renewcommand
\providecommand
\makeatletter
& \makeatother
\@ifstar
\newcounter
: Allocating a counter\newlength
\newsavebox
\newenvironment
& \renewenvironment
\newtheorem
\newfont
\protect
\ignorespaces & \ignorespacesafterend
\enspace
& \quad
& \qquad
\hspace
\hfill
\hss
\spacefactor
\
~
\thinspace
& \negthinspace
\/
\hrulefill
& \dotfill
\bigskip
& \medskip
& \smallskip
\bigbreak
& \medbreak
& \smallbreak
\strut
\vspace
\vfill
\addvspace
Next: About this document, Up: (dir) [Contents][Index]
This document is an unofficial reference manual (version of October 2018) for LaTeX2e, a document preparation system.
• About this document: | Bug reporting, etc. | |
• Overview: | What is LaTeX? | |
• Document classes: | Some of the various classes available. | |
• Fonts: | Italic, bold, typewriter, etc. | |
• Layout: | Controlling the page layout. | |
• Sectioning: | Parts, Chapters, Sections, etc. | |
• Cross references: | Automatic referencing. | |
• Environments: | Such as enumerate & itemize. | |
• Line breaking: | Influencing line breaks. | |
• Page breaking: | Influencing page breaks. | |
• Footnotes: | How to produce footnotes. | |
• Definitions: | Define your own commands, etc. | |
• Counters: | Internal counters used by LaTeX. | |
• Lengths: | The length commands. | |
• Making paragraphs: | Paragraph commands. | |
• Math formulas: | How to create mathematical formulas. | |
• Modes: | Paragraph, Math or LR modes. | |
• Page styles: | Various styles of page layout. | |
• Spaces: | Horizontal and vertical space. | |
• Boxes: | Making boxes. | |
• Color: | Defining and using colors. | |
• Graphics: | Importing graphics from outside LaTeX. | |
• Special insertions: | Inserting reserved and special characters. | |
• Splitting the input: | Dealing with big files by splitting. | |
• Front/back matter: | Tables of contents, glossaries, indexes. | |
• Letters: | The letter class.
| |
• Terminal input/output: | User interaction. | |
• Command line: | System-independent command-line behavior. | |
• Document templates: | Starter templates for various document classes. | |
• Index: | General index. |
This is an unofficial reference manual for the LaTeX2e document preparation system, which is a macro package for the TeX typesetting program (see Overview).
This document’s home page is https://puszcza.gnu.org.ua/software/latexrefman. There you can get the sources, subscribe to the mailing list or read its archives, see other infrastructure, and get the current output in various formats. In particular, the output comes in two web formats. Probably the most convenient one, shown at http://latexref.xyz/, has pages for each topic and so is good for a quick lookup; see also the note there about easy-to-remember links. The other, shown at http://svn.gnu.org.ua/viewvc/latexrefman/trunk/latex2e.html?view=co, has all the information on single page.
In this document, we will mostly just use ‘LaTeX’ rather than ‘LaTeX2e’, since the previous version of LaTeX (2.09) was frozen decades ago.
LaTeX is currently maintained by a group of volunteers (http://latex-project.org). The official documentation written by the LaTeX project is available from their web site. This document is completely unofficial and has not been reviewed by the LaTeX maintainers. Do not send bug reports or anything else about this document to them. Instead, please send all comments to latexrefman@tug.org.
This document is a reference. There is a vast array of other sources of information about LaTeX, at all levels. Here are a few introductions.
Two pages of recommended references to LaTeX documentation.
Writing your first document, with a bit of both text and math.
The guide for document authors that is maintained as part of LaTeX. Many other guides by many other people are also available, independent of LaTeX itself; one such is the next item:
A short introduction to LaTeX, translated to many languages.
Introduction to the TeX system, including LaTeX, with further references.
Next: Document classes, Previous: About this document, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
LaTeX is a system for typesetting documents. It was originally created by Leslie Lamport and is now maintained by a group of volunteers (http://latex-project.org). It is widely used, particularly for complex and technical documents, such as those involving mathematics.
A LaTeX user writes an input file containing text along with interspersed commands, for instance commands describing how the text should be formatted. It is implemented as a set of related commands that interface with Donald E. Knuth’s TeX typesetting program (the technical term is that LaTeX is a macro package for the TeX engine). The user produces the output document by giving that input file to the TeX engine.
The term LaTeX is also sometimes used to mean the language in which the document is marked up, that is, to mean the set of commands available to a LaTeX user.
The name LaTeX is short for “Lamport TeX”. It is pronounced
LAH-teck or LAY-teck, or sometimes LAY-tecks. Inside a document,
produce the logo with \LaTeX
. Where use of the logo is not
sensible, such as in plain text, write it as ‘LaTeX’.
• Starting and ending: | The standard beginning and end of a document. | |
• Output files: | Files produced. | |
• TeX engines: | Programs that can compile TeX and LaTeX. | |
• LaTeX command syntax: | General syntax of LaTeX commands. | |
• Environment: | Area of the source giving distinct behavior. | |
• CTAN: | Our repository. |
Next: Output files, Up: Overview [Contents][Index]
LaTeX files have a simple global structure, with a standard beginning and ending. This is a small example.
\documentclass{article} \begin{document} Hello, \LaTeX\ world. \end{document}
Every LaTeX document has a \begin{document}
line and an
\end{document}
line.
Here, the ‘article’ is the document class. It is implemented in a file article.cls. You can use any document class on your system. A few document classes are defined by LaTeX itself, and vast array of others are widely available. See Document classes.
You can include other LaTeX commands between the
\documentclass
and the \begin{document}
commands.
This area is called the preamble.
The \begin{document}
, \end{document}
pair defines an
environment; the ‘document’ environment (and no others) is
required in all LaTeX documents (see document). LaTeX make
available to you many environments that are documented here
(see Environments). Many more are available to you from external
packages, most importantly those available at CTAN (see CTAN).
The following sections discuss how to produce PDF or other output from a LaTeX input file.
Next: TeX engines, Previous: Starting and ending, Up: Overview [Contents][Index]
LaTeX produces a main output file and at least two auxiliary files. The main output file’s name ends in either .dvi or .pdf.
.dvi
If LaTeX is invoked with the system command latex
then it
produces a DeVice Independent file, with extension .dvi. You
can view this file with a command such as xdvi
, or convert
it to a PostScript .ps
file with dvips
or to a
Portable Document Format .pdf
file with dvipdfmx
.
The contents of the file can be dumped in human-readable form with
dvitype
. A vast array of other DVI utility programs are
available (http://mirror.ctan.org/dviware).
.pdf
If LaTeX is invoked via the system command pdflatex
,
among other commands (see TeX engines), then the main output is
a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. Typically this is a
self-contained file, with all fonts and images included.
LaTeX also produces at least two additional files.
.log
This transcript file contains summary information such as a list of loaded packages. It also includes diagnostic messages and perhaps additional information for any errors.
.aux
Auxiliary information is used by LaTeX for things such as
cross references. For example, the first time that LaTeX finds a
forward reference—a cross reference to something that has not yet
appeared in the source—it will appear in the output as a doubled
question mark ??
. When the referred-to spot does eventually
appear in the source then LaTeX writes its location information to
this .aux
file. On the next invocation, LaTeX reads the
location information from this file and uses it to resolve the
reference, replacing the double question mark with the remembered
location.
LaTeX may produce yet more files, characterized by the filename
ending. These include a .lof
file that is used to make a list of
figures, a .lot
file used to make a list of tables, and a
.toc
file used to make a table of contents (see Table of contents etc.). A particular class may create others; the list is
open-ended.
Next: LaTeX command syntax, Previous: Output files, Up: Overview [Contents][Index]
LaTeX is defined to be a set of commands that are run by a TeX implementation (see Overview). This section gives a terse overview of the main programs (see also Command line).
latex
pdflatex
In TeX Live (http://tug.org/texlive), if LaTeX is invoked
via either the system command latex
or pdflatex
,
then the pdfTeX engine is run (http://ctan.org/pkg/pdftex).
When invoked as latex
, the main output is a .dvi
file; as pdflatex
, the main output is a .pdf file.
pdfTeX incorporates the e-TeX extensions to Knuth’s original
program (http://ctan.org/pkg/etex), including additional
programming features and bi-directional typesetting, and has plenty of
extensions of its own. e-TeX is available on its own as the system
command etex
, but this is plain TeX (and produces
.dvi).
In other TeX distributions, latex
may invoke e-TeX
rather than pdfTeX. In any case, the e-TeX extensions can be
assumed to be available in LaTeX.
lualatex
If LaTeX is invoked via the system command lualatex
, the
LuaTeX engine is run (http://ctan.org/pkg/luatex). This
program allows code written in the scripting language Lua
(http://luatex.org) to interact with TeX’s typesetting.
LuaTeX handles UTF-8 Unicode input natively, can handle OpenType
and TrueType fonts, and produces a .pdf file by default.
There is also dvilualatex
to produce a .dvi file,
but this is rarely used.
xelatex
If LaTeX is invoked with the system command xelatex
, the
XeTeX engine is run (http://tug.org/xetex). Like LuaTeX,
XeTeX natively supports UTF-8 Unicode and TrueType and OpenType
fonts, though the implementation is completely different, mainly using
external libraries instead of internal code. XeTeX produces a
.pdf file as output; it does not support DVI output.
Internally, XeTeX creates an .xdv
file, a variant of DVI,
and translates that to PDF using the (x
)dvipdfmx
program, but this process is automatic. The .xdv
file is only
useful for debugging.
Other variants of LaTeX and TeX exist, e.g., to provide additional support for Japanese and other languages ([u]pTeX, http://ctan.org/pkg/ptex, http://ctan.org/pkg/uptex).
Next: Environment, Previous: TeX engines, Up: Overview [Contents][Index]
In the LaTeX input file, a command name starts with a backslash
character, \
. The name itself then consists of either
(a) a string of letters or (b) a single non-letter.
LaTeX commands names are case sensitive so that \pagebreak
differs from \Pagebreak
(the latter is not a standard command).
Most commands are lowercase, but in any event you must enter all
commands in the same case as they are defined.
A command may be followed by zero, one, or more arguments. These
arguments may be either required or optional. Required arguments are
contained in curly braces, {...}
. Optional arguments are
contained in square brackets, [...]
. Generally, but not
universally, if the command accepts an optional argument, it comes
first, before any required arguments.
Inside of an optional argument, to use the character close square
bracket (]
) hide it inside curly braces, as
in \item[closing bracket {]}]
. Similarly, if an optional
argument comes last, with no required argument after it, then to make
the first character of the following text be an open square bracket,
hide it inside curly braces.
Some of LaTeX’s commands are a declaration. Such a command
changes the value the meaning of some other command or parameter. For
instance, the \mainmatter
declaration changes the typesetting of
page numbers from roman numerals to arabic (see \frontmatter & \mainmatter & \backmatter).
LaTeX has the convention that some commands have a *
form that
is related to the form without a *
, such as \chapter
and
\chapter*
. The exact difference in behavior varies from command
to command.
This manual describes all accepted options and *
-forms for the
commands it covers (barring unintentional omissions, a.k.a. bugs).
Next: CTAN, Previous: LaTeX command syntax, Up: Overview [Contents][Index]
Synopsis:
\begin{environment name} ... \end{environment name}
An area of LaTeX source, inside of which there is a distinct
behavior. For instance, for poetry in LaTeX put the lines between
\begin{verse}
and \end{verse}
.
\begin{verse} There once was a man from Nantucket \\ ... \end{verse}
See Environments for a list of environments. Particularly notable is
that every LaTeX document must have a document
environment,
a \begin{document} ... \end{document}
pair.
The environment name at the beginning must exactly match that at
the end. This includes the case where environment name ends in a
star (*
); both the \begin
and \end
texts must
include the star.
Environments may have arguments, including optional arguments. This example produces a table. The first argument is optional (and causes the table to be aligned on its top row) while the second argument is required (it specifies the formatting of columns).
\begin{tabular}[t]{r|l} ... rows of table ... \end{tabular}
Previous: Environment, Up: Overview [Contents][Index]
The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network, CTAN, is the TeX and LaTeX community’s repository of free material. It is a set of Internet sites around the world that offer material related to LaTeX for download. Visit CTAN on the web at https://ctan.org.
This material is organized into packages, discrete bundles that typically offer some coherent functionality and are maintained by one person or a small number of people. For instance, many publishers have a package that allows authors to format papers to that publisher’s specifications.
In addition to the massive holdings, the web site offers features such as search by name or by functionality.
CTAN is not a single site, but instead is a set of sites. One of the sites is the core. This site actively manages the material, for instance, by accepting uploads of new or updated packages. It is hosted by the German TeX group DANTE e.V. Other sites around the world help out by mirroring, that is, automatically syncing their collections with the core site and then in turn making their copies publicly available. This gives users close to their location better access and relieves the load on the core site. The list of mirrors is at https://ctan.org/mirrors.
The document’s overall class is defined with this command, which is normally the first command in a LaTeX source file.
\documentclass[options]{class}
The following document class names are built into LaTeX. (Many other document classes are available as separate packages; see Overview.)
article
For a journal article, a presentation, and miscellaneous general use.
book
Full-length books, including chapters and possibly including front matter, such as a preface, and back matter, such as an appendix (see Front/back matter).
letter
Mail, optionally including mailing labels (see Letters).
report
For documents of length between an article
and a book
,
such as technical reports or theses, which may contain several chapters.
slides
For slide presentations—rarely used today. In its place the
beamer
package is perhaps the most prevalent (see beamer template).
Standard options are described in the next section.
• Document class options: | Global options. | |
• Additional packages: | Bring in packages. | |
• Class and package construction: | Create new classes and packages. |
Next: Additional packages, Up: Document classes [Contents][Index]
You can specify global options or class options to the
\documentclass
command by enclosing them in square brackets. To
specify more than one option, separate them with a comma.
\documentclass[option1,option2,...]{class}
Here is the list of the standard class options.
All of the standard classes except slides
accept the following
options for selecting the typeface size (default is 10pt
):
10pt 11pt 12pt
All of the standard classes accept these options for selecting the paper size (these show height by width):
a4paper
210 by 297mm (about 8.25 by 11.75 inches)
a5paper
148 by 210mm (about 5.8 by 8.3 inches)
b5paper
176 by 250mm (about 6.9 by 9.8 inches)
executivepaper
7.25 by 10.5 inches
legalpaper
8.5 by 14 inches
letterpaper
8.5 by 11 inches (the default)
When using one of the engines pdfLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, or XeLaTeX
(see TeX engines), options other than letterpaper
set
the print area but you must also set the physical paper size. One way
to do that is to put \pdfpagewidth=\paperwidth
and
\pdfpageheight=\paperheight
in your document’s preamble.
The geometry
package provides flexible ways of setting the print
area and physical page size.
Miscellaneous other options:
draft
final
Mark (draft
) or do not mark (final
) overfull boxes with a
black box in the margin; default is final
.
fleqn
Put displayed formulas flush left; default is centered.
landscape
Selects landscape format; default is portrait.
leqno
Put equation numbers on the left side of equations; default is the right side.
openbib
Use “open” bibliography format.
titlepage
notitlepage
Specifies whether there is a separate page for the title information and
for the abstract also, if there is one. The default for the
report
class is titlepage
, for the other classes it is
notitlepage
.
The following options are not available with the slides
class.
onecolumn
twocolumn
Typeset in one or two columns; default is onecolumn
.
oneside
twoside
Selects one- or two-sided layout; default is oneside
, except
that in the book
class the default is twoside
.
For one-sided printing, the text is centered on the page. For two-sided
printing, the \evensidemargin
(\oddsidemargin
) parameter
determines the distance on even (odd) numbered pages between the left
side of the page and the text’s left margin, with \oddsidemargin
being 40% of the difference between \paperwidth
and
\textwidth
, and \evensidemargin
is the remainder.
openright
openany
Determines if a chapter should start on a right-hand page; default is
openright
for book
, and openany
for report
.
The slides
class offers the option clock
for printing
the time at the bottom of each note.
Next: Class and package construction, Previous: Document class options, Up: Document classes [Contents][Index]
Load a package pkg, with the package options given in the comma-separated list options, as here.
\usepackage[options]{pkg}.
To specify more than one package you can separate them with a comma,
as in \usepackage{pkg1,pkg2,...}
, or use multiple
\usepackage
commands.
Any options given in the \documentclass
command that are unknown
to the selected document class are passed on to the packages loaded with
\usepackage
.
Previous: Additional packages, Up: Document classes [Contents][Index]
You can create new document classes and new packages. For instance, if
your memos must satisfy some local requirements, such as a
standard header for each page, then you could create a new class
smcmemo.cls
and begin your documents with
\documentclass{smcmemo}
.
What separates a package from a document class is that the commands in a
package are useful across classes while those in a document class are
specific to that class. Thus, a command to set page headers is for a
package while a command to make the page headers say Memo from the
SMC Math Department
is for a class.
Inside of a class or package file you can use the at-sign @
as a
character in command names without having to surround the code
containing that command with \makeatletter
and
\makeatother
. See \makeatletter & \makeatother. This allow
you to create commands that users will not accidentally redefine.
Another technique is to preface class- or package-specific commands with
some string to prevent your class or package from interfering with
others. For instance, the class smcmemo
might have commands
\smc@tolist
, \smc@fromlist
, etc.
• Class and package structure: | Layout of the file. | |
• Class and package commands: | List of commands. |
A class file or package file typically has four parts.
\NeedsTeXFormat
and \ProvidesClass
or \ProvidesPackage
commands.
smcmemo
class might be called with an option to read in a file with a list of
people for the to-head, as \documentclass[mathto]{smcmemo}
, and
therefore needs to define a command
\newcommand{\setto}[1]{\def\@tolist{#1}}
used in that
file.
\documentclass[option list]{class
name}
, to modify the behavior of the class. An example is when you
declare \documentclass[11pt]{article}
to set the default
document font size.
Here is a starting class file, which should be saved as stub.cls where LaTeX can find it, for example in the same directory as the .tex file.
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e} \ProvidesClass{stub}[2017/07/06 stub to start building classes from] \DeclareOption*{\PassOptionsToClass{\CurrentOption}{article}} \ProcessOptions\relax \LoadClass{article}
It identifies itself, handles the class options via the default of
passing them all to the article
class, and then loads the
article
class to provide the basis for this class’s code.
For more, see the official guide for class and package writers, the Class Guide, at http://www.latex-project.org/help/documentation/clsguide.pdf (much of the descriptions here derive from this document), or the tutorial https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb26-3/tb84heff.pdf.
Previous: Class and package structure, Up: Class and package construction [Contents][Index]
These are the commands designed to help writers of classes or packages.
\AtBeginDvi{specials}
Save in a box register things that are written to the .dvi file at the beginning of the shipout of the first page of the document.
\AtEndOfClass{code}
\AtEndOfPackage{code}
Hook to insert code to be executed when LaTeX finishes
processing the current class or package. You can use these hooks
multiple times; the code
will be executed in the order that you
called it. See also \AtBeginDocument.
\CheckCommand{cmd}[num][default]{definition}
\CheckCommand*{cmd}[num][default]{definition}
Like \newcommand
(see \newcommand & \renewcommand) but does
not define cmd; instead it checks that the current definition of
cmd is exactly as given by definition and is or is not
long as expected. A long command is a command that accepts
\par
within an argument. The cmd command is expected to be
long with the unstarred version of \CheckCommand
. Raises an
error when the check fails. This allows you to check before you start
redefining cmd
yourself that no other package has already
redefined this command.
\ClassError{class name}{error text}{help text}
\PackageError{package name}{error text}{help text}
\ClassWarning{class name}{warning text}
\PackageWarning{package name}{warning text}
\ClassWarningNoLine{class name}{warning text}
\PackageWarningNoLine{package name}{warning text}
\ClassInfo{class name}{info text}
\PackageInfo{package name}{info text}
\ClassInfoNoLine{class name}{info text}
\PackageInfoNoLine{package name}{info text}
Produce an error message, or warning or informational messages.
For \ClassError
and \PackageError
the message is
error text, followed by TeX’s ?
error prompt. If the
user then asks for help by typing h
, they see the help
text.
The four warning commands are similar except that they write
warning text on the screen with no error prompt. The four info
commands write info text only in the transcript file. The
NoLine
versions do not show the number of the line generating the
message, while the other versions do show that number.
To format the messages, including the help text: use
\protect
to stop a command from expanding, get a line break with
\MessageBreak
, and get a space with \space
when a space
character does not allow it, like after a command. Note that LaTeX
appends a period to the messages.
\CurrentOption
Expands to the name of the currently-being-processed option. Can only
be used within the code argument of either \DeclareOption
or \DeclareOption*
.
\DeclareOption{option}{code}
\DeclareOption*{code}
Make an option available to a user to invoke in their
\documentclass
command. For example, the smcmemo
class
could have an option \documentclass[logo]{smcmemo}
allowing
users to put the institutional logo on the first page. The class file
must contain \DeclareOption{logo}{code}
(and later,
\ProcessOptions
).
If you request an option that has not been declared, by default this
will produce a warning like Unused global option(s): [badoption].
Change this behaviour with the starred version
\DeclareOption*{code}
. For example, many classes extend
an existing class, using a declaration such as
\LoadClass{article}
, and for passing extra options to the
underlying class use code such as this.
\DeclareOption*{% \PassOptionsToClass{\CurrentOption}{article}% }
Another example is that the class smcmemo
may allow users to keep
lists of memo recipients in external files. Then the user could invoke
\documentclass[math]{smcmemo}
and it will read the file
math.memo
. This code handles the file if it exists and otherwise
passes the option to the article
class.
\DeclareOption*{\InputIfFileExists{\CurrentOption.memo}{}{% \PassOptionsToClass{\CurrentOption}{article}}}
\DeclareRobustCommand{cmd}[num][default]{definition}
\DeclareRobustCommand*{cmd}[num][default]{definition}
Like \newcommand
and \newcommand*
(see \newcommand & \renewcommand) but these declare a robust command, even if some code
within the definition is fragile. (For a discussion of robust and
fragile commands see \protect.) Use this command to define new
robust commands or to redefine existing commands and make them
robust. Unlike \newcommand
these do not give an error if macro
cmd already exists; instead, a log message is put into the
transcript file if a command is redefined.
Commands defined this way are a bit less efficient than those defined
using \newcommand
so unless the command’s data is fragile and the
command is used within a moving argument, use \newcommand
.
The etoolbox package offers the commands
\newrobustcmd
, \newrobustcmd*
, as well as the commands
\renewrobustcmd
, \renewrobustcmd*
, and the commands
\providerobustcmd
, and \providerobustcmd*
. These are
similar to \newcommand
, \newcommand*
,
\renewcommand
, \renewcommand*
, \providecommand
, and
\providecommand*
, but define a robust cmd with two
advantages as compared to \DeclareRobustCommand
:
\protect
mechanism, so they do not incur
the slight loss of performance mentioned above, and
\new…
,
\renew…
, and \provide…
, as the standard
commands, so they do not just make a log message when you redefine
cmd that already exists, in that case you need to use either
\renew…
or \provide…
or you get an error.
\IfFileExists{file name}{true code}{false code}
\InputIfFileExists{file name}{true code}{false code}
Execute true code if LaTeX finds the file file name or false code otherwise. In the first case it executing true code and then inputs the file. Thus the command
\IfFileExists{img.pdf}{% \includegraphics{img.pdf}}{\typeout{!! img.pdf not found}
will include the graphic img.pdf if it is found and otherwise give a warning.
This command looks for the file in all search paths that LaTeX uses,
not only in the current directory. To look only in the current
directory do something like \IfFileExists{./filename}{true
code}{false code}
. If you ask for a filename without a
.tex
extension then LaTeX will first look for the file by
appending the .tex
; for more on how LaTeX handles file
extensions see \input.
\LoadClass[options list]{class name}[release date]
\LoadClassWithOptions{class name}[release date]
Load a class, as with \documentclass[options
list]{class name}[release info]
. An example is
\LoadClass[twoside]{article}
.
The options list, if present, is a comma-separated list. The release date is optional. If present it must have the form YYYY/MM/DD.
If you request a release date and the date of the package installed on your system is earlier, then you get a warning on the screen and in the log like this.
You have requested, on input line 4, version `2038/01/19' of document class article, but only version `2014/09/29 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class' is available.
The command version \LoadClassWithOptions
uses the list of
options for the current class. This means it ignores any options passed
to it via \PassOptionsToClass
. This is a convenience command
that lets you build classes on existing ones, such as the standard
article
class, without having to track which options were passed.
\ExecuteOptions{options-list}
For each option option in the options-list, in order, this command
executes the command \ds@option
. If this command is not
defined then that option is silently ignored.
It can be used to provide a default option list before
\ProcessOptions
. For example, if in a class file you want the
default to be 11pt fonts then you could specify
\ExecuteOptions{11pt}\ProcessOptions\relax
.
\NeedsTeXFormat{format}[format date]
Specifies the format that this class must be run under. Often issued
as the first line of a class file, and most often used as:
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
. When a document using that class is
processed, the format name given here must match the format that is
actually being run (including that the format string is case
sensitive). If it does not match then execution stops with an error
like ‘This file needs format `LaTeX2e' but this is `xxx'.’
To specify a version of the format that you know to have certain
features, include the optional format date on which those features
were implemented. If present it must be in the form YYYY/MM/DD
.
If the format version installed on your system is earlier than
format date then you get a warning like this.
You have requested release `2038/01/20' of LaTeX, but only release `2016/02/01' is available.
\OptionNotUsed
Adds the current option to the list of unused options. Can only be used
within the code argument of either \DeclareOption
or
\DeclareOption*
.
\PassOptionsToClass{option list}{class name}
\PassOptionsToPackage{option list}{package name}
Adds the options in the comma-separated list option list to the
options used by any future \RequirePackage
or \usepackage
command for package package name or the class class name.
The reason for these commands is: you may load a package any number of
times with no options but if you want options then you may only supply
them when you first load the package. Loading a package with options
more than once will get you an error like Option clash for package
foo.
(LaTeX throws an error even if there is no conflict between the
options.)
If your own code is bringing in a package twice then you can collapse
that to once, for example replacing the two
\RequirePackage[landscape]{geometry}
and
\RequirePackage[margins=1in]{geometry}
with the single command
\RequirePackage[landscape,margins=1in]{geometry}
.
However, imagine that you are loading firstpkg and inside that
package it loads secondpkg, and you need the second package to be
loaded with option draft
. Then before doing the first package
you must queue up the options for the second package, like this.
\PassOptionsToPackage{draft}{secondpkg} \RequirePackage{firstpkg}
(If firstpkg.sty
loads an option in conflict with what you want
then you may have to alter its source.)
These commands are useful for general users as well as class and package
writers. For instance, suppose a user wants to load the graphicx
package with the option draft
and also wants to use a class
foo
that loads the graphicx
package, but without that
option. The user could start their LaTeX file with
\PassOptionsToPackage{draft}{graphicx}\documentclass{foo}
.
\ProcessOptions
\ProcessOptions*\@options
Execute the code for each option that the user has invoked. Include it
in the class file as \ProcessOptions\relax
(because of the
existence of the starred command).
Options come in two types. Local options have been specified for this
particular package in the options argument of
\PassOptionsToPackage{options}
,
\usepackage[options]
, or
\RequirePackage[options]
. Global options are those given
by the class user in \documentclass[options]
(If an option
is specified both locally and globally then it is local.)
When \ProcessOptions
is called for a package pkg.sty, the
following happens:
\DeclareOption
, it looks to see if that option is either a
global or a local option for pkg
. If so then it executes the
declared code. This is done in the order in which these options were
given in pkg.sty.
\ds@
option if it has been defined somewhere (other than by
a \DeclareOption
); otherwise, it executes the default option code
given in \DeclareOption*
. If no default option code has been
declared then it gives an error message. This is done in the order in
which these options were specified.
When \ProcessOptions
is called for a class it works in the same
way except that all options are local, and the default code for
\DeclareOption*
is \OptionNotUsed
rather than an error.
The starred version \ProcessOptions*
executes the
options in the order specified in the calling commands, rather than in
the order of declaration in the class or package. For a package this
means that the global options are processed first.
\ProvidesClass{class name}[release date brief additional information]
\ProvidesClass{class name}[release date]
\ProvidesPackage{package name}[release date brief additional information]
\ProvidesPackage{package name}[release date]
Identifies the class or package, printing a message to the screen and the log file.
When you load a class or package, for example with
\documentclass{smcmemo}
or \usepackage{test}
, LaTeX
inputs a file. If the name of the file does not match the class or
package name declared in it then you get a warning. Thus, if you invoke
\documentclass{smcmemo}
, and the file smcmemo.cls has
the statement \ProvidesClass{xxx}
then you get a warning like
You have requested document class `smcmemo', but the document
class provides 'xxx'.
This warning does not prevent LaTeX from
processing the rest of the class file normally.
If you include the optional argument then you must include a date,
before any spaces, of the form YYYY/MM/DD
. The rest of the
optional argument is free-form, although it traditionally identifies the
class, and is written to the screen during compilation and to the log
file. Thus, if your file smcmemo.cls contains the line
\ProvidesClass{smcmemo}[2008/06/01 v1.0 SMC memo class]
and
your document’s first line is \documentclass{smcmemo}
then you
will see Document Class: smcmemo 2008/06/01 v1.0 SMC memo class
.
The date in the optional argument allows class and package users to ask
to be warned if the version of the class or package is earlier than
release date. For instance, a user could enter
\documentclass{smcmemo}[2018/10/12]
or
\usepackage{foo}[[2017/07/07]]
to require a class or package
with certain features by specifying that it must be released no earlier
than the given date. (Although, in practice package users only rarely
include a date, and class users almost never do.)
\ProvidesFile{file name}[additional information]
Declare a file other than the main class and package files, such as
configuration files or font definition files. Put this command in that
file and you get in the log a string like File: test.config
2017/10/12 config file for test.cls
for file name equal to
‘test.config’ and additional information equal to
‘2017/10/12 config file for test.cls’.
\RequirePackage[option list]{package name}[release date]
\RequirePackageWithOptions{package name}[release date]
Load a package, like the command \usepackage
(see Additional packages). The LaTeX development team strongly recommends use of
these commands over Plain TeX’s \input
; see the Class
Guide. An example is
\RequirePackage[landscape,margin=1in]{geometry}
.
The option list, if present, is a comma-separated list. The
release date, if present, must have the form YYYY/MM/DD. If
the release date of the package as installed on your system is earlier
than release date then you get a warning like You have
requested, on input line 9, version `2017/07/03' of package jhtest, but
only version `2000/01/01' is available
.
The \RequirePackageWithOptions
version uses the list of options
for the current class. This means it ignores any options passed to it
via \PassOptionsToClass
. This is a convenience command to allow
easily building classes on existing ones without having to track which
options were passed.
The difference between \usepackage
and \RequirePackage
is
small. The \usepackage
command is intended for the document file
while \RequirePackage
is intended for package and class files.
Thus, using \usepackage
before the \documentclass
command
causes LaTeX to give error like \usepackage before
\documentclass
, but you can use \RequirePackage
there.
Next: Layout, Previous: Document classes, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Two important aspects of selecting a font are specifying a size and a style. The LaTeX commands for doing this are described here.
• Font styles: | Select roman, italics, etc. | |
• Font sizes: | Select point size. | |
• Low-level font commands: | Select encoding, family, series, shape. |
Next: Font sizes, Up: Fonts [Contents][Index]
The following type style commands are supported by LaTeX.
In the table below the listed commands, the \text...
commands,
is used with an argument, as in \textit{text}
. This is
the preferred form. But shown after it, in parenthesis, is the
corresponding declaration form, which is sometimes useful. This form
takes no arguments, as in {\itshape text}
. The scope of
the declaration form lasts until the next type style command or the end
of the current group. In addition, each has an environment form such as
\begin{itshape}...\end{itshape}
.
These commands, in both the argument form and the declaration form, are
cumulative; for instance you can get bold sans serif by saying either of
\sffamily\bfseries
or \bfseries\sffamily
.
One advantage of these commands is that they automatically insert italic
corrections if needed (see \/). Specifically, they insert the
italic correction unless the following character is in the list
\nocorrlist
, which by default consists of a period and a comma.
To suppress the automatic insertion of italic correction, use
\nocorr
at the start or end of the command argument, such as
\textit{\nocorr text}
or \textsc{text \nocorr}
.
\textrm (\rmfamily)
Roman.
\textit (\itshape)
Italics.
\textmd (\mdseries)
Medium weight (default).
\textbf (\bfseries)
Boldface.
\textup (\upshape)
Upright (default).
\textsl (\slshape)
Slanted.
\textsf (\sffamily)
Sans serif.
\textsc (\scshape)
Small caps.
\texttt (\ttfamily)
Typewriter.
\textnormal (\normalfont)
Main document font.
Although it also changes fonts, the \emph{text}
command
is semantic, for text to be emphasized, and should not be used as a
substitute for \textit
. For example, \emph{start
text \emph{middle text} end text}
will result in the
start text and end text in italics, but middle text
will be in roman.
LaTeX also provides the following commands, which unconditionally
switch to the given style, that is, are not cumulative. They are
used as declarations: {\cmd...}
instead of
\cmd{...}
.
(The unconditional commands below are an older version of font switching. The earlier commands are an improvement in most circumstances. But sometimes an unconditional font switch is precisely what you want.)
\bf
Switch to bold face.
\cal
Switch to calligraphic letters for math.
\it
Italics.
\rm
Roman.
\sc
Small caps.
\sf
Sans serif.
\sl
Slanted (oblique).
\tt
Typewriter (monospace, fixed-width).
The \em
command is the unconditional version of \emph
.
The following commands are for use in math mode. They are not
cumulative, so \mathbf{\mathit{symbol}}
does not
create a boldface and italic symbol; instead, it will just be in
italics. This is because typically math symbols need consistent
typographic treatment, regardless of the surrounding environment.
\mathrm
Roman, for use in math mode.
\mathbf
Boldface, for use in math mode.
\mathsf
Sans serif, for use in math mode.
\mathtt
Typewriter, for use in math mode.
\mathit
(\mit)
Italics, for use in math mode.
\mathnormal
For use in math mode, e.g., inside another type style declaration.
\mathcal
Calligraphic letters, for use in math mode.
In addition, the command \mathversion{bold}
can be used for
switching to bold letters and symbols in
formulas. \mathversion{normal}
restores the default.
Finally, the command \oldstylenums{numerals}
will typeset
so-called “old-style” numerals, which have differing heights and
depths (and sometimes widths) from the standard “lining” numerals,
which all have the same height as uppercase letters. LaTeX’s
default fonts support this, and will respect \textbf
(but not
other styles; there are no italic old-style numerals in Computer
Modern). Many other fonts have old-style numerals also; sometimes the
textcomp
package must be loaded, and sometimes package options
are provided to make them the default. FAQ entry:
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=osf.
Next: Low-level font commands, Previous: Font styles, Up: Fonts [Contents][Index]
The following standard type size commands are supported by LaTeX. The table shows the command name and the corresponding actual font size used (in points) with the ‘10pt’, ‘11pt’, and ‘12pt’ document size options, respectively (see Document class options).
Command | 10pt | 11pt | 12pt |
---|---|---|---|
\tiny | 5 | 6 | 6 |
\scriptsize | 7 | 8 | 8 |
\footnotesize | 8 | 9 | 10 |
\small | 9 | 10 | 10.95 |
\normalsize (default) | 10 | 10.95 | 12 |
\large | 12 | 12 | 14.4 |
\Large | 14.4 | 14.4 | 17.28 |
\LARGE | 17.28 | 17.28 | 20.74 |
\huge | 20.74 | 20.74 | 24.88 |
\Huge | 24.88 | 24.88 | 24.88 |
The commands are listed here in declaration forms. You use them by declaring them, as with this example.
\begin{quotation} \small The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao. \end{quotation}
The scope of the \small
lasts until the end of the
quotation
environment. It would also end at the next type style
command or the end of the current group, so you could enclose it in
extra curly braces {\small We are here, we are here, we are
here!}
. You can instead use the environment form of these commands;
for instance, \begin{tiny}...\end{tiny}
.
Previous: Font sizes, Up: Fonts [Contents][Index]
These commands are primarily intended for writers of macros and packages. The commands listed here are only a subset of the available ones.
\fontencoding{encoding}
Select the font encoding, the encoding of the output font. There are a
large number of valid encodings. The most common are OT1
,
Knuth’s original encoding for Computer Modern (the default), and
T1
, also known as the Cork encoding, which has support for the
accented characters used by the most widespread European languages
(German, French, Italian, Polish and others), which allows TeX to
hyphenate words containing accented letters. For more, see
https://ctan.org/pkg/encguide.
\fontfamily{family}
Select the font family. The web page http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/ provides one way to browse through many of the fonts easily used with LaTeX. Here are examples of some common families.
pag | Avant Garde |
fvs | Bitstream Vera Sans |
pbk | Bookman |
bch | Charter |
ccr | Computer Concrete |
cmr | Computer Modern |
cmss | Computer Modern Sans Serif |
cmtt | Computer Modern Typewriter |
pcr | Courier |
phv | Helvetica |
fi4 | Inconsolata |
lmr | Latin Modern |
lmss | Latin Modern Sans |
lmtt | Latin Modern Typewriter |
pnc | New Century Schoolbook |
ppl | Palatino |
ptm | Times |
uncl | Uncial |
put | Utopia |
pzc | Zapf Chancery |
\fontseries{series}
Select the font series. A series combines a weight and a width. Typically, a font supports only a few of the possible combinations. Some common combined series values include:
m | Medium (normal) |
b | Bold |
c | Condensed |
bc | Bold condensed |
bx | Bold extended |
The possible values for weight, individually, are:
ul | Ultra light |
el | Extra light |
l | Light |
sl | Semi light |
m | Medium (normal) |
sb | Semi bold |
b | Bold |
eb | Extra bold |
ub | Ultra bold |
The possible values for width, individually, are (the meaning and relationship of these terms varies with individual typefaces):
uc | Ultra condensed |
ec | Extra condensed |
c | Condensed |
sc | Semi condensed |
m | Medium |
sx | Semi expanded |
x | Expanded |
ex | Extra expanded |
ux | Ultra expanded |
When forming the series string from the weight and width, drop the
m
that stands for medium weight or medium width, unless both
weight and width are m
, in which case use just one
(‘m
’).
\fontshape{shape}
Select font shape. Valid shapes are:
n | Upright (normal) |
it | Italic |
sl | Slanted (oblique) |
sc | Small caps |
ui | Upright italics |
ol | Outline |
The two last shapes are not available for most font families, and small caps are often missing as well.
\fontsize{size}{skip}
Set the font size and the line spacing. The unit of both parameters
defaults to points (pt
). The line spacing is the nominal
vertical space between lines, baseline to baseline. It is stored in the
parameter \baselineskip
. The default \baselineskip
for
the Computer Modern typeface is 1.2 times the \fontsize
.
Changing \baselineskip
directly is inadvisable since its value is
reset every time a size change happens; see \baselinestretch
, next.
\baselinestretch
LaTeX multiplies the line spacing by the value of the
\baselinestretch
parameter; the default factor is 1. A change
takes effect when \selectfont
(see below) is called. You can
make a line skip change happen for the entire document, for instance
doubling it, by doing \renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{2.0}
in
the preamble.
However, the best way to double-space a document is to use the setspace package. In addition to offering a number of spacing options, this package keeps the line spacing single-spaced in places where that is typically desirable, such as footnotes and figure captions. See the package documentation.
\linespread{factor}
Equivalent to
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{factor}
, and
therefore must be followed by \selectfont
to have any effect.
Best specified in the preamble, or use the setspace
package, as
just described.
\selectfont
The effects of the font commands described above do not happen until
\selectfont
is called, as in
\fontfamily{familyname}\selectfont
. It is often useful
to put this in a macro:
\newcommand*{\myfont}{\fontfamily{familyname}\selectfont}
(see \newcommand & \renewcommand).
\usefont{enc}{family}{series}{shape}
The same as invoking \fontencoding
, \fontfamily
,
\fontseries
and \fontshape
with the given parameters,
followed by \selectfont
. For example:
\usefont{ot1}{cmr}{m}{n}
Next: Sectioning, Previous: Fonts, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Commands for controlling the general page layout.
• \onecolumn: | Use one-column layout. | |
• \twocolumn: | Use two-column layout. | |
• \flushbottom: | Make all text pages the same height. | |
• \raggedbottom: | Allow text pages of differing height. | |
• Page layout parameters: | \headheight \footskip .
| |
• Floats: | Figures, tables, etc. |
Next: \twocolumn, Up: Layout [Contents][Index]
\onecolumn
Synopsis:
\onecolumn
Start a new page and produce single-column output. If the document is
given the class option onecolumn
then this is the default
behavior (see Document class options). This command is fragile
(see \protect).
Next: \flushbottom, Previous: \onecolumn, Up: Layout [Contents][Index]
\twocolumn
Synopses:
\twocolumn \twocolumn[prelim one column text]
Start a new page and produce two-column output. If the document is given
the class option twocolumn
then this is the default
(see Document class options). This command is fragile
(see \protect).
If the optional prelim one column text argument is present, it is typeset in one-column mode before the two-column typesetting starts.
These parameters control typesetting in two-column output:
\columnsep
The distance between columns. The default is 35pt. Change it with a
command such as \setlength{\columnsep}{40pt}
You must change
it before the two column environment starts; in the preamble is a good
place.
\columnseprule
The width of the rule between columns. The rule appears halfway between
the two columns. The default is 0pt, meaning that there is no rule.
Change it with a command such as
\setlength{\columnseprule}{0.4pt}
, before the two-column
environment starts.
\columnwidth
The width of a single column. In one-column mode this is equal to
\textwidth
. In two-column mode by default LaTeX sets the
width of each of the two columns to be half of \textwidth
minus
\columnsep
.
In a two-column document, the starred environments table*
and
figure*
are two columns wide, whereas the unstarred environments
table
and figure
take up only one column (see figure
and see table). LaTeX places starred floats at the top of a page.
The following parameters control float behavior of two-column output.
\dbltopfraction
The maximum fraction at the top of a two-column page that may be
occupied by two-column wide floats. The default is 0.7, meaning that
the height of a table*
or figure*
environment must not
exceed 0.7\textheight
. If the height of your starred float
environment exceeds this then you can take one of the following actions
to prevent it from floating all the way to the back of the document:
[tp]
location specifier to tell LaTeX to try to put
the bulky float on a page by itself, as well as at the top of a page.
[t!]
location specifier to override the effect of
\dbltopfraction
for this particular float.
\dbltopfraction
to a suitably large number,
to avoid going to float pages so soon.
You can redefine it, as with
\renewcommand{\dbltopfraction}{0.9}
.
\dblfloatpagefraction
For a float page of two-column wide floats, this is the minimum fraction
that must be occupied by floats, limiting the amount of blank space.
LaTeX’s default is 0.5
. Change it with \renewcommand
.
\dblfloatsep
On a float page of two-column wide floats, this length is the distance
between floats, at both the top and bottom of the page. The default is
12pt plus2pt minus2pt
for a document set at 10pt
or
11pt
, and 14pt plus2pt minus4pt
for a document set at
12pt
.
\dbltextfloatsep
This length is the distance between a multi-column float at the top or
bottom of a page and the main text. The default is 20pt plus2pt
minus4pt
.
\dbltopnumber
On a float page of two-column wide floats, this counter gives the
maximum number of floats allowed at the top of the page. The LaTeX
default is 2
.
This example uses \twocolumn
’s optional argument of to create a
title that spans the two-column article:
\documentclass[twocolumn]{article} \newcommand{\authormark}[1]{\textsuperscript{#1}} \begin{document} \twocolumn[{% inside this optional argument goes one-column text \centering \LARGE The Title \\[1.5em] \large Author One\authormark{1}, Author Two\authormark{2}, Author Three\authormark{1} \\[1em] \normalsize \begin{tabular}{p{.2\textwidth}@{\hspace{2em}}p{.2\textwidth}} \authormark{1}Department one &\authormark{2}Department two \\ School one &School two \end{tabular}\\[3em] % space below title part }] Two column text here.
Next: \raggedbottom, Previous: \twocolumn, Up: Layout [Contents][Index]
\flushbottom
Make all pages in the documents after this declaration have the same height, by stretching the vertical space where necessary to fill out the page. This is most often used when making two-sided documents since the differences in facing pages can be glaring.
If TeX cannot satisfactorily stretch the vertical space in a page
then you get a message like ‘Underfull \vbox (badness 10000) has
occurred while \output is active’. If you get that, one option is to
change to \raggedbottom
(see \raggedbottom). Alternatively,
you can adjust the textheight
to make compatible pages, or you
can add some vertical stretch glue between lines or between paragraphs,
as in \setlength{\parskip}{0ex plus0.1ex}
. Your last option
is to, in a final editing stage, adjust the height of individual pages
(see \enlargethispage).
The \flushbottom
state is the default only if you select the
twoside
document class option (see Document class options).
Next: Page layout parameters, Previous: \flushbottom, Up: Layout [Contents][Index]
\raggedbottom
Make all later pages the natural height of the material on that page; no rubber vertical lengths will be stretched. Thus, in a two-sided document the facing pages may be different heights. This command can go at any point in the document body. See \flushbottom.
This is the default unless you select the twoside
document class
option (see Document class options).
Next: Floats, Previous: \raggedbottom, Up: Layout [Contents][Index]
\columnsep
\columnseprule
\columnwidth
The distance between the two columns, the width of a rule between the
columns, and the width of the columns, when the document class option
twocolumn
is in effect (see Document class options).
See \twocolumn.
\headheight
Height of the box that contains the running head. The default in the
article
, report
, and book
classes is ‘12pt’,
at all type sizes.
\headsep
Vertical distance between the bottom of the header line and the top of
the main text. The default in the article
and report
classes is ‘25pt’. In the book
class the default is: if the
document is set at 10pt then it is ‘0.25in’, and at 11pt and 12pt
it is ‘0.275in’.
\footskip
Distance from the baseline of the last line of text to the baseline of
the page footer. The default in the article
and report
classes is ‘30pt’. In the book
class the default is: when
the type size is 10pt the default is ‘0.35in’, while at 11pt it is
‘0.38in’, and at 12pt it is ‘30pt’.
\linewidth
Width of the current line, decreased for each nested list
(see list). That is, the nominal value for \linewidth
is to
equal \textwidth
but for each nested list the \linewidth
is decreased by the sum of that list’s \leftmargin
and
\rightmargin
(see itemize).
\marginparpush
\marginsep
\marginparwidth
The minimum vertical space between two marginal notes, the horizontal space between the text body and the marginal notes, and the horizontal width of the notes.
Normally marginal notes appear on the outside of the page, but the
declaration \reversemarginpar
changes that (and
\normalmarginpar
changes it back).
The defaults for \marginparpush
in both book
and
article
classes are: ‘7pt’ if the document is set at 12pt,
and ‘5pt’ if the document is set at 11pt or 10pt.
For \marginsep
, in article
class the default is
‘10pt’ except if the document is set at 10pt and in two-column mode
where the default is ‘11pt’.
For \marginsep
in book
class the default is ‘10pt’ in
two-column mode and ‘7pt’ in one-column mode.
For \marginparwidth
in both book
and article
classes, in two-column mode the default is 60% of \paperwidth
- \textwidth
, while in one-column mode it is 50% of that
distance.
\oddsidemargin
\evensidemargin
The \oddsidemargin
is the extra distance between the left side of
the page and the text’s left margin, on odd-numbered pages when the
document class option twoside
is chosen and on all pages when
oneside
is in effect. When twoside
is in effect, on
even-numbered pages the extra distance on the left is
evensidemargin
.
LaTeX’s default is that \oddsidemargin
is 40% of the
difference between \paperwidth
and \textwidth
, and
\evensidemargin
is the remainder.
\paperheight
The height of the paper, as distinct from the height of the print area.
Normally set with a document class option, as in
\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
(see Document class options).
\paperwidth
The width of the paper, as distinct from the width of the print area.
Normally set with a document class option, as in
\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
(see Document class options).
\textheight
The normal vertical height of the page body. If the document is set at
a nominal type size of 10pt then for an article
or report
the default is ‘43\baselineskip’, while for a book
it is
‘41\baselineskip’. At a type size of 11pt the default is
‘38\baselineskip’ for all document classes. At 12pt it is
‘36\baselineskip’ for all classes.
\textwidth
The full horizontal width of the entire page body. For an
article
or report
document, the default is ‘345pt’
when the chosen type size is 10pt, the default is ‘360pt’ at 11pt,
and it is ‘390pt’ at 12pt. For a book
document, the default
is ‘4.5in’ at a type size of 10pt, and ‘5in’ at 11pt or 12pt.
In multi-column output, \textwidth
remains the width of the
entire page body, while \columnwidth
is the width of one column
(see \twocolumn).
In lists (see list), \textwidth
remains the width of the
entire page body (and \columnwidth
the width of the entire
column), while \linewidth
may decrease for nested lists.
Inside a minipage (see minipage) or \parbox
(see \parbox), all the width-related parameters are set to the
specified width, and revert to their normal values at the end of the
minipage
or \parbox
.
\hsize
This entry is included for completeness: \hsize
is the TeX
primitive parameter used when text is broken into lines. It should not
be used in normal LaTeX documents.
\topmargin
Space between the top of the TeX page (one inch from the top of the
paper, by default) and the top of the header. The value is computed
based on many other parameters: \paperheight - 2in -
\headheight - \headsep - \textheight - \footskip
,
and then divided by two.
\topskip
Minimum distance between the top of the page body and the baseline of the first line of text. For the standard classes, the default is the same as the font size, e.g., ‘10pt’ at a type size of 10pt.
Previous: Page layout parameters, Up: Layout [Contents][Index]
Some typographic elements, such as figures and tables, cannot be broken across pages. They must be typeset outside of the normal flow of text, for instance floating to the top of a later page.
LaTeX can have a number of different classes of floating material.
The default is the two classes, figure
(see figure) and
table
(see table), but you can create a new class with the
package float.
Within any one float class LaTeX always respects the order, so that the first figure in a document source must be typeset before the second figure. However, LaTeX may mix the classes, so it can happen that while the first table appears in the source before the first figure, it appears in the output after it.
The placement of floats is subject to parameters, given below, that limit the number of floats that can appear at the top of a page, and the bottom, etc. If so many floats are queued that the limits prevent them all from fitting on a page then LaTeX places what it can and defers the rest to the next page. In this way, floats may end up being typeset far from their place in the source. In particular, a float that is big may migrate to the end of the document. In which event, because all floats in a class must appear in sequential order, every following float in that class also appears at the end.
In addition to changing the parameters, for each float you can tweak
where the float placement algorithm tries to place it by using its
placement argument. The possible values are a sequence of the
letters below. The default for both figure
and table
, in
both article
and book
classes, is tbp
.
t
(Top)—at the top of a text page.
b
(Bottom)—at the bottom of a text page. (However, b
is not
allowed for full-width floats (figure*
) with double-column
output. To ameliorate this, use the stfloats or
dblfloatfix package, but see the discussion at caveats in the
FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=2colfloat.
h
(Here)—at the position in the text where the figure
environment
appears. However, h
is not allowed by itself; t
is
automatically added.
To absolutely force a float to appear “here”, you can
\usepackage{float}
and use the H
specifier which it
defines. For further discussion, see the FAQ entry at
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=figurehere.
p
(Page of floats)—on a separate float page, which is a page containing no text, only floats.
!
Used in addition to one of the above; for this float only, LaTeX
ignores the restrictions on both the number of floats that can appear
and the relative amounts of float and non-float text on the page.
The !
specifier does not mean “put the float here”;
see above.
Note: the order in which letters appear in the placement argument
does not change the order in which LaTeX tries to place the float;
for instance, btp
has the same effect as tbp
. All that
placement does is that if a letter is not present then the
algorithm does not try that location. Thus, LaTeX’s default of
tbp
is to try every location except placing the float where it
occurs in the source.
To prevent LaTeX from moving floats to the end of the document or a
chapter you can use a \clearpage
command to start a new page and
insert all pending floats. If a pagebreak is undesirable then you can
use the afterpage package and issue
\afterpage{\clearpage}
. This will wait until the current page
is finished and then flush all outstanding floats.
LaTeX can typeset a float before where it appears in the source
(although on the same output page) if there is a t
specifier in
the placement parameter. If this is not desired, and deleting
the t
is not acceptable as it keeps the float from being placed
at the top of the next page, then you can prevent it by either using
the flafter package or using the command
\suppressfloats[t]
, which causes floats for the top position on
this page to moved to the next page.
Parameters relating to fractions of pages occupied by float and
non-float text (change them with
\renewcommand{parameter}{decimal between 0 and 1}
):
\bottomfraction
The maximum fraction of the page allowed to be occupied by floats at the bottom; default ‘.3’.
\floatpagefraction
The minimum fraction of a float page that must be occupied by floats; default ‘.5’.
\textfraction
Minimum fraction of a page that must be text; if floats take up too much space to preserve this much text, floats will be moved to a different page. The default is ‘.2’.
\topfraction
Maximum fraction at the top of a page that may be occupied before floats; default ‘.7’.
Parameters relating to vertical space around floats (change them with a
command of the form \setlength{parameter}{length
expression}
):
\floatsep
Space between floats at the top or bottom of a page; default ‘12pt plus2pt minus2pt’.
\intextsep
Space above and below a float in the middle of the main text; default ‘12pt plus2pt minus2pt’ for 10 point and 11 point documents, and ‘14pt plus4pt minus4pt’ for 12 point documents.
\textfloatsep
Space between the last (first) float at the top (bottom) of a page; default ‘20pt plus2pt minus4pt’.
Counters relating to the number of floats on a page (change them with a
command of the form \setcounter{ctrname}{natural
number}
):
bottomnumber
Maximum number of floats that can appear at the bottom of a text page; default 1.
dbltopnumber
Maximum number of full-sized floats that can appear at the top of a two-column page; default 2.
topnumber
Maximum number of floats that can appear at the top of a text page; default 2.
totalnumber
Maximum number of floats that can appear on a text page; default 3.
The principal TeX FAQ entry relating to floats http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=floats contains suggestions for relaxing LaTeX’s default parameters to reduce the problem of floats being pushed to the end. A full explanation of the float placement algorithm is in Frank Mittelbach’s article “How to influence the position of float environments like figure and table in LaTeX?” (http://latex-project.org/papers/tb111mitt-float.pdf).
Next: Cross references, Previous: Layout, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Structure your text into divisions: parts, chapters, sections, etc. All sectioning commands have the same form, one of:
sectioning-command{title} sectioning-command*{title} sectioning-command[toc-title]{title}
For instance, declare the start of a subsection as with
\subsection{Motivation}
.
The table has each sectioning-command in LaTeX. All are
available in all of LaTeX’s standard document classes book
,
report
, and article
, except that \chapter
is
not available in article
.
Sectioning unit | Command | Level |
---|---|---|
Part | \part | -1 (book , report ), 0 (article ) |
Chapter | \chapter | 0 |
Section | \section | 1 |
Subsection | \subsection | 2 |
Subsubsection | \subsubsection | 3 |
Paragraph | \paragraph | 4 |
Subparagraph | \subparagraph | 5 |
All these commands have a *
-form that prints title as usual
but is not numbered and does not make an entry in the table of contents.
An example of using this is for an appendix in an article
. The
input \appendix\section{Appendix}
gives the output ‘A
Appendix’ (see \appendix). You can lose the numbering ‘A’
by instead entering \section*{Appendix}
(articles often omit a
table of contents and have simple page headers so the other differences
from the \section
command may not matter).
The section title title provides the heading in the main text, but it may also appear in the table of contents and in the running head or foot (see Page styles). You may not want the same text in these places as in the main text. All of these commands have an optional argument toc-title for these other places.
The level number in the table above determines which sectional units are
numbered, and which appear in the table of contents. If the sectioning
command’s level is less than or equal to the value of the counter
secnumdepth
then the titles for this sectioning command will be
numbered (see Sectioning/secnumdepth). And, if level is less
than or equal to the value of the counter tocdepth
then the table
of contents will have an entry for this sectioning unit
(see Sectioning/tocdepth).
LaTeX expects that before you have a \subsection
you will have
a \section
and, in a book, that before a \section
you will
have a \chapter
. Otherwise you can get a something like a
subsection numbered ‘3.0.1’.
Two counters relate to the appearance of sectioning commands.
secnumdepth
Controls which sectioning commands are
numbered. Suppress numbering of sectioning at any depth greater than
level \setcounter{secnumdepth}{level}
(see \setcounter). See the above table for the level numbers. For
instance, if the secnumdepth
is 1 in an article
then a
\section{Introduction}
command will produce output like ‘1
Introduction’ while \subsection{Discussion}
will produce output
like ‘Discussion’, without the number. LaTeX’s default
secnumdepth
is 3 in article class and 2 in the
book and report classes.
tocdepth
Controls which sectioning units are listed in the table of contents.
The setting \setcounter{tocdepth}{level}
makes the
sectioning units at level be the smallest ones listed
(see \setcounter). See the above table for the level numbers. For
instance, if tocdepth
is 1 then the table of contents will
list sections but not subsections. LaTeX’s default
secnumdepth
is 3 in article class and 2 in the
book and report classes.
• \part: | Start a part. | |
• \chapter: | Start a chapter. | |
• \section: | Start a section. | |
• \subsection: | Start a subsection. | |
• \subsubsection & \paragraph & \subparagraph: | Lower divisions. | |
• \appendix: | Start appendices. | |
• \frontmatter & \mainmatter & \backmatter: | The three parts of a book. | |
• \@startsection: | Layout of sectional units. |
Next: \chapter, Up: Sectioning [Contents][Index]
\part
Synopsis, one of:
\part{title} \part*{title} \part[toc-title]{title}
Start a document part. The standard LaTeX classes book
,
report
, and article
, all have this command.
This produces a document part, in a book.
\part{VOLUME I \\ PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF U.\ S.\ GRANT} \chapter{ANCESTRY--BIRTH--BOYHOOD.} My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.
In each standard class the \part
command outputs a part number
such as ‘Part I’, alone on its line, in boldface, and in large
type. Then LaTeX outputs title, also alone on its line, in
bold and in even larger type. In class book
, the LaTeX
default puts each part alone on its own page. If the book is two-sided
then LaTeX will skip a page if needed to have the new part on an
odd-numbered page. In report
it is again alone on a page, but
LaTeX won’t force it onto an odd-numbered page. In an article
LaTeX does not put it on a fresh page, but instead outputs the part
number and part title onto the main document page.
The *
form shows title
but it does not show the part number, does not increment the
part
counter, and produces no table of contents entry.
The optional argument toc-title will appear as the part title in the table of contents (see Table of contents etc.) and in running headers (see Page styles). If it is not present then title will be there. This example puts a line break in title but leaves out the break in the table of contents.
\part[Up from the bottom; my life]{Up from the bottom\\ my life}
For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a part is -1 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth and see Sectioning/tocdepth).
In the class article
, if a paragraph immediately follows the part
title then it is not indented. To get an indent you can use the package
indentfirst.
One package to change the behavior of \part
is titlesec.
See its documentation on CTAN.
Next: \section, Previous: \part, Up: Sectioning [Contents][Index]
\chapter
Synopsis, one of:
\chapter{title} \chapter*{title} \chapter[toc-title]{title}
Start a chapter. The standard LaTeX classes book
and
report
have this command but article
does not.
This produces a chapter.
\chapter{Loomings} Call me Ishmael. Some years ago---never mind how long precisely---having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
The LaTeX default starts each chapter on a fresh page, an
odd-numbered page if the document is two-sided. It produces a chapter
number such as ‘Chapter 1’ in large boldface type (the size is
\huge
). It then puts title on a fresh line, in boldface
type that is still larger (size \Huge
). It also increments the
chapter
counter, adds an entry to the table of contents
(see Table of contents etc.), and sets the running header
information (see Page styles).
The *
form shows title on a fresh line, in boldface.
But it does not show the chapter number, does not increment the
chapter
counter, produces no table of contents entry, and does
not affect the running header. (If you use the page style
headings
in a two-sided document then the header will be from the
prior chapter.) This example illustrates.
\chapter*{Preamble}
The optional argument toc-title will appear as the chapter title in the table of contents (see Table of contents etc.) and in running headers (see Page styles). If it is not present then title will be there. This shows the full name in the chapter title,
\chapter[Weyl]{Hermann Klaus Hugo (Peter) Weyl (1885--1955)}
but only ‘Weyl’ on the contents page. This puts a line break in the title but that doesn’t work well with running headers so it omits the break in the contents
\chapter[Given it all\\ my story]{Given it all\\ my story}
For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a chapter is 0 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth and see Sectioning/tocdepth).
The paragraph that follows the chapter title is not indented, as is a standard typographical practice. To get an indent use the package indentfirst.
You can change what is shown for the chapter number. To change it to
something like ‘Lecture 1’, put in the preamble either
\renewcommand{\chaptername}{Lecture}
or this
(see \makeatletter & \makeatother).
\makeatletter \renewcommand{\@chapapp}{Lecture} \makeatother
To make this change because of the primary language for the document, see the package babel.
In a two-sided document LaTeX puts a chapter on odd-numbered page, if necessary leaving an even-numbered page that is blank except for any running headers. To make that page completely blank, see \clearpage & \cleardoublepage.
To change the behavior of the \chapter
command, you can copy its
definition from the LaTeX format file and make adjustments. But
there are also many packages on CTAN that address this. One is
titlesec. See its documentation, but the example below gives a
sense of what it can do.
\usepackage{titlesec} % in preamble \titleformat{\chapter} {\Huge\bfseries} % format of title {} % label, such as 1.2 for a subsection {0pt} % length of separation between label and title {} % before-code hook
This omits the chapter number ‘Chapter 1’ from the page but unlike
\chapter*
it keeps the chapter in the table of contents and the
running headers.
Next: \subsection, Previous: \chapter, Up: Sectioning [Contents][Index]
\section
Synopsis, one of:
\section{title} \section*{title} \section[toc-title]{title}
Start a section. The standard LaTeX classes article
,
book
, and report
all have this command.
This produces a section.
In this Part we tend to be more interested in the function, in the input-output behavior, than in the details of implementing that behavior. \section{Turing machines} Despite this desire to downplay implementation, we follow the approach of A~Turing that the first step toward defining the set of computable functions is to reflect on the details of what mechanisms can do.
For the standard LaTeX classes book
and report
the
default output is like ‘1.2 title’ (for chapter 1,
section 2), alone on its line and flush left, in boldface and a
larger type (the type size is \Large
). The same holds in
article
except that there are no chapters in that class so it
looks like ‘2 title’.
The *
form shows title.
But it does not show the section number, does not increment the
section
counter, produces no table of contents entry, and does
not affect the running header. (If you use the page style
headings
in a two-sided document then the header will be from the
prior section.)
The optional argument toc-title will appear as the section title in the table of contents (see Table of contents etc.) and in running headers (see Page styles). If it is not present then title will be there. This shows the full name in the title of the section,
\section[Elizabeth~II]{Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.}
but only ‘Elizabeth II’ on the contents page and in the headers. This has a line break in title but that does not work with headers so it is omitted from the contents and headers.
\section[Truth is, I cheated; my life story]{Truth is, I cheated\\my life story}
For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a section is 1 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth and see Sectioning/tocdepth).
The paragraph that follows the section title is not indented, as is a standard typographical practice. One way to get an indent is to use the package indentfirst.
In general, to change the behavior of the \section
command, there
are a number of options. One is the \@startsection
command
(see \@startsection). There are also many packages on CTAN that
address this, including titlesec. See the documentation but the
example below gives a sense of what they can do.
\usepackage{titlesec} % in preamble \titleformat{\section} {\normalfont\Large\bfseries} % format of title {\makebox[1pc][r]{\thesection\hspace{1pc}}} % label {0pt} % length of separation between label and title {} % before-code hook \titlespacing*{\section} {-1pc}{18pt}{10pt}[10pc]
That puts the section number in the margin.
Next: \subsubsection & \paragraph & \subparagraph, Previous: \section, Up: Sectioning [Contents][Index]
\subsection
Synopsis, one of:
\subsection{title} \subsection*{title} \subsection[toc-title]{title}
Start a subsection. The standard LaTeX classes article
,
book
, and report
all have this command.
This produces a subsection.
We will show that there are more functions than Turing machines and that therefore some functions have no associated machine. \subsection{Cardinality} We will begin with two paradoxes that dramatize the challenge to our intuition posed by comparing the sizes of infinite sets.
For the standard LaTeX classes book
and report
the
default output is like ‘1.2.3 title’ (for chapter 1,
section 2, subsection 3), alone on its line and flush left, in
boldface and a larger type (the type size is \large
). The same
holds in article
except that there are no chapters in that class
so it looks like ‘2.3 title’.
The *
form shows title.
But it does not show the section number, does not increment the
section
counter, and produces no table of contents entry.
The optional argument toc-title will appear as the section title in the table of contents (see Table of contents etc.). If it is not present then title will be there. This shows the full name in the title of the section,
\subsection[$\alpha,\beta,\gamma$ paper]{\textit{The Origin of Chemical Elements} by R.A.~Alpher, H.~Bethe, and G.~Gamow}
but only ‘α,β,γ paper’ on the contents page.
For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a subsection is 2 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth and see Sectioning/tocdepth).
The paragraph that follows the subsection title is not indented, as is a standard typographical practice. One way to get an indent is to use the package indentfirst.
There are a number of ways to change the behavior of the
\subsection
command. One is the \@startsection
command
(see \@startsection). There are also many packages on CTAN that
address this, including titlesec. See the documentation but the
example below gives a sense of what they can do.
\usepackage{titlesec} % in preamble \titleformat{\subsection}[runin] {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries} % format of the title {\thesubsection} % label {0.6em} % space between label and title {} % before-code hook
That puts the subsection number and title in the first line of text.
Next: \appendix, Previous: \subsection, Up: Sectioning [Contents][Index]
\subsubsection
, \paragraph
, \subparagraph
Synopsis, one of:
\subsubsection{title} \subsubsection*{title} \subsubsection[toc-title]{title}
or one of:
\paragraph{title} \paragraph*{title} \paragraph[toc-title]{title}
or one of:
\subparagraph{title} \subparagraph*{title} \subparagraph[toc-title]{title}
Start a subsubsection, paragraph, or subparagraph. The standard
LaTeX classes article
, book
, and report
all have
these commands, although they are not commonly used.
This produces a subsubsection.
\subsubsection{Piston ring compressors: structural performance} Provide exterior/interior wall cladding assemblies capable of withstanding the effects of load and stresses from consumer-grade gasoline engine piston rings.
The default output of each of the three does not change over the
standard LaTeX classes article
, book
, and
report
. For \subsubsection
the title is alone on
its line, in boldface and normal size type. For \paragraph
the
title is inline with the text, not indented, in boldface and
normal size type. For \subparagraph
the title is inline
with the text, with a paragraph indent, in boldface and normal size type
(Because an article
has no chapters its subsubsections are
numbered and so it looks like ‘1.2.3 title’, for
section 1, subsection 2, and subsubsection 3. The other
two divisions are not numbered.)
The *
form shows title. But it does not increment the
associated counter and produces no table of contents entry (and does not
show the number for \subsubsection
).
The optional argument toc-title will appear as the division title in the table of contents (see Table of contents etc.). If it is not present then title will be there.
For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a subsubsection is 3, of a paragraph is 4, and of a subparagraph is 5 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth and see Sectioning/tocdepth).
The paragraph that follows the subsubsection title is not indented, as is a standard typographical practice. One way to get an indent is to use the package indentfirst.
There are a number of ways to change the behavior of the these commands.
One is the \@startsection
command (see \@startsection).
There are also many packages on CTAN that address this, including
titlesec. See the documentation on CTAN.
Next: \frontmatter & \mainmatter & \backmatter, Previous: \subsubsection & \paragraph & \subparagraph, Up: Sectioning [Contents][Index]
\appendix
Synopsis:
\appendix
This does not directly produce any output. But in a book or report it
declares that subsequent \chapter
commands start an appendix. In
an article it does the same, for \section
commands. It also
resets the chapter
and section
counters to 0 in a
book or report, and in an article resets the section
and
subsection
counters.
In this book
\chapter{One} ... \chapter{Two} ... ... \appendix \chapter{Three} ... \chapter{Four} ...
the first two will generate output numbered ‘Chapter 1’ and
‘Chapter 2’. After the \appendix
the numbering will be
‘Appendix A’ and ‘Appendix B’. See Larger book template
for another example.
The appendix package adds the command
\appendixpage
to put a separate ‘Appendices’ in the document
body before the first appendix, and the command \addappheadtotoc
to do the same in the table of contents. You can reset the name
‘Appendix’ with a command like
\renewcommand{\appendixname}{Specification}
, as well as a
number of other features. See the documentation on CTAN.
Next: \@startsection, Previous: \appendix, Up: Sectioning [Contents][Index]
\frontmatter
, \mainmatter
, \backmatter
Synopsis, one of:
\frontmatter \mainmatter \backmatter
Format a book
class document differently according to which part
of the document is being produced. All three commands are optional.
Traditionally, a book’s front matter contains such things as the title page, an abstract, a table of contents, a preface, a list of notations, a list of figures, and a list of tables. (Some of these front matter pages, such as the title page, are traditionally not numbered.) The back matter may contain such things as a glossary, notes, a bibliography, and an index.
The \frontmatter
declaration makes the pages numbered in
lowercase roman, and makes chapters not numbered, although each
chapter’s title appears in the table of contents; if you use other
sectioning commands here, use the *
-version (see Sectioning).
The \mainmatter
changes the behavior back to the expected
version, and resets the page number. The \backmatter
leaves the
page numbering alone but switches the chapters back to being not
numbered. See Larger book template for an example using the three.
Previous: \frontmatter & \mainmatter & \backmatter, Up: Sectioning [Contents][Index]
\@startsection
Synopsis:
\@startsection{name}{level}{indent}{beforeskip}{afterskip}{style}
Used to help redefine the behavior of commands that start sectioning
divisions such as \section
or \subsection
.
Note that the titlesec package makes manipulation of sectioning
easier. Further, while most requirements for sectioning commands can be
satisfied with \@startsection
, some cannot. For instance, in
the standard LaTeX book
and report
classes the commands
\chapter
and \report
are not constructed in this way. To
make such a command you may want to use the \secdef
command.
Technically, \@startsection
has the form
\@startsection{name} {level} {indent} {beforeskip} {afterskip} {style}*[toctitle]{title}
so that issuing
\renewcommand{\section}{\@startsection{name} {level} {indent} {beforeskip} {afterskip} {style}}
redefines \section
to have the form
\section*[toctitle]{title}
(here too, the
star *
is optional). See Sectioning. This implies that
when you write a command like \renewcommand{section}{...}
,
the \@startsection{...}
must come last in the definition. See
the examples below.
Name of the counter used to number the sectioning header. This counter
must be defined separately. Most commonly this is either
section
, subsection
, or paragraph
. Although in
those cases the counter name is the same as the sectioning command
itself, you don’t have to use the same name.
Then \the
name displays the title number and
\
namemark
is for the page headers. See the third
example below.
An integer giving the depth of the sectioning command. See Sectioning for the list of standard level numbers.
If level is less than or equal to the value of the counter
secnumdepth
then titles for this sectioning command will be
numbered (see Sectioning/secnumdepth). For instance, if
secnumdepth
is 1 in an article
then the command
\section{Introduction}
will produce output like “1
Introduction” while \subsection{Discussion}
will produce
output like “Discussion”, without the number prefix.
If level is less than or equal to the value of the counter
tocdepth then the table of contents will have an entry for this
sectioning unit (see Sectioning/tocdepth). For instance, in an
article
, if tocdepth is 1 then the table of contents will
list sections but not subsections.
A length giving the indentation of all of the title lines with respect
to the left margin. To have the title flush with the margin use
0pt
. A negative indentation such as -\parindent
will move
the title into the left margin.
The absolute value of this length is the amount of vertical space that
is inserted before this sectioning unit’s title. This space will be
discarded if the sectioning unit happens to start at the top of a fresh
page. If this number is negative then the first paragraph following the
header is not indented, if it is non-negative then the first paragraph
is indented. (Note that the negative of 1pt plus 2pt minus 3pt
is -1pt plus -2pt minus -3pt
.)
For example, if beforeskip is -3.5ex plus -1ex minus -0.2ex
then to start the new sectioning unit, LaTeX will add about 3.5 times
the height of a letter x in vertical space, and the first paragraph in
the section will not be indented. Using a rubber length, with
plus
and minus
, is good practice here since it gives
LaTeX more flexibility in making up the page (see Lengths).
The full accounting of the vertical space between the baseline of the
line prior to this sectioning unit’s header and the baseline of the
header is that it is the sum of the \parskip
of the text font,
the \baselineskip
of the title font, and the absolute value of
the beforeskip. This space is typically rubber so it may stretch
or shrink. (If the sectioning unit starts on a fresh page so that the
vertical space is discarded then the baseline of the header text will be
where LaTeX would put the baseline of the first text line on that
page.)
This is a length. If afterskip is non-negative then this is the
vertical space inserted after the sectioning unit’s title header. If it
is negative then the title header becomes a run-in header, so that it
becomes part of the next paragraph. In this case the absolute value of
the length gives the horizontal space between the end of the title and
the beginning of the following paragraph. (Note that the negative of
1pt plus 2pt minus 3pt
is -1pt plus -2pt minus -3pt
.)
As with beforeskip, using a rubber length, with plus
and
minus
components, is good practice here since it gives LaTeX
more flexibility in putting together the page.
If afterskip
is non-negative then the full accounting of the
vertical space between the baseline of the sectioning unit’s header and
the baseline of the first line of the following paragraph is that it is
the sum of the \parskip
of the title font, the
\baselineskip
of the text font, and the value of after.
That space is typically rubber so it may stretch or shrink. (Note that
because the sign of afterskip
changes the sectioning unit
header’s from standalone to run-in, you cannot use a negative
afterskip
to cancel part of the \parskip
.)
Controls the styling of the title. See the examples below. Typical
commands to use here are \centering
, \raggedright
,
\normalfont
, \hrule
, or \newpage
. The last command
in style may be one that takes one argument, such as
\MakeUppercase
or \fbox
that takes one argument. The
section title will be supplied as the argument to this command. For
instance, setting style to \bfseries\MakeUppercase
would
produce titles that are bold and uppercase.
These are LaTeX’s defaults for the first three sectioning units that
are defined with \@startsection
, for the article,
book, and report classes. For section, the level is
1, the indent is 0pt, the beforeskip is -3.5ex
plus -1ex minus -0.2ex
, the afterskip is 2.3ex plus 0.2ex
,
and the style is \normalfont\Large\bfseries
. For
subsection, the level is 2, the indent is 0pt, the
beforeskip is -3.25ex plus -1ex minus -0.2ex
, the
afterskip is 1.5ex plus 0.2ex
, and the style is
\normalfont\large\bfseries
. For subsubsection, the level
is 3, the indent is 0pt, the beforeskip is
-3.25ex plus -1ex minus -0.2ex
, the afterskip is
1.5ex plus 0.2ex
, and the style is
\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries
.
Here are examples. They go either in a package or class file or in the
preamble of a LaTeX document. If you put them in the preamble they
must go between a \makeatletter
command and a
\makeatother
. (Probably the error message You can't use
`\spacefactor' in vertical mode.
means that you forgot this.)
See \makeatletter & \makeatother.
This will put section titles in large boldface type, centered. It says
\renewcommand
because LaTeX’s standard classes have already
defined a \section
. For the same reason it does not define a
section
counter, or the commands \thesection
and
\l@section
.
\renewcommand\section{% \@startsection{section}% name {1}% level {0pt}% indent {-3.5ex plus -1ex minus -.2ex}% beforeskip {2.3ex plus.2ex}% afterskip {\centering\normalfont\Large\bfseries}% style }
This will put subsection
titles in small caps type, inline with the paragraph.
\renewcommand\subsection{% \@startsection{subsection}% name {2}% level {0em}% indent {-1ex plus 0.1ex minus -0.05ex}% beforeskip {-1em plus 0.2em}% afterskip {\scshape}% style }
The prior examples redefined existing sectional unit title commands. This defines a new one, illustrating the needed counter and macros to display that counter.
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{6}% show counters this far down \newcounter{subsubparagraph}[subparagraph]% counter for numbering \renewcommand{\thesubsubparagraph}% how to display {\thesubparagraph.\@arabic\c@subsubparagraph}% numbering \newcommand{\subsubparagraph}{\@startsection {subsubparagraph}% {6}% {0em}% {\baselineskip}% {0.5\baselineskip}% {\normalfont\normalsize}} \newcommand*\l@subsubparagraph{\@dottedtocline{6}{10em}{5em}}% for toc \newcommand{\subsubparagraphmark}[1]{}% for page headers
Next: Environments, Previous: Sectioning, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
We often want something like ‘See Theorem~31’. But by-hand typing
the 31 is poor practice. Instead you should write a label such as
\label{eq:GreensThm}
and then reference it, as with
See equation~\ref{eq:GreensThm}
. LaTeX will automatically
work out the number, put it into the output, and will change that number
later if needed.
We will see this with Theorem~\ref{th:GreensThm}. % forward reference ... \begin{theorem} \label{th:GreensThm} ... \end{theorem} ... See Theorem~\ref{th:GreensThm} on page~\pageref{th:GreensThm}.
LaTeX tracks cross reference information in a file having the
extension .aux and with the same base name as the file containing
the \label
. So if \label
is in calculus.tex then
the information is in calculus.aux. LaTeX puts the
information in that file every time it runs across a \label
.
The behavior described in the prior paragraph results in a quirk that
happens when your document has a forward reference, a \ref
that appears before the associated \label
. If this is the first
time that you are compiling the document then you will get ‘LaTeX
Warning: Label(s) may have changed. Rerun to get cross references right’
and in the output the forward reference will appear as two question
marks ‘??’, in boldface. A similar thing happens if you
change some things so the references changes; you get the same warning
and the output contains the old reference information. In both cases,
resolve this by compiling the document a second time.
The cleveref
package enhances LaTeX’s
cross referencing features. You can arrange that if you enter
\begin{thm}\label{th:Nerode}...\end{thm}
then
\cref{th:Nerode}
will output ‘Theorem 3.21’, without you
having to enter the “Theorem.”
• \label: | Assign a symbolic name to a piece of text. | |
• \pageref: | Refer to a page number. | |
• \ref: | Refer to a section, figure or similar. |
Next: \pageref, Up: Cross references [Contents][Index]
\label
Synopsis:
\label{key}
Assign a reference number to key. In ordinary text
\label{key}
assigns to key the number of the
current sectional unit. Inside an environment with numbering, such as a
table
or theorem
environment, \label{key}
assigns to key the number of that environment. Retrieve the
assigned number with the \ref{key}
command
(see \ref).
A key name can consist of any sequence of letters, digits, or common punctuation characters. Upper and lowercase letters are distinguished, as usual.
A common convention is to use labels consisting of a prefix and a suffix
separated by a colon or period. Thus, \label{fig:Post}
is a
label for a figure with a portrait of Emil Post. This helps to avoid
accidentally creating two labels with the same name, and makes your
source more readable. Some commonly-used prefixes:
ch
for chapters
sec
subsec
for lower-level sectioning commands
fig
for figures
tab
for tables
eq
for equations
In the auxiliary file the reference information is kept as the text of
a command of the form
\newlabel{label}{{currentlabel}{pagenumber}}
.
Here currentlabel is the current value of the macro
\@currentlabel
that is usually updated whenever you call
\refstepcounter{counter}
.
Below, the key sec:test
will get the number of the current
section and the key fig:test
will get the number of the figure.
(Incidentally, put labels after captions in figures and tables.)
\section{section name} \label{sec:test} This is Section~\ref{sec:test}. \begin{figure} ... \caption{caption text} \label{fig:test} \end{figure} See Figure~\ref{fig:test}.
Next: \ref, Previous: \label, Up: Cross references [Contents][Index]
\pageref
Synopsis:
\pageref{key}
Produce the page number of the place in the text where the corresponding
\label
{key} command appears.
If there is no \label{key}
then you get something like
‘LaTeX Warning: Reference `th:GrensThm' on page 1 undefined on
input line 11.’
Below, the \label{eq:main}
is used both for the formula number
and for the page number. (Note that the two references are forward
references so this document would need to be compiled twice to resolve
those.)
The main result is formula~\ref{eq:main} on page~\pageref{eq:main}. ... \begin{equation} \label{eq:main} \mathbf{P}=\mathbf{NP} \end{equation}
Previous: \pageref, Up: Cross references [Contents][Index]
\ref
Synopsis:
\ref{key}
Produces the number of the sectional unit,
equation, footnote, figure, …, of the corresponding
\label
command (see \label). It does not produce any text,
such as the word ‘Section’ or ‘Figure’, just the bare number itself.
If there is no \label{key}
then you get something like
‘LaTeX Warning: Reference `th:GrensThm' on page 1 undefined on
input line 11.’
In this example the \ref{popular}
produces ‘2’. Note that
it is a forward reference since it comes before \label{popular}
so this document would have to be compiled twice.
The most widely-used format is item number~\ref{popular}. \begin{enumerate} \item Plain \TeX \item \label{popular} \LaTeX \item Con\TeX t \end{enumerate}
The cleveref package includes text such as ‘Theorem’ in the reference. See the documentation on CTAN.
Next: Line breaking, Previous: Cross references, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
LaTeX provides many environments for delimiting certain behavior.
An environment begins with \begin
and ends with \end
,
like this:
\begin{environment-name} ... \end{environment-name}
The environment-name at the beginning must exactly match that at
the end. For instance, the input
\begin{table*}...\end{table}
will cause an error like:
‘! LaTeX Error: \begin{table*} on input line 5 ended by
\end{table}.’
Environments are executed within a group.
• abstract: | Produce an abstract. | |
• array: | Math arrays. | |
• center: | Centered lines. | |
• description: | Labelled lists. | |
• displaymath: | Formulas that appear on their own line. | |
• document: | Enclose the whole document. | |
• enumerate: | Numbered lists. | |
• eqnarray: | Sequences of aligned equations. | |
• equation: | Displayed equation. | |
• figure: | Floating figures. | |
• filecontents: | Writing multiple files from the source. | |
• flushleft: | Flushed left lines. | |
• flushright: | Flushed right lines. | |
• itemize: | Bulleted lists. | |
• letter: | Letters. | |
• list: | Generic list environment. | |
• math: | In-line math. | |
• minipage: | Miniature page. | |
• picture: | Picture with text, arrows, lines and circles. | |
• quotation & quote: | Include a quotation. | |
• tabbing: | Align text arbitrarily. | |
• table: | Floating tables. | |
• tabular: | Align text in columns. | |
• thebibliography: | Bibliography or reference list. | |
• theorem: | Theorems, lemmas, etc. | |
• titlepage: | For hand crafted title pages. | |
• verbatim: | Simulating typed input. | |
• verse: | For poetry and other things. |
Next: array, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
abstract
Synopsis:
\begin{abstract} ... \end{abstract}
Produce an abstract, possibly of multiple paragraphs. This environment
is only defined in the article
and report
document classes
(see Document classes).
Using the example below in the article
class produces a displayed
paragraph. Document class option titlepage
causes the abstract
to be on a separate page (see Document class options); this is the
default only in the report
class.
\begin{abstract} We compare all known accounts of the proposal made by Porter Alexander to Robert E Lee at the Appomattox Court House that the army continue in a guerrilla war, which Lee refused. \end{abstract}
The next example produces a one column abstract in a two column document (for a more flexible solution, use the package abstract).
\documentclass[twocolumn]{article} ... \begin{document} \title{Babe Ruth as Cultural Progenitor: a Atavistic Approach} \author{Smith \\ Jones \\ Robinson\thanks{Railroad tracking grant.}} \twocolumn[ \begin{@twocolumnfalse} \maketitle \begin{abstract} Ruth was not just the Sultan of Swat, he was the entire swat team. \end{abstract} \end{@twocolumnfalse} ] { % by-hand insert a footnote at page bottom \renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}} \footnotetext[1]{Thanks for all the fish.} }
Next: center, Previous: abstract, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
array
Synopsis:
\begin{array}{cols} column 1 entry &column 2 entry ... &column n entry \\ ... \end{array}
or:
\begin{array}[pos]{cols} column 1 entry &column 2 entry ... &column n entry \\ ... \end{array}
Produce a mathematical array. This environment can only be used in math
mode, and normally appears within a displayed mathematics environment
such as equation
(see equation). Inside of each row the
column entries are separated by an ampersand, (&
). Rows are
terminated with double-backslashes (see \\).
This example shows a three by three array.
\begin{equation*} \chi(x) = \left| % vertical bar fence \begin{array}{ccc} x-a &-b &-c \\ -d &x-e &-f \\ -g &-h &x-i \end{array} \right| \end{equation*}
The required argument cols describes the number of columns, their
alignment, and the formatting of the intercolumn regions. For instance,
\begin{array}{rcl}...\end{array}
gives three columns: the
first flush right, the second centered, and the third flush left. See
tabular for the complete description of cols and of the
other common features of the two environments, including the optional
pos argument.
There are two ways that array
diverges from tabular
. The
first is that array
entries are typeset in math mode, in
textstyle (see Modes) except if the cols definition specifies
the column with p{...}
, which causes the entry to be typeset in
text mode. The second is that, instead of tabular
’s parameter
\tabcolsep
, LaTeX’s intercolumn space in an array
is
governed by
\arraycolsep
, which gives half the width between columns. The
default for this is ‘5pt’ so that between two columns comes
10pt of space.
To obtain arrays with braces the standard is to use the amsmath
package. It comes with environments pmatrix
for an array
surrounded by parentheses (...)
, bmatrix
for an array
surrounded by square brackets [...]
, Bmatrix
for an
array surrounded by curly braces {...}
, vmatrix
for
an array surrounded by vertical bars |...|
, and
Vmatrix
for an array surrounded by double vertical
bars ||...||
, along with a number of other array constructs.
The next example uses the amsmath package.
\usepackage{amsmath} % in preamble \begin{equation} \begin{vmatrix}{cc} % array with vert lines a &b \\ c &d \end{vmatrix}=ad-bc \end{equation}
There are many packages concerning arrays. The array package has many useful extensions, including more column types. The dcolumn package adds a column type to center on a decimal point. For both see the documentation on CTAN.
Next: description, Previous: array, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
center
Synopsis:
\begin{center} line1 \\ line2 \\ ... \end{center}
Create a new paragraph consisting of a sequence of lines that are
centered within the left and right margins. Use
double-backslash, \\
, to get a line break (see \\).
If some text is too long to fit on a line then LaTeX will insert line
breaks that avoid hyphenation and avoid stretching or shrinking any
interword space.
This environment inserts space above and below the text body. See
\centering to avoid such space, for example inside a figure
environment.
This example produces three centered lines. There is extra vertical space between the last two lines.
\begin{center} A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fufillment \\ of the Requirements of \\[0.5ex] the School of Environmental Engineering \end{center}
In this example, depending on the page’s line width, LaTeX may choose a line break for the part before the double backslash. If so, it will center each of the two lines and if not it will center the single line. Then LaTeX will break at the double backslash, and will center the ending.
\begin{center} My father considered that anyone who went to chapel and didn't drink alcohol was not to be tolerated.\\ I grew up in that belief. --Richard Burton \end{center}
A double backslash after the final line is optional. If present it doesn’t add any vertical space.
In a two-column document the text is centered in a column, not in the entire page.
• \centering: | Declaration form of the center environment.
|
\centering
Synopsis:
{\centering ... }
or
\begin{group} \centering ... \end{group}
Center the material in its scope. It is most often used inside an
environment such as figure
, or in a parbox
.
This example’s \centering
declaration causes the graphic to be
horizontally centered.
\begin{figure} \centering \includegraphics[width=0.6\textwidth]{ctan_lion.png} \caption{CTAN Lion} \label{fig:CTANLion} \end{figure}
The scope of this \centering
ends with the \end{figure}
.
Unlike the center
environment, the \centering
command does
not add vertical space above and below the text. That’s its advantage
in the above example; there is not an excess of space.
It also does not start a new paragraph; it simply changes how LaTeX
formats paragraph units. If ww {\centering xx \\ yy} zz
is
surrounded by blank lines then LaTeX will create a paragraph whose
first line ‘ww xx’ is centered and whose second line, not centered,
contains ‘yy zz’. Usually what is desired is for the scope of the
declaration to contain a blank line or the \end
command of an
environment such as figure
or table
that ends the
paragraph unit. Thus, if {\centering xx \\ yy\par} zz
is
surrounded by blank lines then it makes a new paragraph with two
centered lines ‘xx’ and ‘yy’, followed by a new paragraph with
‘zz’ that is formatted as usual.
Next: displaymath, Previous: center, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
description
Synopsis:
\begin{description} \item[label of first item] text of first item \item[label of second item] text of second item ... \end{description}
Environment to make a list of labeled items. Each item’s label is typeset in bold and is flush left, so that long labels continue into the first line of the item text. There must be at least one item; having none causes the LaTeX error ‘Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item’.
This example shows the environment used for a sequence of definitions.
\begin{definition} \item[lama] A priest. \item[llama] A beast. \end{definition}
The labels ‘lama’ and ‘llama’ are output in boldface, with the left edge on the left margin.
Start list items with the \item
command (see \item). Use the
optional labels, as in \item[Main point]
, because there is
no sensible default. Following the \item
is optional text, which
may contain multiple paragraphs.
Since the labels are in bold style, if the label text calls for a font
change given in argument style (see Font styles) then it will come
out bold. For instance, if the label text calls for typewriter with
\item[\texttt{label text}]
then it will appear in bold
typewriter, if that is available. The simplest way around this, in this
example to get non-bold typewriter, is to use declarative style:
\item[{\tt label text}]
. Similarly, get the standard roman
font with \item[{\rm label text}]
.
For other major LaTeX labelled list environments, see itemize
and enumerate. Unlike those environments, nesting
description
environments does not change the default label; it is
boldface and flush left at all levels.
For information about list layout parameters, including the default values, and for information about customizing list layout, see list. The package enumitem is useful for customizing lists.
This example changes the description labels to small caps.
\renewcommand{\descriptionlabel}[1]{% {\hspace{\labelsep}\textsc{#1}}}
Next: document, Previous: description, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
displaymath
Synopsis:
\begin{displaymath} mathematical text \end{displaymath}
Environment to typeset the math text on its own line, in display style
and centered. To make the text be flush-left use the global option
fleqn
; see Document class options.
In the displaymath
environment no equation number is added to the
math text. One way to get an equation number is to use the
equation
environment (see equation).
LaTeX will not break the math text across lines.
Note that the amsmath package has significantly more extensive displayed equation facilities. For example, there are a number of ways in that package for having math text broken across lines.
The construct \[math text\]
is essentially a synonym for
\begin{displaymath}math text\end{displaymath}
but the
latter is easier to work with in the source file; for instance,
searching for a square bracket may get false positives but the word
displaymath
will likely be unique. (The construct
$$math text$$
from Plain TeX is sometimes
mistakenly used as a synonym for displaymath
. It is not a
synonym, because the displaymath
environment checks that it isn’t
started in math mode and that it ends in math mode begun by the matching
environment start, because the displaymath
environment has
different vertical spacing, and because the displaymath
environment honors the fleqn
option.)
The output from this example is centered and alone on its line.
\begin{displaymath} \int_1^2 x^2\,dx=7/3 \end{displaymath}
Also, the integral sign is larger than the inline version
\( \int_1^2 x^2\,dx=7/3 \)
produces.
Next: enumerate, Previous: displaymath, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
document
The document
environment encloses the entire body of a document.
It is required in every LaTeX document. See Starting and ending.
• \AtBeginDocument: | Hook for commands at the start of the document. | |
• \AtEndDocument: | Hook for commands at the end of the document. |
Next: \AtEndDocument, Up: document [Contents][Index]
\AtBeginDocument
Synopsis:
\AtBeginDocument{code}
Save code and execute it when \begin{document}
is
executed, at the very end of the preamble. The code is executed after
the font selection tables have been set up, so the normal font for the
document is the current font. However, the code is executed as part of
the preamble so you cannot do any typesetting with it.
You can issue this command more than once; the successive code lines will be executed in the order that you gave them.
Previous: \AtBeginDocument, Up: document [Contents][Index]
\AtEndDocument
Synopsis:
\AtEndDocument{code}
Save code and execute it near the end of the document.
Specifically, it is executed when \end{document}
is executed,
before the final page is finished and before any leftover floating
environments are processed. If you want some of the code to be executed
after these two processes then include a \clearpage
at the
appropriate point in code.
You can issue this command more than once; the successive code lines will be executed in the order that you gave them.
Next: eqnarray, Previous: document, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
enumerate
Synopsis:
\begin{enumerate} \item[optional label of first item] text of first item \item[optional label of second item] text of second item ... \end{enumerate}
Environment to produce a numbered list of items. The format of the
label numbering depends on the nesting level of this environment; see
below. The default top-level numbering is ‘1.’, ‘2.’,
etc. Each enumerate
list environment must have at least one item;
having none causes the LaTeX error ‘Something's wrong--perhaps a
missing \item’.
This example gives the first two finishers in the 1908 Olympic marathon. As a top-level list the labels would come out as ‘1.’ and ‘2.’.
\begin{enumerate} \item Johnny Hayes (USA) \item Charles Hefferon (RSA) \end{enumerate}
Start list items with the \item
command (see \item). If you
give \item
an optional argument by following it with square
brackets, as in \item[Interstitial label]
, then the next item
will continue the interrupted sequence (see \item). That is, you
will get labels like ‘1.’, then ‘Interstitial label’, then
‘2.’. Following the \item
is optional text, which may
contain multiple paragraphs.
Enumerations may be nested within other enumerate
environments,
or within any paragraph-making environment such as itemize
(see itemize), up to four levels deep. This gives LaTeX’s
default for the format at each nesting level, where 1 is the top level,
the outermost level.
The enumerate
environment uses the counters \enumi
through
\enumiv
(see Counters).
For other major LaTeX labeled list environments, see description and itemize. For information about list layout parameters, including the default values, and for information about customizing list layout, see list. The package enumitem is useful for customizing lists.
To change the format of the label use \renewcommand
(see \newcommand & \renewcommand) on the commands \labelenumi
through \labelenumiv
. For instance, this first level list will be
labelled with uppercase letters, in boldface, and without a trailing
period.
\renewcommand{\labelenumi}{\textbf{\Alph{enumi}}} \begin{enumerate} \item Shows as boldface A \item Shows as boldface B \end{enumerate}
For a list of counter-labeling commands see \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol.
Next: equation, Previous: enumerate, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
eqnarray
The eqnarray
environment is obsolete. It has infelicities,
including spacing that is inconsistent with other mathematics elements.
(See “Avoid eqnarray!” by Lars Madsen
http://tug.org/TUGboat/tb33-1/tb103madsen.pdf). New documents
should include the amsmath package and use the displayed
mathematics environments provided there, such as the align
environment. We include a description only for completeness and for
working with old documents.
Synopsis:
\begin{eqnarray} first formula left &first formula middle &first formula right \\ ... \end{eqnarray}
or
\begin{eqnarray*} first formula left &first formula middle &first formula right \\ ... \end{eqnarray*}
Display a sequence of equations or inequalities. The left and right sides are typeset in display mode, while the middle is typeset in text mode.
It is similar to a three-column array
environment, with items
within a row separated by an ampersand (&
), and with rows
separated by double backslash \\
).
The starred form of line break (\\*
) can also be used to separate
equations, and will disallow a page break there (see \\).
The unstarred form eqnarray
places an equation number on every
line (using the equation
counter), unless that line contains a
\nonumber
command. The starred form eqnarray*
omits
equation numbering, while otherwise being the same.
The command \lefteqn
is used for splitting long formulas across
lines. It typesets its argument in display style flush left in a box of
zero width.
This example shows three lines. The first two lines make an inequality, while the third line has not entry on the left side.
\begin{eqnarray*} \lefteqn{x_1+x_2+\cdots+x_n} \\ &\leq &y_1+y_2+\cdots+y_n \\ &= &z+y_3+\cdots+y_n \end{eqnarray*}
Next: figure, Previous: eqnarray, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
equation
Synopsis:
\begin{equation} mathematical text \end{equation}
The same as a displaymath
environment (see displaymath)
except that LaTeX puts an equation number flush to the right margin.
The equation number is generated using the equation
counter.
You should have no blank lines between \begin{equation}
and
\begin{equation}
, or LaTeX will tell you that there is a
missing dollar sign.
The package amsmath package has extensive displayed equation facilities. New documents should include this package.
Next: filecontents, Previous: equation, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
figure
Synopsis:
\begin{figure}[placement] figure body \caption[loftitle]{title} % optional \label{label} % optional \end{figure}
or:
\begin{figure*}[placement] figure body \caption[loftitle]{title} % optional \label{label} % optional \end{figure*}
Figures are for material that is not part of the normal text. An example is material that you cannot have split between two pages, such as a graphic. Because of this, LaTeX does not typeset figures in sequence with normal text but instead “floats” them to a convenient place, such as the top of a following page (see Floats).
The figure body can consist of imported graphics
(see Graphics), or text, LaTeX commands, etc. It is typeset in a
parbox
of width \textwidth
.
The possible values of placement are h
for ‘here’,
t
for ‘top’, b
for ‘bottom’, and p
for
‘on a separate page of floats’. For the effect of these options on
the float placement algorithm, see Floats.
The starred form figure*
is used when a document is in
double-column mode (see \twocolumn). It produces a figure that
spans both columns, at the top of the page. To add the possibility of
placing at a page bottom see the discussion of placement b
in Floats.
The label is optional; it is used for cross references (see Cross references).
The optional \caption
command specifies caption text for the
figure. By default it is numbered. If loftitle is present, it is
used in the list of figures instead of title (see Table of contents etc.).
This example makes a figure out of a graphic. LaTeX will place that graphic and its caption at the top of a page or, if it is pushed to the end of the document, on a page of floats.
\usepackage{graphicx} % in preamble ... \begin{figure}[t] \centering \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{CTANlion.png} \caption{The CTAN lion, by Duane Bibby} \end{figure}
Next: flushleft, Previous: figure, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
filecontents
: Write an external fileSynopsis:
\begin{filecontents}{filename} text \end{filecontents}
or
\begin{filecontents*}{filename} text \end{filecontents*}
Create a file named filename and fill it with text. The
unstarred version of the environment filecontents
prefixes the
content of the created file with a header; see the example below. The
starred version filecontents*
does not include the header.
This environment can be used anywhere in the preamble, although it often
appears before the \documentclass
command. It is typically used
when a source file requires a nonstandard style or class file. The
environment will write that file to the directory containing the source
and thus make the source file self-contained. Another use is to include
bib
references in the file, again to make it self-contained.
The environment checks whether a file of that name already exists and if
so, does not do anything. There is a filecontents package that
redefines the filecontents
environment so that instead of doing
nothing in that case, it will overwrite the existing file.
For example, this document
\documentclass{article} \begin{filecontents}{JH.sty} \newcommand{\myname}{Jim Hef{}feron} \end{filecontents} \usepackage{JH} \begin{document} Article by \myname. \end{document}
produces this file JH.sty.
%% LaTeX2e file `JH.sty' %% generated by the `filecontents' environment %% from source `test' on 2015/10/12. %% \newcommand{\myname}{Jim Hef{}feron}
Next: flushright, Previous: filecontents, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
flushleft
Synopsis:
\begin{flushleft} line1 \\ line2 \\ ... \end{flushleft}
An environment that creates a paragraph whose lines are flush to the
left-hand margin, and ragged right. If you have lines that are too long
then LaTeX will linebreak them in a way that avoids hyphenation and
stretching or shrinking spaces. To force a new line use a double
backslash, \\
. For the declaration form
see \raggedright.
This creates a box of text that is at most 3 inches wide, with the text flush left and ragged right.
\noindent\begin{minipage}{3in} \begin{flushleft} A long sentence that will be broken by \LaTeX{} at a convenient spot. \\ And, a fresh line forced by the double backslash. \end{flushleft} \end{minipage}
• \raggedright: | Declaration form of the flushleft environment.
|
\raggedright
Synopses:
{\raggedright ... }
or
\begin{environment} \raggedright ... \end{environment}
A declaration which causes lines to be flush to the left margin and
ragged right. It can be used inside an environment such as quote
or in a parbox
. For the environment form
see flushleft.
Unlike the flushleft
environment, the \raggedright
command does not start a new paragraph; it only changes how LaTeX
formats paragraph units. To affect a paragraph unit’s format, the
scope of the declaration must contain the blank line or \end
command that ends the paragraph unit.
Here \raggedright
in each second column keeps LaTeX from doing
very awkward typesetting to fit the text into the narrow column. Note
that \raggedright
is inside the curly braces {...}
to
delimit its effect.
\begin{tabular}{rp{2in}} Team alpha &{\raggedright This team does all the real work.} \\ Team beta &{\raggedright This team ensures that the water cooler is never empty.} \\ \end{tabular}
Next: itemize, Previous: flushleft, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
flushright
\begin{flushright} line1 \\ line2 \\ ... \end{flushright}
An environment that creates a paragraph whose lines are flush to the
right-hand margin and ragged left. If you have lines that are too long
to fit the margins then LaTeX will linebreak them in a way that
avoids hyphenation and stretching or shrinking spaces. To force a new
line use a double backslash, \\
. For the declaration form
see \raggedleft.
For an example related to this environment, see flushleft.
• \raggedleft: | Declaration form of the flushright environment.
|
Up: flushright [Contents][Index]
\raggedleft
Synopses:
{\raggedleft ... }
or
\begin{environment} \raggedleft ... \end{environment}
A declaration which causes lines to be flush to the right margin and
ragged left. It can be used inside an environment such as quote
or in a parbox
. For the environment form
see flushright.
Unlike the flushright
environment, the \raggedleft
command does not start a new paragraph; it only changes how LaTeX
formats paragraph units. To affect a paragraph unit’s format, the
scope of the declaration must contain the blank line or \end
command that ends the paragraph unit.
For an example related to this environment, see \raggedright.
Next: letter, Previous: flushright, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
itemize
Synopsis:
\begin{itemize} \item[optional label of first item] text of first item \item[optional label of second item] text of second item ... \end{itemize}
Produce a list that is unordered, sometimes called a bullet list. The
environment must have at least one \item
; having none causes the
LaTeX error ‘Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item’.
This gives a two-item list.
\begin{itemize} \item Pencil and watercolor sketch by Cassandra \item Rice portrait \end{itemize}
As a top-level list each label would come out as a bullet, •. The format of the labeling depends on the nesting level; see below.
Start list items with the \item
command (see \item). If you
give \item
an optional argument by following it with square
brackets, as in \item[Optional label]
, then by default it will
appear in bold and be flush right, so it could extend into the left
margin. For labels that are flush left see the description
environment. Following the \item
is optional text, which may
contain multiple paragraphs.
Itemized lists can be nested within one another, up to four levels deep.
They can also be nested within other paragraph-making environments, such
as enumerate
(see enumerate). The itemize
environment
uses the commands \labelitemi
through \labelitemiv
to
produce the default label (this also uses the convention of lowercase
roman numerals at the end of the command names that signify the nesting
level). These are the default marks at each level.
\textbullet
)
\normalfont\bfseries\textendash
)
\textasteriskcentered
)
\textperiodcentered
)
Change the labels with \renewcommand
. For instance, this makes
the first level use diamonds.
\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{$\diamond$}
The distance between the left margin of the enclosing environment and
the left margin of the itemize
list is determined by the
parameters \leftmargini
through \leftmarginvi
. (Note the
convention of using lowercase roman numerals a the end of the command
name to denote the nesting level.) The defaults are: 2.5em
in
level 1 (2em
in two-column mode), 2.2em
in level 2,
1.87em
in level 3, and 1.7em
in level 4, with smaller
values for more deeply nested levels.
For other major LaTeX labeled list environments, see description and enumerate. For information about list layout parameters, including the default values, and for information about customizing list layout, see list. The package enumitem is useful for customizing lists.
This example greatly reduces the margin space for outermost itemized lists.
\setlength{\leftmargini}{1.25em} % default 2.5em
Especially for lists with short items, it may be desirable to elide
space between items. Here is an example defining an itemize*
environment with no extra spacing between items, or between paragraphs
within a single item (\parskip
is not list-specific,
see \parindent & \parskip):
\newenvironment{itemize*}% {\begin{itemize}% \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt}% \setlength{\parsep}{0pt}}% \setlength{\parskip}{0pt}}% {\end{itemize}}
Next: list, Previous: itemize, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
letter
environment: writing lettersThis environment is used for creating letters. See Letters.
Next: math, Previous: letter, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
list
Synopsis:
\begin{list}{labeling}{spacing} \item[optional label of first item] text of first item \item[optional label of second item] text of second item ... \end{list}
An environment for constructing lists.
Note that this environment does not typically appear in the document
body. Most lists created by LaTeX authors are the ones that come
standard: the description
, enumerate
, and itemize
environments (see description, enumerate, and itemize).
Instead, the list
environment is most often used in macros. For
example, many standard LaTeX environments that do not immediately
appear to be lists are in fact constructed using list
, including
quotation
, quote
, and center
(see quotation & quote, see center).
This uses the list
environment to define a new custom
environment.
\newcounter{namedlistcounter} % number the items \newenvironment{named} {\begin{list} {Item~\Roman{namedlistcounter}.} % labeling {\usecounter{namedlistcounter} % set counter \setlength{\leftmargin}{3.5em}} % set spacing } {\end{list}} \begin{named} \item Shows as ``Item~I.'' \item[Special label.] Shows as ``Special label.'' \item Shows as ``Item~II.'' \end{named}
The mandatory first argument labeling specifies the default
labeling of list items. It can contain text and LaTeX commands, as
above where it contains both ‘Item’ and ‘\Roman{...}’.
LaTeX forms the label by putting the labeling argument in a box
of width \labelwidth
. If the label is wider than that, the
additional material extends to the right. When making an instance of a
list you can override the default labeling by giving \item
an
optional argument by including square braces and the text, as in the
above \item[Special label.]
; see \item.
The mandatory second argument spacing has a list of commands.
This list can be empty. A command that can go in here is
\usecounter{countername}
(see \usecounter). Use this
to tell LaTeX to number the items using the given counter. The
counter will be reset to zero each time LaTeX enters the environment,
and the counter is incremented by one each time LaTeX encounters an
\item
that does not have an optional argument.
Another command that can go in spacing is
\makelabel
, which constructs the label box. By default it puts
the contents flush right. Its only argument is the label, which it
typesets in LR mode (see Modes). One example of changing its
definition is that to the above named
example, before the
definition of the environment add
\newcommand{\namedmakelabel}[1]{\textsc{#1}}
, and between
the \setlength
command and the parenthesis that closes the
spacing argument also add \let\makelabel\namedmakelabel
.
Then the items will be typeset in small caps. Similarly, changing the
second code line to \let\makelabel\fbox
puts the labels inside a
framed box. Another example of the \makelabel
command is below,
in the definition of the redlabel
environment.
Also often in spacing are commands to redefine the spacing for the
list. Below are the spacing parameters with their default values.
(Default values for derived environments such as itemize
can be
different than the values shown here.) See also the figure that follows
the list. Each is a length (see Lengths). The vertical spaces are
normally rubber lengths, with plus
and minus
components,
to give TeX flexibility in setting the page. Change each with a
command such as \setlength{itemsep}{2pt plus1pt minus1pt}
.
For some effects these lengths should be zero or negative.
\itemindent
Extra horizontal space indentation, beyond leftmargin
, of the
first line each item. Its default value is 0pt
.
\itemsep
Vertical space between items, beyond the \parsep
. The defaults
for the first three levels in LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’,
and ‘report’ classes at 10 point size are: 4pt plus2pt
minus1pt
, \parsep
(that is, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt
), and
\topsep
(that is, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt
). The defaults at
11 point are: 4.5pt plus2pt minus1pt
, \parsep
(that is,
2pt plus1pt minus1pt
), and topsep
(that is, 2pt
plus1pt minus1pt
). The defaults at 12 point are: 5pt plus2.5pt
minus1pt
, \parsep
(that is, 2.5pt plus1pt minus1pt
), and
\topsep
(that is, 2.5pt plus1pt minus1pt
).
\labelsep
Horizontal space between the label and text of an item.
The default for LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’,
and ‘report’ classes is 0.5em
.
\labelwidth
Horizontal width. The box containing the label is nominally this wide.
If \makelabel
returns text that is wider than this then the first
line of the item will be indented to make room for this extra material.
If \makelabel
returns text of width less than or equal to
\labelwidth
then LaTeX’s default is that the label is typeset
flush right in a box of this width.
The left edge of the label box is
\leftmargin
+\itemindent
-\labelsep
-\labelwidth
from the left margin of the enclosing environment.
The default for LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and
‘report’ classes at the top level is
\leftmargini
-\labelsep
, (which is 2em
in one column
mode and 1.5em
in two column mode). At the second level it is
\leftmarginii
-\labelsep
, and at the third level it is
\leftmarginiii
-\labelsep
. These definitions make the
label’s left edge coincide with the left margin of the enclosing
environment.
\leftmargin
Horizontal space between the left margin of the enclosing environment (or the left margin of the page if this is a top-level list), and the left margin of this list. It must be non-negative.
In the standard LaTeX document classes, a top-level list has this set
to the value of \leftmargini
, while a list that is nested inside
a top-level list has this margin set to \leftmarginii
. More
deeply nested lists get the values of \leftmarginiii
through
\leftmarginvi
. (Nesting greater than level five generates the
error message ‘Too deeply nested’.)
The defaults for the first three levels in LaTeX’s ‘article’,
‘book’, and ‘report’ classes are: \leftmargini
is
2.5em
(in two column mode, 2em
), \leftmarginii
is
2.2em
, and \leftmarginiii
is 1.87em
.
\listparindent
Horizontal space of additional line indentation, beyond
\leftmargin
, for second and subsequent paragraphs within a list
item. A negative value makes this an “outdent”. Its default value
is 0pt
.
\parsep
Vertical space between paragraphs within an item. In the ‘book’
and ‘article’ classes The defaults for the first three levels in
LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and ‘report’ classes at 10
point size are: 4pt plus2pt minus1pt
, 2pt plus1pt
minus1pt
, and 0pt
. The defaults at 11 point size are:
4.5pt plus2pt minus1pt
, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt
, and
0pt
. The defaults at 12 point size are: 5pt plus2.5pt
minus1pt
, 2.5pt plus1pt minus1pt
, and 0pt
.
\partopsep
Vertical space added, beyond \topsep
+\parskip
, to the top
and bottom of the entire environment if the list instance is preceded by
a blank line. (A blank line in the LaTeX source before the list
changes spacing at both the top and bottom of the list; whether the line
following the list is blank does not matter.)
The defaults for the first three levels in LaTeX’s ‘article’,
‘book’, and ‘report’ classes at 10 point size are: 2pt
plus1 minus1pt
, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt
, and 1pt plus0pt
minus1pt
. The defaults at 11 point are: 3pt plus1pt minus1pt
,
3pt plus1pt minus1pt
, and 1pt plus0pt minus1pt
). The
defaults at 12 point are: 3pt plus2pt minus3pt
, 3pt plus2pt
minus2pt
, and 1pt plus0pt minus1pt
.
\rightmargin
Horizontal space between the right margin of the list and the right
margin of the enclosing environment. Its default value is 0pt
.
It must be non-negative.
\topsep
Vertical space added to both the top and bottom of the list, in addition
to \parskip
(see \parindent & \parskip). The defaults for
the first three levels in LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and
‘report’ classes at 10 point size are: 8pt plus2pt minus4pt
,
4pt plus2pt minus1pt
, and 2pt plus1pt minus1pt
. The
defaults at 11 point are: 9pt plus3pt minus5pt
, 4.5pt
plus2pt minus1pt
, and 2pt plus1pt minus1pt
. The defaults at 12
point are: 10pt plus4pt minus6pt
, 5pt plus2.5pt minus1pt
,
and 2.5pt plus1pt minus1pt
.
This shows the horizontal and vertical distances.
The lengths shown are listed below. The key relationship is that the right edge of the bracket for h1 equals the right edge of the bracket for h4, so that the left edge of the label box is at h3+h4-(h0+h1).
\topsep
+ \parskip
if
the list environment does not start a new paragraph, and
\topsep
+\parskip
+\partopsep
if it does
\parsep
\itemsep
+\parsep
Same as v0. (This space is affected by whether a blank line appears in the source above the environment; whether a blank line appears in the source below the environment does not matter.)
\labelwidth
\labelsep
\listparindent
\leftmargin
\itemindent
\rightmargin
The list’s left and right margins, shown above as h3 and h5,
are with respect to the ones provided by the surrounding environment, or
with respect to the page margins for a top-level list. The line width
used for typesetting the list items is \linewidth
(see Page layout parameters). For instance, set the list’s left margin to be one
quarter of the distance between the left and right margins of the
enclosing environment with
\setlength{\leftmargin}{0.25\linewidth}
.
Page breaking in a list structure is controlled by the three
parameters below. For each, the LaTeX default is
-\@lowpenalty
, that is, -51
. Because it is negative,
it somewhat encourages a page break at each spot. Change it with,
e.g., \@beginparpenalty=9999
; a value of 10000 prohibits a
page break.
\@beginparpenalty
The page breaking penalty for breaking before the list (default -51
).
\@itempenalty
The page breaking penalty for breaking before a list item (default -51
).
\@endparpenalty
The page breaking penalty for breaking after a list (default -51
).
The package enumitem
is useful for customizing lists.
This example has the labels in red. They are numbered, and the left edge of the label lines up with the left edge of the item text. See \usecounter.
\usepackage{color} \newcounter{cnt} \newcommand{\makeredlabel}[1]{\textcolor{red}{#1.}} \newenvironment{redlabel} {\begin{list} {\arabic{cnt}} {\usecounter{cnt} \setlength{\labelwidth}{0em} \setlength{\labelsep}{0.5em} \setlength{\leftmargin}{1.5em} \setlength{\itemindent}{0.5em} % equals \labelwidth+\labelsep \let\makelabel=\makeredlabel } } {\end{list} }
• \item: | An entry in a list. | |
• trivlist: | A restricted form of list .
|
\item
: An entry in a listSynopsis:
\item text of item
or
\item[optional-label] text of item
An entry in a list. The entries are prefixed by a label, whose default depends on the list type.
Because the optional label is surrounded by square brackets
‘[...]’, if you have an item whose text starts with ‘[’, you
have to hide the bracket inside curly braces, as in: \item
{[} is an open square bracket
; otherwise, LaTeX will think it
marks the start of an optional label.
Similarly, if the item does have the optional label and you need a
close square bracket inside that label, you must hide it in the same
way: \item[Close square bracket, {]}]
. See LaTeX command syntax.
In this example the enumerate list has two items that use the default label and one that uses the optional label.
\begin{enumerate} \item Moe \item[sometimes] Shemp \item Larry \end{enumerate}
The first item is labelled ‘1.’, the second item is labelled ‘sometimes’, and the third item is labelled ‘2.’. Because of the optional label in the second item, the third item is not labelled ‘3.’.
trivlist
: A restricted form of list
Synopsis:
\begin{trivlist} ... \end{trivlist}
A restricted version of the list environment, in which margins are not
indented and an \item
without an optional argument produces no
text. It is most often used in macros, to define an environment where
the \item
command as part of the environment’s definition. For
instance, the center
environment is defined essentially like
this:
\newenvironment{center} {\begin{trivlist}\centering\item\relax} {\end{trivlist}}
Using trivlist
in this way allows the macro to inherit some
common code: combining vertical space of two adjacent environments;
detecting whether the text following the environment should be
considered a new paragraph or a continuation of the previous one;
adjusting the left and right margins for possible nested list
environments.
Specifically, trivlist
uses the current values of the list
parameters (see list), except that \parsep
is set to the
value of \parskip
, and \leftmargin
, \labelwidth
,
and \itemindent
are set to zero.
This example outputs the items as two paragraphs, except that (by default) they have no paragraph indent and are vertically separated.
\begin{trivlist} \item The \textit{Surprise} is not old; no one would call her old. \item She has a bluff bow, lovely lines. \end{trivlist}
Next: minipage, Previous: list, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
math
Synopsis:
\begin{math} math \end{math}
The math
environment inserts given math material within
the running text. \(...\)
and $...$
are synonyms.
See Math formulas.
Next: picture, Previous: math, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
minipage
Synopses:
\begin{minipage}{width} contents \end{minipage}
or
\begin{minipage}[position][height][inner-pos]{width} contents \end{minipage}
Put contents into a box that is width wide. This is like a
small version of a page; it can contain its own footnotes, itemized
lists, etc. (There are some restrictions, including that it cannot have
floats.) This box will not be broken across pages. So minipage
is similar to \parbox
(see \parbox) but here you can have
paragraphs.
This example will be 3 inches wide, and has two paragraphs.
\begin{minipage}{3in} Stephen Kleene was a founder of the Theory of Computation. He was a student of Church, wrote three influential texts, was President of the Association for Symbolic Logic, and won the National Medal of Science. \end{minipage}
See below for a discussion of the paragraph indent inside a
minipage
.
The required argument width is a rigid length (see Lengths). It gives the width of the box into which contents are typeset.
There are three optional arguments, position, height, and
inner-pos. You need not include all three. For example, get the
default position and set the height with
\begin{minipage}[c][2.54cm] contents \end{minipage}
.
(Get the natural height with an empty argument, []
.)
The optional argument position governs how the minipage
vertically aligns with the surrounding material.
c
(synonym m
) Default. Positions the minipage
so its
vertical center lines up with the center of the adjacent text line (what
Plain TeX calls \vcenter
).
t
Match the top line in the minipage
with the baseline of the
surrounding text (Plain TeX’s \vtop
.
b
Match the bottom line in the minipage
with the baseline of the
surrounding text (Plain TeX’s \vbox
.
To see the effects of these, contrast running this
---\begin{minipage}[c]{0.25in} first\\ second\\ third \end{minipage}
with the results of changing c
to b
or t
.
The optional argument height is a rigid length (see Lengths).
It sets the height of the minipage
. You can enter any value
larger than, or equal to, or smaller than the minipage
’s natural
height and LaTeX will not give an error or warning. You can also set
it to a height of zero or a negative value.
The final optional argument inner-pos controls the placement of content inside the box. These are the possible values are (the default is the value of position).
t
Place content at the top of the box.
c
Place it in the vertical center.
b
Place it at the box bottom.
s
Stretch contents out vertically; it must contain vertically stretchable space.
The inner-pos argument makes sense when the height option
is set to a value larger than the minipage
’s natural height. To
see the effect of the options, run this example with the various choices
in place of b
.
Text before \begin{center} ---\begin{minipage}[c][3in][b]{0.25\textwidth} first\\ second\\ third \end{minipage} \end{center} Text after
By default paragraphs are not indented in a minipage
. Change
that with a command such as \setlength{\parindent}{1pc}
at
the start of contents.
Footnotes in a minipage
environment are handled in a way that is
particularly useful for putting footnotes in figures or tables. A
\footnote
or \footnotetext
command puts the footnote at
the bottom of the minipage instead of at the bottom of the page, and it
uses the \mpfootnote
counter instead of the ordinary
footnote
counter (see Counters).
This puts the footnote at the bottom of the table, not the bottom of the page.
\begin{center} % center the minipage on the line \begin{minipage}{2.5in} \begin{center} % center the table inside the minipage \begin{tabular}{ll} \textsc{Monarch} &\textsc{Reign} \\ \hline Elizabeth II &63 years\footnote{to date} \\ Victoria &63 years \\ George III &59 years \end{tabular} \end{center} \end{minipage} \end{center}
If you nest minipages then there is an oddness when using footnotes.
Footnotes appear at the bottom of the text ended by the next
\end{minipage}
which may not be their logical place.
This puts a table containing data side by side with a map graphic. They are vertically centered.
\newcommand*{\vcenteredhbox}[1]{\begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}}#1\end{tabular}} ... \begin{center} \vcenteredhbox{\includegraphics[width=0.3\textwidth]{nyc.png}} \hspace{0.1\textwidth} \begin{minipage}{0.5\textwidth} \begin{tabular}{r|l} \multicolumn{1}{r}{Borough} &Pop (million) \\ \hline The Bronx &$1.5$ \\ Brooklyn &$2.6$ \\ Manhattan &$1.6$ \\ Queens &$2.3$ \\ Staten Island &$0.5$ \end{tabular} \end{minipage} \end{center}
Next: quotation & quote, Previous: minipage, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
picture
Synopses:
\begin{picture}(width,height) picture commands \end{picture}
or
\begin{picture}(width,height)(xoffset,yoffset) picture commands \end{picture}
An environment to create simple pictures containing lines, arrows,
boxes, circles, and text. Note that while this environment is not
obsolete, new documents typically use much more powerful graphics
creation systems, such as TikZ
, PSTricks
, MetaPost
,
or Asymptote
. These are not covered in this document; see CTAN.
This shows the parallelogram law for adding vectors.
\setlength{\unitlength}{1cm} \begin{picture}(6,6) % picture box will be 6cm wide by 6cm tall \put(0,0){\vector(2,1){4}} % for every 2 over this vector goes 1 up \put(2,1){\makebox(0,0)[l]{\ first leg}} \put(4,2){\vector(1,2){2}} \put(5,4){\makebox(0,0)[l]{\ second leg}} \put(0,0){\line(1,1){6}} \put(3,3){\makebox(0,0)[r]{sum\ }} \end{picture}
You can also use this environment to place arbitrary material at an exact location.
\usepackage{color,graphicx} % in preamble ... \begin{center} \setlength{\unitlength}{\textwidth} \begin{picture}(1,1) % leave space, \textwidth wide and tall \put(0,0){\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{desertedisland.jpg}} \put(0.25,0.35){\textcolor{red}{X Treasure here}} \end{picture} \end{center}
The red X will be precisely a quarter of the \linewidth
from
the left margin, and 0.35\linewidth
up from the bottom. Another
example of this usage is to put similar code in the page header to get
repeat material on each of a document’s pages.
The picture
environment has one required argument, a pair of
numbers (width,height). Multiply these by the value
\unitlength
to get the nominal size of the output, the space that
LaTeX reserves on the output page. This nominal size need not be how
large the picture really is; LaTeX will draw things from the picture
outside the picture’s box.
This environment also has an optional argument
(xoffset,yoffset). It is used to shift the origin. Unlike
most optional arguments, this one is not contained in square brackets.
As with the required argument, it consists of two real numbers.
Multiply these by \unitlength
to get the point at the lower-left
corner of the picture.
For example, if \unitlength
has been set to 1mm
, the
command
\begin{picture}(100,200)(10,20)
produces a box of width 100 millimeters and height 200 millimeters. The picture’s origin is the point (10mm,20mm) and so the lower-left corner is there, and the upper-right corner is at (110mm,220mm). When you first draw a picture you typically omit the optional argument, leaving the origin at the lower-left corner. If you then want to modify your picture by shifting everything, you can just add the appropriate optional argument.
Each picture command tells LaTeX where to put something by
naming its position. A position is a pair such as (2.4,-5)
giving the x- and y-coordinates. A coordinate is a not a length,
it is a real number (it may have a decimal point or a minus sign). It
specifies a length in multiples of the unit length \unitlength
,
so if \unitlength
has been set to 1cm
, then the coordinate
2.54 specifies a length of 2.54 centimeters.
LaTeX’s default for \unitlength
is 1pt
. it is a rigid
length (see Lengths). Change it with the \setlength
command
(see \setlength). Make this change only outside of a picture
environment.
Coordinates are given with respect to an origin, which is normally at
the lower-left corner of the picture. Note that when a position appears
as an argument, as with \put(1,2){...}
, it is not enclosed in
braces since the parentheses serve to delimit the argument. Also,
unlike in some computer graphics systems, larger y-coordinates are
further up the page.
There are four ways to put things in a picture: \put
,
\multiput
, \qbezier
, and \graphpaper
. The most
often used is \put
. This
\put(11.3,-0.3){...}
places the object with its reference point at coordinates
(11.3,-0.3). The reference points for various objects will be
described below.
The \put
command creates an LR box (see Modes).
Anything that can go in an \mbox
(see \mbox & \makebox) can
go in the text argument of the \put
command. The reference point
will be the lower left corner of the box. In this picture
\setlength{\unitlength}{1cm} ...\begin{picture}(1,1) \put(0,0){\line(1,0){1}} \put(0,0){\line(1,1){1}} \end{picture}
the three dots are just slightly left of the point of the angle formed
by the two lines. (Also, \line(1,1){1}
does not call for a
line of length one; rather the line has a change in the x coordinate of
1.)
The \multiput
, qbezier
, and graphpaper
commands are
described below.
This draws a rectangle with a wavy top, using \qbezier
for
that curve.
\begin{picture}(3,1.5) \put(0,0){\vector(1,0){8}} % x axis \put(0,0){\vector(0,1){4}} % y axis \put(2,0){\line(0,1){3}} % left side rectangle \put(4,0){\line(0,1){3.5}} % right side \qbezier(2,3)(2.5,2.9)(3,3.25) \qbezier(3,3.25)(3.5,3.6)(4,3.5) \thicklines % below here, lines are twice as thick \put(2,3){\line(4,1){2}} \put(4.5,2.5){\framebox{Trapezoidal Rule}} \end{picture}
• \put: | Place an object at a specified place. | |
• \multiput: | Draw multiple instances of an object. | |
• \qbezier: | Draw a quadratic Bezier curve. | |
• \graphpaper: | Draw graph paper. | |
• \line: | Draw a straight line. | |
• \linethickness: | Set thickness of horizontal and vertical lines. | |
• \thinlines: | The default line thickness. | |
• \thicklines: | A heavier line thickness. | |
• \circle: | Draw a circle. | |
• \oval: | Draw an oval. | |
• \shortstack: | Make a stack of objects. | |
• \vector: | Draw a line with an arrow. | |
• \makebox (picture): | Draw a box of the specified size. | |
• \framebox (picture): | Draw a box with a frame around it. | |
• \frame: | Draw a frame around an object. | |
• \dashbox: | Draw a dashed box. |
\put
Synopsis:
\put(xcoord,ycoord){content}
Place content at the coordinate (xcoord,ycoord). See
the discussion of coordinates and \unitlength
in picture.
The content is processed in LR mode (see Modes) so it cannot
contain line breaks.
This includes the text into the picture
.
\put(4.5,2.5){Apply the \textit{unpoke} move}
The reference point, the location (4.5,2.5), is the lower left of the text, at the bottom left of the ‘A’.
\multiput
Synopsis:
\multiput(x,y)(delta_x,delta_y){num-copies}{obj}
Copy obj a total of num-copies times, with an increment of delta_x,delta_y. The obj first appears at position (x,y), then at (x+\delta_x,y+\delta_y), and so on.
This draws a simple grid with every fifth line in bold (see also \graphpaper).
\begin{picture}(10,10) \linethickness{0.05mm} \multiput(0,0)(1,0){10}{\line(0,1){10}} \multiput(0,0)(0,1){10}{\line(1,0){10}} \linethickness{0.5mm} \multiput(0,0)(5,0){3}{\line(0,1){10}} \multiput(0,0)(0,5){3}{\line(1,0){10}} \end{picture}
Next: \graphpaper, Previous: \multiput, Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\qbezier
Synopsis:
\qbezier(x1,y1)(x2,y2)(x3,y3) \qbezier[num](x1,y1)(x2,y2)(x3,y3)
Draw a quadratic Bezier curve whose control points are given by the
three required arguments (x1,y1)
,
(x2,y2)
, and (x3,y3)
. That is,
the curve runs from (x1,y1) to (x3,y3), is quadratic, and is
such that the tangent line at (x1,y1) passes through
(x2,y2), as does the tangent line at (x3,y3).
This draws a curve from the coordinate (1,1) to (1,0).
\qbezier(1,1)(1.25,0.75)(1,0)
The curve’s tangent line at (1,1) contains (1.25,0.75), as does the curve’s tangent line at (1,0).
The optional argument num gives the number of calculated
intermediate points. The default is to draw a smooth curve whose
maximum number of points is \qbeziermax
(change this value with
\renewcommand
).
\graphpaper
Synopsis:
\graphpaper(x_init,y_init)(x_dimen,y_dimen) \graphpaper[spacing](x_init,y_init)(x_dimen,y_dimen)
Draw a coordinate grid. Requires the graphpap
package.
The grid’s origin is (x_init,y_init)
.
Grid lines come every spacing units (the default is 10).
The grid extends x_dimen units to the right and y_dimen units up.
All arguments must be positive integers.
This make a grid with seven vertical lines and eleven horizontal lines.
\usepackage{graphpap} % in preamble ... \begin{picture}(6,20) % in document body \graphpaper[2](0,0)(12,20) \end{picture}
The lines are numbered every ten units.
Next: \linethickness, Previous: \graphpaper, Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\line
Synopsis:
\line(x_run,y_rise){travel}
Draw a line. It slopes such that it vertically rises y_rise for every horizontal x_run. The travel is the total horizontal change — it is not the length of the vector, it is the change in x. In the special case of vertical lines, where (x_run,y_rise)=(0,1), the travel gives the change in y.
This draws a line starting at coordinates (1,3).
\put(1,3){\line(2,5){4}}
For every over 2, this line will go up 5. Because travel specifies that this goes over 4, it must go up 10. Thus its endpoint is (1,3)+(4,10)=(5,13). In particular, note that travel=4 is not the length of the line, it is the change in x.
The arguments x_run and y_rise are integers that can be
positive, negative, or zero. (If both are 0 then LaTeX treats the
second as 1.) With
\put(x_init,y_init){\line(x_run,y_rise){travel}}
,
if x_run is negative then the line’s ending point has a first
coordinate that is less than x_init. If y_rise is negative
then the line’s ending point has a second coordinate that is less than
y_init.
If travel is negative then you get LaTeX Error: Bad \line or
\vector argument.
Standard LaTeX can only draw lines with a limited range of slopes
because these lines are made by putting together line segments from
pre-made fonts. The two numbers x_run and y_rise must have
integer values from -6 through 6. Also, they must be
relatively prime, so that (x_run,y_rise) can be (2,1) but not
(4,2) (if you choose the latter then instead of lines you get sequences
of arrowheads; the solution is to switch to the former). To get lines
of arbitrary slope and plenty of other shapes in a system like
picture
, see the package pict2e on CTAN. Another solution
is to use a full-featured graphics system such as TikZ, or
PSTricks, or MetaPost, or Asymptote
Next: \thinlines, Previous: \line, Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\linethickness
Synopsis:
\linethickness{dim}
Declares the thickness of subsequent horizontal and vertical lines in a
picture to be dim, which must be a positive length
(see Lengths). It differs from \thinlines
and
\thicklines
in that it does not affect the thickness of slanted
lines, circles, or ovals.
Next: \thicklines, Previous: \linethickness, Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\thinlines
Declaration to set the thickness of subsequent lines, circles, and ovals in a picture environment to be 0.4pt. This is the default thickness, so this command is unnecessary unless the thickness has been changed with either \linethickness or \thicklines.
Next: \circle, Previous: \thinlines, Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\thicklines
Declaration to set the thickness of subsequent lines, circles, and ovals in a picture environment to be 0.8pt. See also \linethickness and \thinlines. This command is illustrated in the Trapezoidal Rule example of picture.
Next: \oval, Previous: \thicklines, Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\circle
Synopsis:
\circle{diameter} \circle*{diameter}
Produces a circle with a diameter as close as possible to the specified
one. The *
form produces a filled-in circle.
This draws a circle of radius 6, centered at (5,7)
.
\put(5,7){\circle{6}}
The available radii for circle
are, in points, the even
numbers from 2 to 20, inclusive. For circle*
they are all the
integers from 1 to 15.
Next: \shortstack, Previous: \circle, Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\oval
Synopsis:
\oval(width,height) \oval(width,height)[portion]
Produce a rectangle with rounded corners. The optional argument portion allows you to produce only half or a quarter of the oval. For half an oval take portion to be one of these.
t
top half
b
bottom half
r
right half
l
left half
Produce only one quarter of the oval by setting portion to
tr
, br
, bl
, or tl
.
This draws the top half of an oval that is 3 wide and 7 tall.
\put(5,7){\oval(3,7)[t]}
The (5,7) is the center of the entire oval, not just the center of the top half.
These shapes are not ellipses. They are rectangles whose corners are made with quarter circles. These circles have a maximum radius of 20pt (see \circle for the sizes). Thus large ovals are just boxes with a small amount of corner rounding.
\shortstack
Synopsis:
\shortstack[position]{line 1 \\ ... }
Produce a vertical stack of objects.
This labels the y axis.
\put(0,0){\vector(1,0){4}} % x axis \put(0,0){\vector(0,1){2}} % y \put(-0.25,2){\makebox[0][r]{\shortstack[r]{$y$\\ axis}}}
For a short stack, the reference point is the lower left of the stack. In the above example the \mbox & \makebox puts the stack flush right in a zero width box so in total the short stack sits slightly to the left of the y axis.
The valid positions are:
r
Make objects flush right
l
Make objects flush left
c
Center objects (default)
Separate objects into lines with \\
. These stacks are short in
that, unlike in a tabular
or array
environment, here the
rows are not spaced out to be of even heights. Thus, in
\shortstack{X\\o\\o\\X}
the first and last rows are taller than
the middle two. You can adjust row heights either by putting in the
usual interline spacing with \shortstack{X\\ \strut o\\o\\X}
,
or by hand, via an explicit zero-width box \shortstack{X \\
\rule{0pt}{12pt} o\\o\\X}
or by using \\
’s optional
argument \shortstack{X\\[2pt] o\\o\\X}
.
The \shortstack
command is also available outside the
picture
environment.
Next: \makebox (picture), Previous: \shortstack, Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\vector
Synopsis:
\vector(x_run,y_rise){travel}
Draw a line ending in an arrow. The slope of that line is: it vertically rises y_rise for every horizontal x_run. The travel is the total horizontal change — it is not the length of the vector, it is the change in x. In the special case of vertical vectors, if (x_run,y_rise)=(0,1), then travel gives the change in y.
For an example see picture.
For elaboration on x_run and y_rise see \line. As
there, the values of x_run and y_rise are limited. For
\vector
you must chooses integers between -4 and 4,
inclusive. Also, the two you choose must be relatively prime. Thus,
\vector(2,1){4}
is acceptable but \vector(4,2){4}
is
not (if you use the latter then you get a sequence of arrowheads).
Next: \framebox (picture), Previous: \vector, Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\makebox
(picture)Synopsis:
\makebox(rec-width,rec-height){text} \makebox(rec-width,rec-height)[position]{text}
Make a box to hold text. This command fits with the
picture
environment, although you can use it outside of there,
because rec-width and rec-height are numbers specifying
distances in terms of the \unitlength
(see picture). This
command is similar to the normal \makebox
command (see \mbox & \makebox) except here that you must specify the width and height. This
command is fragile (see \protect).
This makes a box of length 3.5 times \unitlength
and height 4
times \unitlength
.
\put(1,2){\makebox(3.5,4){...}}
The optional argument position
specifies where in the box
the text appears. The default is to center it, both horizontally
and vertically. To place it somewhere else, use a string with one or
two of these letters.
t
Puts text the top of the box.
b
Put text at the bottom.
l
Put text on the left.
r
Put text on the right.
Next: \frame, Previous: \makebox (picture), Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\framebox
(picture)Synopsis:
\framebox(rec-width,rec-height){text} \framebox(rec-width,rec-height)[position]{text}
This is the same as \makebox (picture) except that it puts a frame
around the outside of the box that it creates. The reference point is
the bottom left corner of the frame. This command fits with the
picture
environment, although you can use it outside of there,
because lengths are numbers specifying the distance in terms of the
\unitlength
(see picture). This command is fragile
(see \protect).
This example creates a frame 2.5 inches by 3 inches and puts the text in the center.
\setlength{\unitlength}{1in} \framebox(2.5,3){test text}
The required arguments are that the rectangle has overall width rect-width units and height rect-height units.
The optional argument position specifies the position of text; see \makebox (picture) for the values that it can take.
The rule has thickness \fboxrule
and there is a blank space
\fboxsep
between the frame and the contents of the box.
For this command, you must specify the width and height. If
you want to just put a frame around some contents whose dimension is
determined in some other way then either use \fbox
(see \fbox & \framebox) or \frame
(see \frame).
Next: \dashbox, Previous: \framebox (picture), Up: picture [Contents][Index]
\frame
Synopsis:
\frame{contents}
Puts a rectangular frame around contents. The reference point is
the bottom left corner of the frame. In contrast to \framebox
(see \framebox (picture)), this command puts no extra space is put
between the frame and the object. It is fragile (see \protect).
\dashbox
Synopsis:
\dashbox{dash-len}(rect-width,rect-height){text} \dashbox{dash-len}(rect-width,rect-height)[position]{text}
Create a dashed rectangle around text. This command fits with the
picture
environment, although you can use it outside of there,
because lengths are numbers specifying the distance in terms of the
\unitlength
(see picture).
The required arguments are: dashes are dash-len units long, with the same length gap, and the rectangle has overall width rect-width units and height rect-height units.
The optional argument position specifies the position of text; see \makebox (picture) for the values that it can take.
This shows that you can use non-integer value for dash-len.
\put(0,0){\dashbox{0.1}(5,0.5){My hovercraft is full of eels.}}
Each dash will be 0.1\unitlength
long, the box’s width is
5\unitlength
and its height is 0.5\unitlength
.
As in that example, a dashed box looks best when rect-width and rect-height are multiples of the dash-len.
Next: tabbing, Previous: picture, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
quotation
& quote
Synopsis:
\begin{quotation} text \end{quotation}
or
\begin{quote} text \end{quote}
Include a quotation. Both environments indent margins on both sides by
\leftmargin
and the text is right-justified.
They differ in how they treat paragraphs. In the quotation
environment, paragraphs are indented by 1.5em and the space
between paragraphs is small, 0pt plus 1pt
. In the quote
environment, paragraphs are not indented and there is vertical space
between paragraphs (it is the rubber length \parsep
).
\begin{quotation} \small\it Four score and seven years ago ... shall not perish from the earth. \hspace{1em plus 1fill}---Abraham Lincoln \end{quotation}
Next: table, Previous: quotation & quote, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
tabbing
Synopsis:
\begin{tabbing} row1col1 \= row1col2 ... \\ row2col1 \> row2col2 ... \\ ... \end{tabbing}
Align text in columns, by setting tab stops and tabbing to them much as
was done on a typewriter. This is less often used than the environments
tabular
(see tabular) or array
(see array) because
in those the width of each column need not be constant and need not be
known in advance.
This example has a first line where the tab stops are set to explicit
widths, ended by a \kill
command (which is described below):
\begin{tabbing} \hspace{0.75in} \= \hspace{0.40in} \= \hspace{0.40in} \kill Ship \> Guns \> Year \\ \textit{Sophie} \> 14 \> 1800 \\ \textit{Polychrest} \> 24 \> 1803 \\ \textit{Lively} \> 38 \> 1804 \\ \textit{Surprise} \> 28 \> 1805 \\ \end{tabbing}
Both the tabbing
environment and the more widely-used
tabular
environment put text in columns. The most important
distinction is that in tabular
the width of columns is
determined automatically by LaTeX, while in tabbing
the user
sets the tab stops. Another distinction is that tabular
generates a box, but tabbing
can be broken across pages.
Finally, while tabular
can be used in any mode, tabbing
can be used only in paragraph mode and it starts a new paragraph.
A tabbing
environment always starts a new paragraph, without
indentation. Moreover, as shown in the example above, there is no need
to use the starred form of the \hspace
command at the beginning
of a tabbed row. The right margin of the tabbing
environment is
the end of line, so that the width of the environment is
\linewidth
.
The tabbing
environment contains a sequence of tabbed
rows. The first tabbed row begins immediately after
\begin{tabbing}
and each row ends with \\
or
\kill
. The last row may omit the \\
and end with just
\end{tabbing}
.
At any point the tabbing
environment has a current tab stop
pattern, a sequence of n > 0 tab stops, numbered 0, 1,
etc. These create n corresponding columns. Tab stop 0 is
always the left margin, defined by the enclosing environment. Tab
stop number i is set if it is assigned a horizontal
position on the page. Tab stop number i can only be set if
all the stops 0, …, i-1 have already been set; normally
later stops are to the right of earlier ones.
By default any text typeset in a tabbing
environment is typeset
ragged right and left-aligned on the current tab stop. Typesetting is
done in LR mode (see Modes).
The following commands can be used inside a tabbing
environment.
They are all fragile (see \protect).
\\ (tabbing)
End a tabbed line and typeset it.
\= (tabbing)
Sets a tab stop at the current position.
\> (tabbing)
Advances to the next tab stop.
\<
Put following text to the left of the local margin (without changing the margin). Can only be used at the start of the line.
\+
Moves the left margin of the next and all the following commands one tab stop to the right, beginning tabbed line if necessary.
\-
Moves the left margin of the next and all the following commands one tab stop to the left, beginning tabbed line if necessary.
\' (tabbing)
Moves everything that you have typed so far in the current column, i.e.,
everything from the most recent \>
, \<
, \'
,
\\
, or \kill
command, to the previous column and aligned
to the right, flush against the current column’s tab stop.
\` (tabbing)
Allows you to put text flush right against any tab stop, including tab
stop 0. However, it can’t move text to the right of the last
column because there’s no tab stop there. The \`
command moves
all the text that follows it, up to the \\
or
\end{tabbing}
command that ends the line, to the right margin
of the tabbing
environment. There must be no \>
or
\'
command between the \`
and the \\
or
\end{tabbing}
command that ends the line.
\a (tabbing)
In a tabbing
environment, the commands \=
, \'
and
\`
do not produce accents as usual (see Accents). Instead,
use the commands \a=
, \a'
and \a`
.
\kill
Sets tab stops without producing text. Works just like \\
except
that it throws away the current line instead of producing output for it.
Any \=
, \+
or \-
commands in that line remain in
effect.
\poptabs
Restores the tab stop positions saved by the last \pushtabs
.
\pushtabs
Saves all current tab stop positions. Useful for temporarily changing
tab stop positions in the middle of a tabbing
environment.
\tabbingsep
Distance of the text moved by \'
to left of current tab stop.
This example typesets a Pascal function:
\begin{tabbing} function \= fact(n : integer) : integer;\\ \> begin \= \+ \\ \> if \= n > 1 then \+ \\ fact := n * fact(n-1) \- \\ else \+ \\ fact := 1; \-\- \\ end;\\ \end{tabbing}
The output looks like this.
function fact(n : integer) : integer; begin if n > 1 then fact := n * fact(n-1); else fact := 1; end;
This example is just for illustration of the environment. To actually
typeset computer code in typewriter like this, a verbatim environment
(see verbatim) would normally be best. For pretty-printed code,
there are quite a few packages, including algorithm2e
,
fancyvrb
, listings
, and minted
.
Next: tabular, Previous: tabbing, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
table
Synopsis:
\begin{table}[placement] table body \caption[loftitle]{title} % optional \label{label} % also optional \end{table}
A class of floats (see Floats). They cannot be split across pages and so they are not typeset in sequence with the normal text but instead are floated to a convenient place, such as the top of a following page.
This example table
environment contains a tabular
\begin{table} \centering\small \begin{tabular}{ll} \multicolumn{1}{c}{\textit{Author}} &\multicolumn{1}{c}{\textit{Piece}} \\ \hline Bach &Cello Suite Number 1 \\ Beethoven &Cello Sonata Number 3 \\ Brahms &Cello Sonata Number 1 \end{tabular} \caption{Top cello pieces} \label{tab:cello} \end{table}
but you can put many different kinds of content in a table
,
including text, LaTeX commands, etc.
For the possible values of placement and their effect on the float placement algorithm, see Floats.
The table body is typeset in a parbox
of width \textwidth
.
It can contain text, commands, graphics, etc.
The label is optional; it is used for cross references (see Cross references).
The \caption
command is also optional. It specifies caption text
for the table. By default it is numbered. If its optional
lottitle is present then that text is used in the list of tables
instead of title (see Table of contents etc.).
In this example the table and caption will float to the bottom of a page, unless it is pushed to a float page at the end.
\begin{table}[b] \centering \begin{tabular}{r|p{2in}} \hline One &The loneliest number \\ Two &Can be as sad as one. It's the loneliest number since the number one. \end{tabular} \caption{Cardinal virtues} \label{tab:CardinalVirtues} \end{table}
Next: thebibliography, Previous: table, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
tabular
Synopsis:
\begin{tabular}[pos]{cols} column 1 entry &column 2 entry ... &column n entry \\ ... \end{tabular}
or
\begin{tabular*}{width}[pos]{cols} column 1 entry &column 2 entry ... &column n entry \\ ... \end{tabular*}
Produce a table, a box consisting of a sequence of horizontal rows. Each row consists of items that are aligned vertically in columns. This illustrates many of the features.
\begin{tabular}{l|l} \textit{Player name} &\textit{Career home runs} \\ \hline Hank Aaron &755 \\ Babe Ruth &714 \end{tabular}
The output will have two left-aligned columns with a vertical bar
between them. This is specified in tabular
’s argument
{l|l}
.
Put the entries into different columns by separating them with an
ampersand, &
. The end of each row is marked with a double
backslash, \\
. Put a horizontal rule below a row, after a double
backslash, with \hline
.
After the last row the \\
is optional, unless an \hline
command follows to put a rule below the table.
The required and optional arguments to tabular
consist of:
Optional. Specifies the table’s vertical position. The default is to
align the table so its vertical center matches the baseline of the
surrounding text. There are two other possible alignments: t
aligns the table so its top row matches the baseline of the surrounding
text, and b
aligns on the bottom row.
This only has an effect if there is other text. In the common case of a
tabular
alone in a center
environment this option makes
no difference.
Required. Specifies the formatting of columns. It consists of a sequence of the following specifiers, corresponding to the types of column and intercolumn material.
l
A column of left-aligned items.
r
A column of right-aligned items.
c
A column of centered items.
|
A vertical line the full height and depth of the environment.
@{text or space}
Insert text or space at this location in every row. The text or space material is typeset in LR mode. This text is fragile (see \protect).
If between two columns there is no @-expression then LaTeX’s
book
, article
, and report
classes will put on
either side of each column a space of length \tabcolsep
, which by
default is 6pt. That is, by default adjacent columns are
separated by 12pt (so \tabcolsep
is misleadingly named
since it is only half of the separation between tabular columns). In
addition, a space of 6pt also comes before the first column and
after the final column, unless you put a @{...}
or |
there.
If you override the default and use an @-expression then LaTeX does
not insert \tabcolsep
so you must insert any desired space
yourself, as in @{\hspace{1em}}
.
An empty expression @{}
will eliminate the space. In
particular, sometimes you want to eliminate the space before the first
column or after the last one, as in the example below where the
tabular lines need to lie on the left margin.
\begin{flushleft} \begin{tabular}{@{}l} ... \end{tabular} \end{flushleft}
The next example shows text, a decimal point between the columns, arranged so the numbers in the table are aligned on it.
\begin{tabular}{r@{$.$}l} $3$ &$14$ \\ $9$ &$80665$ \end{tabular}
An \extracolsep{wd}
command in an @-expression causes an
extra space of width wd to appear to the left of all subsequent
columns, until countermanded by another \extracolsep
. Unlike
ordinary intercolumn space, this extra space is not suppressed by an
@-expression. An \extracolsep
command can be used only in an
@-expression in the cols
argument. Below, LaTeX inserts the
right amount of intercolumn space to make the entire table 4 inches
wide.
\begin{tabular*}{4in}{l@{\extracolsep{\fill}}l} Seven times down, eight times up \ldots &such is life! \end{tabular*}
To insert commands that are automatically executed before a given
column, load the array
package and use the >{...}
specifier.
p{wd}
Each item in the column is typeset in a parbox of width wd, as if
it were the argument of a \parbox[t]{wd}{...}
command.
A line break double backslash \\
may not appear in the item,
except inside an environment like minipage
, array
, or
tabular
, or inside an explicit \parbox
, or in the scope of
a \centering
, \raggedright
, or \raggedleft
declaration (when used in a p
-column element these declarations
must appear inside braces, as with {\centering .. \\
..}
). Otherwise LaTeX will misinterpret the double backslash as
ending the row. Instead, to get a line break in there use
\newline
(see \newline).
*{num}{cols}
Equivalent to num copies of cols, where num is a
positive integer and cols is a list of specifiers. Thus the
specifier \begin{tabular}{|*{3}{l|r}|}
is equivalent to
the specifier \begin{tabular}{|l|rl|rl|r|}
. Note that
cols may contain another *
-expression.
Required for tabular*
, not allowed for tabular
. Specifies
the width of the tabular*
environment. The space between columns
should be rubber, as with @{\extracolsep{\fill}}
, to allow
the table to stretch or shrink to make the specified width, or else you
are likely to get the Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) in alignment
...
warning.
Parameters that control formatting:
\arrayrulewidth
A length that is the thickness of the rule created by |
,
\hline
, and \vline
in the tabular
and array
environments. The default is ‘.4pt’. Change it as in
\setlength{\arrayrulewidth}{0.8pt}
.
\arraystretch
A factor by which the spacing between rows in the tabular
and
array
environments is multiplied. The default is ‘1’, for
no scaling. Change it as \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.2}
.
\doublerulesep
A length that is the distance between the vertical rules produced by the
||
specifier. The default is ‘2pt’.
\tabcolsep
A length that is half of the space between columns. The default is
‘6pt’. Change it with \setlength
.
The following commands can be used inside the body of a tabular
environment, the first two inside an entry and the second two between
lines:
• \multicolumn: | Make an item spanning several columns. | |
• \vline: | Draw a vertical line. | |
• \cline: | Draw a horizontal line spanning some columns. | |
• \hline: | Draw a horizontal line spanning all columns. |
\multicolumn
Synopsis:
\multicolumn{numcols}{cols}{text}
Make an array
or tabular
entry that spans several columns.
The first argument numcols gives the number of columns to span.
The second argument cols specifies the formatting of the entry,
with c
for centered, l
for flush left, or r
for
flush right. The third argument text gives the contents of that
entry.
In this example, in the first row, the second and third columns are spanned by the single heading ‘Name’.
\begin{tabular}{lccl} \textit{ID} &\multicolumn{2}{c}{\textit{Name}} &\textit{Age} \\ \hline 978-0-393-03701-2 &O'Brian &Patrick &55 \\ ... \end{tabular}
What counts as a column is: the column format specifier for the
array
or tabular
environment is broken into parts, where
each part (except the first) begins with l
, c
, r
,
or p
. So from \begin{tabular}{|r|ccp{1.5in}|}
the parts are |r|
, c
, c
,
and p{1.5in}|
.
The cols argument overrides the array
or tabular
environment’s intercolumn area default adjoining this multicolumn
entry. To affect that area, this argument can contain vertical bars
|
indicating the placement of vertical rules, and @{...}
expressions. Thus if cols is ‘|c|’ then this multicolumn
entry will be centered and a vertical rule will come in the intercolumn
area before it and after it. This table details the exact behavior.
\begin{tabular}{|cc|c|c|} \multicolumn{1}{r}{w} % entry one &\multicolumn{1}{|r|}{x} % entry two &\multicolumn{1}{|r}{y} % entry three &z % entry four \end{tabular}
Before the first entry the output will not have a vertical rule because
the \multicolumn
has the cols specifier ‘r’ with no
initial vertical bar. Between entry one and entry two there will be a
vertical rule; although the first cols does not have an ending
vertical bar, the second cols does have a starting one. Between
entry two and entry three there is a single vertical rule; despite that
the cols in both of the surrounding multicolumn
’s call for
a vertical rule, you only get one rule. Between entry three and entry
four there is no vertical rule; the default calls for one but the
cols in the entry three \multicolumn
leaves it out, and
that takes precedence. Finally, following entry four there is a
vertical rule because of the default.
The number of spanned columns numcols can be 1. Besides giving
the ability to change the horizontal alignment, this also is useful to
override for one row the tabular
definition’s default intercolumn
area specification, including the placement of vertical rules.
In the example below, in the tabular
definition the first column
is specified to default to left justified but in the first row the entry
is centered with \multicolumn{1}{c}{\textsc{Period}}
.
Also in the first row, the second and third columns are spanned by a
single entry with \multicolumn{2}{c}{\textsc{Span}}
,
overriding the specification to center those two columns on the page
range en-dash.
\begin{tabular}{l|r@{--}l} \multicolumn{1}{c}{\textsc{Period}} &multicolumn{2}{c}{\textsc{Span}} \\ \hline Baroque &1600 &1760 \\ Classical &1730 &1820 \\ Romantic &1780 &1910 \\ Impressionistic &1875 &1925 \end{tabular}
Although the tabular
specification by default puts a vertical
rule between the first and second columns, no such vertical rule appears
in the first row here. That’s because there is no vertical bar in the
cols part of the first row’s first \multicolumn
command.
Next: \cline, Previous: \multicolumn, Up: tabular [Contents][Index]
\vline
Draw a vertical line in a tabular
or array
environment
extending the full height and depth of an entry’s row. Can also be
used in an @-expression, although its synonym vertical
bar |
is more common. This command is rarely used in the
body of a table; typically a table’s vertical lines are specified in
tabular
’s cols argument and overridden as needed with
\multicolumn
(see tabular).
The example below illustrates some pitfalls. In the first row’s second
entry the \hfill
moves the \vline
to the left edge of the
cell. But that is different than putting it halfway between the two
columns, so between the first and second columns there are two vertical
rules, with the one from the {c|cc}
specifier coming before the
one produced by the \vline\hfill
. In contrast, the first row’s
third entry shows the usual way to put a vertical bar between two
columns. In the second row, the ghi
is the widest entry in its
column so in the \vline\hfill
the \hfill
has no effect and
the vertical line in that entry appears immediately next to the
g
, with no whitespace.
\begin{tabular}{c|cc} x &\vline\hfill y &\multicolumn{1}{|r}{z} \\ % row 1 abc &def &\vline\hfill ghi % row 2 \end{tabular}
\cline
Synopsis:
\cline{i-j}
In an array
or tabular
environment, draw a horizontal rule
beginning in column i and ending in column j. The
dash, -
, must appear in the mandatory argument. To span a single
column use the number twice, as with \cline{2-2}
.
This example puts two horizontal lines between the first and second rows, one line in the first column only, and the other spanning the third and fourth columns. The two lines are side-by-side, at the same height.
\begin{tabular}{llrr} a &b &c &d \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{3-4} e &f &g &h \end{tabular}
\hline
Draw a horizontal line the width of the enclosing tabular
or
array
environment. It’s most commonly used to draw a line at the
top, bottom, and between the rows of a table.
In this example the top of the table has two horizontal rules, one above
the other, that span both columns. The bottom of the table has a single
rule spanning both columns. Because of the \hline
, the
tabular
second row’s line ending double backslash \\
is required.
\begin{tabular}{ll} \hline\hline Baseball &Red Sox \\ Basketball &Celtics \\ \hline \end{tabular}
Next: theorem, Previous: tabular, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
thebibliography
Synopsis:
\begin{thebibliography}{widest-label} \bibitem[label]{cite_key} ... \end{thebibliography}
Produce a bibliography or reference list. There are two ways to produce bibliographic lists. This environment is suitable when you have only a few references and can maintain the list by hand. See Using BibTeX for a more sophisticated approach.
This shows the environment with two entries.
This work is based on \cite{latexdps}. Together they are \cite{latexdps, texbook}. ... \begin{thebibliography}{9} \bibitem{latexdps} Leslie Lamport. \textit{\LaTeX{}: a document preparation system}. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993. \bibitem{texbook} Donald Ervin Knuth. \textit{The \TeX book}. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1983. \end{thebibliography}
This styles the first reference as ‘[1] Leslie ...’, and so that
\cite{latexdps}
produces the matching ‘... based on [1]’.
The second \cite
produces ‘[1, 2]’. You must compile the
document twice to resolve these references.
The mandatory argument widest-label is text that, when typeset, is
as wide as the widest item label produced by the \bibitem
commands. The tradition is to use 9
for bibliographies with less
than 10 references, 99
for ones with less than 100, etc.
The bibliographic list is headed by a title such as ‘Bibliography’.
To change it there are two cases. In the book and report
classes, where the top level sectioning is \chapter
and the
default title is ‘Bibliography’, that title is in the macro
\bibname
. For article, where the class’s top level
sectioning is \section
and the default is ‘References’, the
title is in macro \refname
. Change it by redefining the command,
as with \renewcommand{\refname}{Cited references}
after
\begin{document}
.
Language support packages such as babel will automatically
redefine \refname
or \bibname
to fit the selected
language.
• \bibitem: | Specify a bibliography item. | |
• \cite: | Refer to a bibliography item. | |
• \nocite: | Include an item in the bibliography. | |
• Using BibTeX: | Automatic generation of bibliographies. |
Next: \cite, Up: thebibliography [Contents][Index]
\bibitem
Synopsis:
\bibitem{cite_key}
or
\bibitem[label]{cite_key}
Generate an entry labeled by label. The default is for LaTeX to
generates a number using the enumi
counter. The citation key
cite_key is a string of
letters, numbers, and punctuation symbols (but not comma).
See thebibliography for an example.
The optional label changes the default label from an integer to the given string. With this
\begin{thebibliography} \bibitem[Lamport 1993]{latexdps} Leslie Lamport. \textit{\LaTeX{}: a document preparation system}. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1993. \bibitem{texbook} Donald Ervin Knuth. \textit{The \TeX book}. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1983. \end{thebibliography}
the first entry will be styled as ‘[Lamport 1993] Leslie ...’ (The
amount of horizontal space that LaTeX leaves for the label depends on
the widest-label argument of the thebibliography
environment; see thebibliography.) Similarly, ... based on
\cite{latexdps}
will produce ‘... based on [Lamport 1994]’.
If you mix \bibitem
entries having a label with those that
do not then LaTeX will number the unlabelled ones sequentially. In
the example above the texbook
entry will appear as ‘[1]
Donald ...’, despite that it is the second entry.
If you use the same cite_key twice then you get ‘LaTeX Warning: There were multiply-defined labels’.
Under the hood, LaTeX remembers the cite_key and label
information because \bibitem
writes it to the auxiliary file
filename.aux. For instance, the above example causes
\bibcite{latexdps}{Lamport, 1993}
and
\bibcite{texbook}{1}
to appear in that file. The .aux
file is read by the \begin{document}
command and then the
information is available for \cite
commands. This explains why
you need to run LaTeX twice to resolve references: once to write it
out and once to read it in.
Because of this two-pass algorithm, when you add a \bibitem
or
change its cite_key you may get ‘LaTeX Warning: Label(s) may
have changed. Rerun to get cross-references right’. Fix it by
recompiling.
Next: \nocite, Previous: \bibitem, Up: thebibliography [Contents][Index]
\cite
Synopsis:
\cite{keys}
or
\cite[subcite]{keys}
Generate as output a citation to the references associated with keys. The mandatory keys is a citation key, or a comma-separated list of citation keys (see \bibitem).
This
The ultimate source is \cite{texbook}. ... \begin{thebibliography} \bibitem{texbook} Donald Ervin Knuth. \textit{The \TeX book}. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1983. \end{thebibliography}
produces output like ‘... source is [1]’. (You can change the appearance of the citation with bibliography styles. More is in Using BibTeX.)
The optional argument subcite is appended to the citation. For
example, See 14.3 in \cite[p.~314]{texbook}
might produce
‘See 14.3 in [1, p. 314]’.
In addition to what appears in the output, \cite
writes
information to the auxiliary file filename.aux. For
instance, \cite{latexdps}
writes ‘\citation{latexdps}’
to that file. This information is used by BibTeX to include in your
reference list only those works that you have actually cited; see
\nocite also.
If keys is not in your bibliography information then you get
‘LaTeX Warning: There were undefined references’, and in the output
the citation shows as a boldface question mark between square brackets.
There are two possible causes. If you have mistyped something, as in
\cite{texbok}
then you need to correct the spelling. On the
other hand, if you have just added or modified the bibliographic
information and so changed the .aux file (see \bibitem) then
the fix may be to run LaTeX again.
Next: Using BibTeX, Previous: \cite, Up: thebibliography [Contents][Index]
\nocite
Synopsis:
\nocite{keys}
Produces no output but writes keys to the auxiliary file doc-filename.aux.
The mandatory argument keys is a comma-separated list of one or more citation keys (see \bibitem). This information is used by BibTeX to include these works in your reference list even though you have not cited them (see \cite).
Previous: \nocite, Up: thebibliography [Contents][Index]
As described in thebibliography
(see thebibliography), a
sophisticated approach to managing bibliographies is provided by the
BibTeX program. This is only an introduction; see the full
documentation on CTAN.
With BibTeX, you don’t use thebibliography
(see thebibliography). Instead, include these lines.
\bibliographystyle{bibstyle} \bibliography{bibfile1, bibfile2, ...}
The bibstyle refers to a file bibstyle.bst, which defines how your citations will look. The standard bibstyle’s distributed with BibTeX are:
alpha
Labels are formed from name of author and year of publication. The bibliographic items are sorted alphabetically.
plain
Labels are integers. Sort the bibliographic items alphabetically.
unsrt
Like plain
, but entries are in order of citation.
abbrv
Like plain
, but more compact labels.
Many, many other BibTeX style files exist, tailored to the demands of various publications. See CTAN’s listing http://mirror.ctan.org/biblio/bibtex/contrib.
The \bibliography
command is what actually produces the
bibliography. Its argument is a comma-separated list, referring to
files named bibfile1.bib, bibfile2.bib,
… These contain your database in BibTeX format. This shows a
typical couple of entries in that format.
@book{texbook, title = {The {{\TeX}}book}, author = {D.E. Knuth}, isbn = {0201134489}, series = {Computers \& typesetting}, year = {1983}, publisher = {Addison-Wesley} } @book{sexbook, author = {W.H. Masters and V.E. Johnson}, title = {Human Sexual Response}, year = {1966}, publisher = {Bantam Books} }
Only the bibliographic entries referred to via \cite
and
\nocite
will be listed in the document’s bibliography. Thus you
can keep all your sources together in one file, or a small number of
files, and rely on BibTeX to include in this document only those that
you used.
Next: titlepage, Previous: thebibliography, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
theorem
Synopsis:
\begin{theorem} theorem body \end{theorem}
Produces ‘Theorem n’ in boldface followed by theorem
body in italics. The numbering possibilities for n are described under
\newtheorem
(see \newtheorem).
\newtheorem{lem}{Lemma} % in preamble \newtheorem{thm}{Theorem} ... \begin{lem} % in document body text of lemma \end{lem} The next result follows immediately. \begin{thm}[Gauss] % put `Gauss' in parens after theorem head text of theorem \end{thm}
Most new documents use the packages amsthm
and amsmath
from the American Mathematical Society. Among other things these
packages include a large number of options for theorem environments,
such as styling options.
Next: verbatim, Previous: theorem, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
titlepage
Synopsis:
\begin{titlepage} ... text and spacing ... \end{titlepage}
Create a title page, a page with no printed page number or heading and with succeeding pages numbered starting with page one.
In this example all formatting, including vertical spacing, is left to the author.
\begin{titlepage} \vspace*{\stretch{1}} \begin{center} {\huge\bfseries Thesis \\[1ex] title} \\[6.5ex] {\large\bfseries Author name} \\ \vspace{4ex} Thesis submitted to \\[5pt] \textit{University name} \\[2cm] in partial fulfilment for the award of the degree of \\[2cm] \textsc{\Large Doctor of Philosophy} \\[2ex] \textsc{\large Mathematics} \\[12ex] \vfill Department of Mathematics \\ Address \\ \vfill \today \end{center} \vspace{\stretch{2}} \end{titlepage}
To instead produce a standard title page without a titlepage
environment, use \maketitle
(see \maketitle).
Next: verse, Previous: titlepage, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
verbatim
Synopsis:
\begin{verbatim} literal-text \end{verbatim}
A paragraph-making environment in which LaTeX produces as output
exactly what you type as input. For instance inside literal-text
the backslash \
character does not start commands, it
produces a printed ‘\’, and carriage returns and blanks are taken
literally. The output appears in a monospaced typewriter-like font
(\tt
).
\begin{verbatim} Symbol swearing: %&$#?!. \end{verbatim}
The only restriction on literal-text
is that it cannot include
the string \end{verbatim}
.
You cannot use the verbatim environment in the argument to macros, for
instance in the argument to a \section
. This is not the same as
commands being fragile (see \protect), instead it just cannot appear
there. (But the cprotect
package can help with this.)
One common use of verbatim input is to typeset computer code. There are
packages that are an improvement the verbatim
environment. For
instance, one improvement is to allow the verbatim inclusion of external
files, or parts of those files. Such packages include listings
,
and minted
.
A package that provides many more options for verbatim environments is
fancyvrb
. Another is verbatimbox
.
For a list of all the relevant packages, see CTAN.
• \verb: | The macro form of the verbatim environment.
|
\verb
Synopsis:
\verb char literal-text char \verb* char literal-text char
Typeset literal-text as it is input, including special characters
and spaces, using the typewriter (\tt
) font.
This example shows two different invocations of \verb
.
This is \verb!literally! the biggest pumpkin ever. And this is the best squash, \verb+literally!+
The first \verb
has its literal-text surrounded with
exclamation point, !
. The second instead uses plus, +
,
because the exclamation point is part of literal-text
.
The single-character delimiter char surrounds
literal-text — it must be the same character before and
after. No spaces come between \verb
or \verb*
and
char, or between char and literal-text, or between
literal-text and the second occurrence of char (the synopsis
shows a space only to distinguish one component from the other). The
delimiter must not appear in literal-text. The literal-text
cannot include a line break.
The *
-form differs only in that spaces are printed with a visible
space character.
The output from this will include a character showing the spaces.
The commands's first argument is \verb*!filename with extension! and ...
For typesetting Internet addresses, urls, the package url
provides an option that is better than the \verb
command, since
it allows line breaks.
For computer code there are many packages with advantages over
\verb
. One is listings, another is minted.
You cannot use \verb
in the argument to a macro, for instance in
the argument to a \section
. It is not a question of \verb
being fragile (see \protect), instead it just cannot appear there.
(But the cprotect
package can help with this.)
Previous: verbatim, Up: Environments [Contents][Index]
verse
Synopsis:
\begin{verse} line1 \\ line2 \\ ... \end{verse}
An environment for poetry.
Here are two lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set \\ On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
Separate the lines of each stanza with \\
, and use one or more
blank lines to separate the stanzas.
\begin{verse} \makebox[\linewidth][c]{\textit{Shut Not Your Doors} ---Walt Whitman} \\[1\baselineskip] Shut not your doors to me proud libraries, \\ For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, \\ \qquad yet needed most, I bring, \\ Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made, \\ The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing, \\ A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect, \\ But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page. \end{verse}
The output has margins indented on the left and the right, paragraphs are not indented, and the text is not right-justified.
Next: Page breaking, Previous: Environments, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
The first thing LaTeX does when processing ordinary text is to translate your input file into a sequence of glyphs and spaces. To produce a printed document, this sequence must be broken into lines (and these lines must be broken into pages).
LaTeX usually does the line (and page) breaking in the text body for you but in some environments you manually force line breaks.
A common workflow is to get a final version of the document content before taking a final pass through and considering line breaks (and page breaks). This differs from word processing, where you are formatting text as you input it. Putting these off until the end prevents a lot of fiddling with breaks that will change anyway.
• \\: | Start a new line. | |
• \obeycr & \restorecr: | Make each input line start a new output line. | |
• \newline: | Break the line | |
• \- (hyphenation): | Insert explicit hyphenation. | |
• \discretionary: | Explicit control of the hyphen character. | |
• \fussy & \sloppy: | Be more or less particular with line breaking. | |
• \hyphenation: | Tell LaTeX how to hyphenate a word. | |
• \linebreak & \nolinebreak: | Forcing & avoiding line breaks. |
Next: \obeycr & \restorecr, Up: Line breaking [Contents][Index]
\\
Synopsis, one of:
\\ \\[morespace]
or one of:
\\* \\*[morespace]
End the current line. The optional argument morespace specifies extra vertical space to be inserted before the next line. This is a rubber length (see Lengths) and can be negative. The text before the line break is set at its normal length, that is, it is not stretched to fill out the line width. This command is fragile (see \protect).
The starred form, \\*
, tells LaTeX not to start a new page
between the two lines, by issuing a \nobreak
.
\title{My story: \\[0.25in] a tale of woe}
Explicit line breaks in the main text body are unusual in LaTeX. In
particular, don’t start new paragraphs with \\
. Instead leave a
blank line between the two paragraphs. And don’t put in a sequence of
\\
’s to make vertical space. Instead use
\vspace{length}
, or
\leavevmode\vspace{length}
, or
\vspace*{length}
if you want the space to not be thrown
out at the top of a new page (see \vspace).
The \\
command is mostly used outside of the main flow of text
such as in a tabular
or array
environment or in an
equation environment.
The \\
command is a synonym for \newline
(see \newline) under ordinary circumstances (an example of an
exception is the p{...}
column in a tabular
environment; see tabular).
The \\
command is a macro, and its definition changes by context
so that its definition in normal text, a center
environment, a
flushleft
environment, and a tabular
are all different.
In normal text when it forces a linebreak it is essentially a shorthand
for \newline
. It does not end horizontal mode or end the
paragraph, it just inserts some glue and penalties so that when the
paragraph does end a linebreak will occur at that point, with the short
line padded with white space.
You get ‘LaTeX Error: There's no line here to end’ if you use
\\
to ask for a new line, rather than to end the current line.
An example is if you have \begin{document}\\
or, more likely,
something like this.
\begin{center} \begin{minipage}{0.5\textwidth} \\ In that vertical space put your mark. \end{minipage} \end{center}
Fix it by replacing the double backslash with something like
\vspace{\baselineskip}
.
Next: \newline, Previous: \\, Up: Line breaking [Contents][Index]
\obeycr
& \restorecr
The \obeycr
command makes a return in the input file (‘^^M’,
internally) the same as \\
, followed by \relax
. So each
new line in the input will also be a new line in the output. The
\restorecr
command restores normal line-breaking behavior.
This is not the way to show verbatim text or computer code. See verbatim instead.
With LaTeX’s usual defaults, this
aaa bbb \obeycr ccc ddd eee \restorecr fff ggg hhh iii
produces output like this.
aaa bbb ccc ddd eee fff ggg hhh iii
The indents are paragraph indents.
Next: \- (hyphenation), Previous: \obeycr & \restorecr, Up: Line breaking [Contents][Index]
\newline
In ordinary text, this ends a line in a way that does not right-justify
the line, so the prior text is not stretched. That is, in paragraph mode
(see Modes), the \newline
command is equivalent to
double-backslash (see \\). This command is fragile
(see \protect).
However, the two commands are different inside a tabular
or
array
environment. In a column with a specifier producing a
paragraph box such as typically p{...}
, \newline
will
insert a line end inside of the column; that is, it does not break the
entire tabular row. To break the entire row use \\
or its
equivalent \tabularnewline
.
This will print ‘Name:’ and ‘Address:’ as two lines in a single cell of the table.
\begin{tabular}{p{1in}{\hspace{2in}}p{1in}} Name: \newline Address: &Date: \\ \hline \end{tabular}
The ‘Date:’ will be baseline-aligned with ‘Name:’.
Next: \discretionary, Previous: \newline, Up: Line breaking [Contents][Index]
\-
(discretionary hyphen)Tell LaTeX that it may hyphenate the word at that point. When you
insert \-
commands in a word, the word will only be hyphenated at
those points and not at any of the hyphenation points that LaTeX
might otherwise have chosen. This command is robust (see \protect).
LaTeX is good at hyphenating and usually finds most of the correct
hyphenation points, while almost never using an incorrect one. The
\-
command is for exceptional cases.
For example, LaTeX does not ordinarily hyphenate words containing a hyphen. Below, the long and hyphenated word means LaTeX has to put in unacceptably large spaces to set the narrow column.
\begin{tabular}{rp{1.75in}} Isaac Asimov &The strain of anti-intellectualism % an\-ti-in\-tel\-lec\-tu\-al\-ism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that `my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge'. \end{tabular}
Commenting out the third line and uncommenting the fourth makes a much better fit.
The \-
command only allows LaTeX to break there, it does not
require that it break there. You can insist on a split with something
like Hef-\linebreak feron
. Of course, if you later change the
text then this forced break may look very odd, so this approach requires
care.
Next: \fussy & \sloppy, Previous: \- (hyphenation), Up: Line breaking [Contents][Index]
\discretionary
(generalized hyphenation point)Synopsis:
\discretionary{pre-break}{post-break}{no-break}
Handle word changes around hyphens. This command is not often used in LaTeX documents.
If a line break occurs at the point where \discretionary
appears
then TeX puts pre-break at the end of the current line and puts
post-break at the start of the next line. If there is no line
break here then TeX puts no-break
In ‘difficult’ the three letters ffi
form a ligature. But
TeX can nonetheless break between the two f’s with this.
di\discretionary{f-}{fi}{ffi}cult
Note that users do not have to do this. It is typically handled automatically by TeX’s hyphenation algorithm.
Next: \hyphenation, Previous: \discretionary, Up: Line breaking [Contents][Index]
\fussy
& \sloppy
Declarations to make TeX more picky or less picky about line
breaking. Declaring \fussy
usually avoids too much space between
words, at the cost of an occasional overfull box. Conversely,
\sloppy
avoids overfull boxes while suffering loose interword
spacing.
The default is \fussy
. Line breaking in a paragraph is
controlled by whichever declaration is current at the blank line, or
\par
, or displayed equation ending that paragraph. So to affect
the line breaks, include that paragraph-ending material in the scope of
the command.
• sloppypar: | Environment version of \sloppy command. |
Up: \fussy & \sloppy [Contents][Index]
sloppypar
Synopsis:
\begin{sloppypar} ... paragraphs ... \end{sloppypar}
Typeset the paragraphs with \sloppy
in effect (see \fussy & \sloppy). Use this to locally adjust line breaking, to avoid
‘Overfull box’ or ‘Underfull box’ errors.
The example is simple.
\begin{sloppypar} Her plan for the morning thus settled, she sat quietly down to her book after breakfast, resolving to remain in the same place and the same employment till the clock struck one; and from habitude very little incommoded by the remarks and ejaculations of Mrs.\ Allen, whose vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking were such, that as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and, therefore, while she sat at her work, if she lost her needle or broke her thread, if she heard a carriage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must observe it aloud, whether there were anyone at leisure to answer her or not. \end{sloppypar}
Next: \linebreak & \nolinebreak, Previous: \fussy & \sloppy, Up: Line breaking [Contents][Index]
\hyphenation
Synopsis:
\hyphenation{word1 ...}
Declares allowed hyphenation points within the words in the list. The
words in that list are separated by spaces. Show permitted points for
hyphenation with a dash character, -
.
Here is an example:
\hyphenation{hat-er il-lit-e-ra-ti tru-th-i-ness}
Use lowercase letters. TeX will only hyphenate if the word matches
exactly. Multiple \hyphenation
commands accumulate.
Previous: \hyphenation, Up: Line breaking [Contents][Index]
\linebreak
& \nolinebreak
Synopses, one of:
\linebreak \linebreak[zero-to-four]
or one of these.
\nolinebreak \nolinebreak[zero-to-four]
Encourage or discourage a line break. The optional zero-to-four
is an integer that allows you to soften the instruction. The default is
4, so that without the optional argument these commands entirely force
or prevent the break. But for instance, \nolinebreak[1]
is a
suggestion that another place may be better. The higher the number, the
more insistent the request. Both commands are fragile
(see \protect).
Here we tell LaTeX that a good place to put a linebreak is after the standard legal text.
\boilerplatelegal{} \linebreak[2] We especially encourage applications from members of traditionally underrepresented groups.
When you issue \linebreak
, the spaces in the line are stretched
out so that it extends to the right margin. See \\
and \newline to have the spaces not stretched out.
Next: Footnotes, Previous: Line breaking, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Ordinarily LaTeX automatically takes care of breaking output into pages with its usual aplomb. But if you are writing commands, or tweaking the final version of a document, then you may need to understand how to influence its actions.
LaTeX’s algorithm for splitting a document into pages is more complex than just waiting until there is enough material to fill a page and outputting the result. Instead, LaTeX typesets more material than would fit on the page and then chooses a break that is optimal in some way (it has the smallest badness). An example of the advantage of this approach is that if the page has some vertical space that can be stretched or shrunk, such as with rubber lengths between paragraphs, then LaTeX can use that to avoid widow lines (where a new page starts with the last line of a paragraph; LaTeX can squeeze the extra line onto the first page) and orphans (where the first line of paragraph is at the end of a page; LaTeX can stretch the material of the first page so the extra line falls on the second page). Another example is where LaTeX uses available vertical shrinkage to fit on a page not just the header for a new section but also the first two lines of that section.
But LaTeX does not optimize over the entire document’s set of page breaks. So it can happen that the first page break is great but the second one is lousy; to break the current page LaTeX doesn’t look as far ahead as the next page break. So occasionally you may want to influence page breaks while preparing a final version of a document.
See Layout for more material that is relevant to page breaking.
• \clearpage & \cleardoublepage: | Start a new page; eject floats. | |
• \newpage: | Start a new page. | |
• \enlargethispage: | Enlarge the current page a bit. | |
• \pagebreak & \nopagebreak: | Forcing & avoiding page breaks. |
Next: \newpage, Up: Page breaking [Contents][Index]
\clearpage
& \cleardoublepage
Synopsis:
\clearpage
or
\cleardoublepage
End the current page and output all of the pending floating figures and
tables (see Floats). If there are too many floats to fit on the
page then LaTeX will put in extra pages containing only floats. In
two-sided printing, \cleardoublepage
also makes the next page of
content a right-hand page, an odd-numbered page, if necessary inserting
a blank page. The \clearpage
command is robust while
\cleardoublepage
is fragile (see \protect).
LaTeX’s page breaks are optimized so ordinarily you only use this command in a document body to polish the final version, or inside commands.
The \cleardoublepage
command will put in a blank page, but it
will have the running headers and footers. To get a really blank
page, use this command.
\let\origdoublepage\cleardoublepage \newcommand{\clearemptydoublepage}{% \clearpage {\pagestyle{empty}\origdoublepage}% }
If you want LaTeX’s standard \chapter
command to do this then
add the line \let\cleardoublepage\clearemptydoublepage
.
The command \newpage
(see \newpage) also ends the current
page, but without clearing pending floats. And, if LaTeX is in
two-column mode then \newpage
ends the current column while
\clearpage
and \cleardoublepage
end the current page.
Next: \enlargethispage, Previous: \clearpage & \cleardoublepage, Up: Page breaking [Contents][Index]
\newpage
Synopsis:
\newpage
End the current page. This command is robust (see \protect).
LaTeX’s page breaks are optimized so ordinarily you only use this command in a document body to polish the final version, or inside commands.
While the commands \clearpage
and \cleardoublepage
also
end the current page, in addition they clear pending floats
(see \clearpage & \cleardoublepage). And, if LaTeX is in
two-column mode then \clearpage
and \cleardoublepage
end
the current page, possibly leaving an empty column, while
\newpage
only ends the current column.
In contrast with \pagebreak
(see \pagebreak & \nopagebreak),
the \newpage
command will cause the new page to start right where
requested. This
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, \newpage \noindent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
makes a new page start after ‘continent,’ and the cut-off line is
not right justified. In addition, \newpage
does not vertically
stretch out the page, as \pagebreak
does.
Next: \pagebreak & \nopagebreak, Previous: \newpage, Up: Page breaking [Contents][Index]
\enlargethispage
Synopsis, one of:
\enlargethispage{size} \enlargethispage*{size}
Enlarge the \textheight
for the current page. The required
argument size must be a rigid length (see Lengths). It may be
positive or negative. This command is fragile (see \protect).
A common strategy is to wait until you have the final text of a document, and then pass through it tweaking line and page breaks. This command allows you some page size leeway.
This will allow one extra line on the current page.
\enlargethispage{\baselineskip}
The starred form \enlargesthispage*
tries to squeeze the material
together on the page as much as possible, for the common use case of
getting one more line on the page. This is often used together with an
explicit \pagebreak
.
Previous: \enlargethispage, Up: Page breaking [Contents][Index]
\pagebreak
& \nopagebreak
Synopses:
\pagebreak \pagebreak[zero-to-four]
or
\nopagebreak \nopagebreak[zero-to-four]
Encourage or discourage a page break. The optional zero-to-four
is an integer that allows you to soften the request. The default is 4,
so that without the optional argument these commands entirely force or
prevent the break. But for instance \nopagebreak[1]
suggests to
LaTeX that another spot might be preferable. The higher the number,
the more insistent the request. Both commands are fragile
(see \protect).
LaTeX’s page endings are optimized so ordinarily you only use this command in a document body to polish the final version, or inside commands.
If you use these inside a paragraph, they apply to the point following the line in which they appear. So this
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, \pagebreak a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
does not give a page break at ‘continent,’ but instead at
‘nation,’ since that is where LaTeX breaks that line. In
addition, with \pagebreak
the vertical space on the page is
stretched out where possible so that it extends to the normal bottom
margin. This can look strange, and if \flushbottom
is in effect
this can cause you to get ‘Underfull \vbox (badness 10000) has
occurred while \output is active’. See \newpage for a command that
does not have these effects.
Next: Definitions, Previous: Page breaking, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Place a footnote at the bottom of the current page, as here.
Noël Coward quipped that having to read a footnote is like having to go downstairs to answer the door, while in the midst of making love.\footnote{% I wouldn't know, I don't read footnotes.}
You can put multiple footnotes on a page. If the footnote text becomes too long then it will flow to the next page.
You can also produce footnotes by combining the \footnotemark
and
the \footnotetext
commands, which is useful in special
circumstances.
To make bibliographic references come out as footnotes you need to include a bibliographic style with that behavior (see Using BibTeX).
• \footnote: | Insert a footnote. | |
• \footnotemark: | Insert footnote mark only. | |
• \footnotetext: | Insert footnote text only. | |
• Footnotes in section headings: | Chapter or section titles. | |
• Footnotes in a table: | Table footnotes. | |
• Footnotes of footnotes: | Multiple classes of footnotes. |
Next: \footnotemark, Up: Footnotes [Contents][Index]
\footnote
Synopsis, one of:
\footnote{text} \footnote[number]{text}
Place a footnote text at the bottom of the current page.
There are over a thousand footnotes in Gibbon's \textit{Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire}.\footnote{% After reading an early version with endnotes David Hume complained, ``One is also plagued with his Notes, according to the present Method of printing the Book'' and suggested that they ``only to be printed at the Margin or the Bottom of the Page.''}
The optional argument number allows you to specify the number of
the footnote. If you use this then LaTeX does not increment the
footnote
counter.
By default, LaTeX uses arabic numbers as footnote markers. Change
this with something like
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}
, which
uses a sequence of symbols (see \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol). To make this change global put that in the preamble. If
you make the change local then you may want to reset the counter with
\setcounter{footnote}{0}
.
LaTeX determines the spacing of footnotes with two parameters.
\footnoterule
Produces the rule separating the main text on a page from the page’s
footnotes. Default dimensions in the standard document classes (except
slides
, where it does not appear) is: vertical thickness of
0.4pt
, and horizontal size of 0.4\columnwidth
long.
Change the rule with something like this.
\renewcommand{\footnoterule}{% Kerns avoid vertical space \kern -3pt % This -3 is negative \hrule width \textwidth height 1pt % of the sum of this 1 \kern 2pt} % and this 2
\footnotesep
The height of the strut placed at the beginning of the footnote
(see \strut). By default, this is set to the normal strut for
\footnotesize
fonts (see Font sizes), therefore there is no
extra space between footnotes. This is ‘6.65pt’ for ‘10pt’,
‘7.7pt’ for ‘11pt’, and ‘8.4pt’ for ‘12pt’. Change
it as with \setlength{\footnotesep}{11pt}
.
The \footnote
command is fragile (see \protect).
LaTeX’s default puts many restrictions on where you can use a
\footnote
; for instance, you cannot use it in an argument to a
sectioning command such as \chapter
(it can only be used in outer
paragraph mode; see Modes). There are some workarounds; see
following sections.
In a minipage
environment the \footnote
command uses the
mpfootnote
counter instead of the footnote
counter, so
they are numbered independently. They are shown at the bottom of the
environment, not at the bottom of the page. And by default they are
shown alphabetically. See minipage and Footnotes in a table.
Next: \footnotetext, Previous: \footnote, Up: Footnotes [Contents][Index]
\footnotemark
Synopsis, one of:
\footnotemark \footnotemark[number]
Put the current footnote mark in the text. To specify associated text for the footnote see \footnotetext. The optional argument number causes the command to use that number to determine the footnote mark. This command can be used in inner paragraph mode (see Modes).
If you use \footnotemark
without the optional argument then it
increments the footnote counter but if you use the optional number
then it does not. The next example produces several consecutive footnote
markers referring to the same footnote.
The first theorem\footnote{Due to Gauss.} and the second theorem\footnotemark[\value{footnote}] and the third theorem.\footnotemark[\value{footnote}]
If there are intervening footnotes then you must remember the value of the
common mark. This example gives the same institutional affiliation to
both the first and third authors (\thanks
is a version of
footnote
), by-hand giving the number of the footnote.
\title{A Treatise on the Binomial Theorem} \author{J Moriarty\thanks{University of Leeds} \and A C Doyle\thanks{Durham University} \and S Holmes\footnotemark[1]} \begin{document} \maketitle
This uses a counter to remember the footnote number. The third sentence is followed by the same footnote marker as the first.
\newcounter{footnoteValueSaver} All babies are illogical.\footnote{% Lewis Carroll.}\setcounter{footnoteValueSaver}{\value{footnote}} Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile.\footnote{% Captain Hook.} Illogical persons are despised.\footnotemark[\value{footnoteValueSaver}] Therefore, anyone who can manage a crocodile is not a baby.
This example accomplishes the same by using the package cleveref.
\usepackage{cleveref}[2012/02/15] % in preamble \crefformat{footnote}{#2\footnotemark[#1]#3} ... The theorem is from Evers.\footnote{\label{fn:TE}Tinker, Evers, 1994.} The corollary is from Chance.\footnote{Evers, Chance, 1990.} But the key lemma is from Tinker.\cref{fn:TE}
It will work with the package hyperref.
Next: Footnotes in section headings, Previous: \footnotemark, Up: Footnotes [Contents][Index]
\footnotetext
Synopsis, one of:
\footnotetext{text} \footnotetext[number]{text}
Place text at the bottom of the page as a footnote. It pairs with
\footnotemark
(see \footnotemark) and can come anywhere after
that command, but must appear in outer paragraph mode (see Modes).
The optional argument number changes the number of the footnote
mark.
See \footnotemark and Footnotes in a table for usage examples.
Next: Footnotes in a table, Previous: \footnotetext, Up: Footnotes [Contents][Index]
Putting a footnote in a section heading, as in:
\section{Full sets\protect\footnote{This material due to ...}}
causes the footnote to appear at the bottom of the page where the
section starts, as usual, but also at the bottom of the table of
contents, where it is not likely to be desired. The simplest way
to have it not appear on the table of contents is to use the optional
argument to \section
\section[Please]{Please\footnote{% Don't footnote in chapter and section headers!}}
No \protect
is needed in front of \footnote
here because
what gets moved to the table of contents is the optional argument.
Next: Footnotes of footnotes, Previous: Footnotes in section headings, Up: Footnotes [Contents][Index]
Inside a tabular
or array
environment the \footnote
command does not work; there is a footnote mark in the table cell but
the footnote text does not appear. The solution is to use a
minipage
environment as here (see minipage).
\begin{center} \begin{minipage}{\textwidth} \centering \begin{tabular}{l|l} \textsc{Ship} &\textsc{Book} \\ \hline \textit{HMS Sophie} &Master and Commander \\ \textit{HMS Polychrest} &Post Captain \\ \textit{HMS Lively} &Post Captain \\ \textit{HMS Surprise} &A number of books\footnote{% Starting with HMS Surprise.} \end{tabular} \end{minipage} \end{center}
Inside a minipage
, footnote marks are lowercase letters. Change
that with something like
\renewcommand{\thempfootnote}{\arabic{mpfootnote}}
(see \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol).
The footnotes in the prior example appear at the bottom of the
minipage
. To have them appear at the bottom of the main page, as
part of the regular footnote sequence, use the \footnotemark
and
\footnotetext
pair and make a new counter.
\newcounter{mpFootnoteValueSaver} \begin{center} \begin{minipage}{\textwidth} \setcounter{mpFootnoteValueSaver}{\value{footnote}} \centering \begin{tabular}{l|l} \textsc{Woman} &\textsc{Relationship} \\ \hline Mona &Attached\footnotemark \\ Diana Villiers &Eventual wife \\ Christine Hatherleigh Wood &Fiance\footnotemark \end{tabular} \end{minipage}% percent sign keeps footnote text close to minipage \stepcounter{mpFootnoteValueSaver}% \footnotetext[\value{mpFootnoteValueSaver}]{% Little is known other than her death.}% \stepcounter{mpFootnoteValueSaver}% \footnotetext[\value{mpFootnoteValueSaver}]{% Relationship is unresolved in XXI.} \end{center}
For a floating table
environment (see table), use the
tablefootnote package.
\usepackage{tablefootnote} % in preamble ... \begin{table} \centering \begin{tabular}{l|l} \textsc{Date} &\textsc{Campaign} \\ \hline 1862 &Fort Donelson \\ 1863 &Vicksburg \\ 1865 &Army of Northern Virginia\tablefootnote{% Ending the war.} \end{tabular} \caption{Forces captured by US Grant} \end{table}
The footnote appears at the page bottom and is numbered in sequence with other footnotes.
Previous: Footnotes in a table, Up: Footnotes [Contents][Index]
Particularly in the humanities, authors can have multiple classes of footnotes, including having footnotes of footnotes. The package bigfoot extends LaTeX’s default footnote mechanism in many ways, including allow these two, as in this example.
\usepackage{bigfoot} % in preamble \DeclareNewFootnote{Default} \DeclareNewFootnote{from}[alph] % create class \footnotefrom{} ... The third theorem is a partial converse of the second.\footnotefrom{% First noted in Wilson.\footnote{Second edition only.}}
LaTeX has support for making new commands of many different kinds.
• \newcommand & \renewcommand: | (Re)define a new command. | |
• \providecommand: | Define a new command, if name not used. | |
• \makeatletter & \makeatother: | Change the status of the at-sign character. | |
• \@ifstar: | Define your own commands with *-variants. | |
• \newcounter: | Define a new counter. | |
• \newlength: | Define a new length. | |
• \newsavebox: | Define a new box. | |
• \newenvironment & \renewenvironment: | Define a new environment. | |
• \newtheorem: | Define a new theorem-like environment. | |
• \newfont: | Define a new font name. | |
• \protect: | Using tricky commands. | |
• \ignorespaces & \ignorespacesafterend: | Discard extra spaces. |
Next: \providecommand, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\newcommand
& \renewcommand
Synopses, one of:
\newcommand{\cmd}{defn} \newcommand{\cmd}[nargs]{defn} \newcommand{\cmd}[nargs][optargdefault]{defn} \newcommand*{\cmd}{defn} \newcommand*{\cmd}[nargs]{defn} \newcommand*{\cmd}[nargs][optargdefault]{defn}
or one of these.
\renewcommand{\cmd}[nargs]{defn} \renewcommand{\cmd}[nargs]{defn} \renewcommand{\cmd}[nargs][optargdefault]{defn} \renewcommand*{\cmd}{defn} \renewcommand*{\cmd}[nargs]{defn} \renewcommand*{\cmd}[nargs][optargdefault]{defn}
Define or redefine a command. See also the discussion of
\DeclareRobustCommand
in Class and package commands.
The starred form of these two requires that the arguments not contain
multiple paragraphs of text (in plain TeX terms that it not be
\long
).
These are the parameters:
Required; the command name. It must begin with a backslash, \
,
and must not begin with the four letter string \end
. For
\newcommand
, it must not be already defined. For
\renewcommand
, this name must already be defined.
Optional; an integer from 0 to 9, specifying the number of arguments that the command takes, including any optional argument. Omitting this argument is the same as specifying 0, meaning that the command has no arguments. If you redefine a command, the new version can have a different number of arguments than the old version.
Optional; if this argument is present then the first argument of
\cmd
is optional, with default value optargdefault
(which may be the empty string). If this argument is not present then
\cmd
does not take an optional argument.
That is, if \cmd
is used with square brackets, as in
\cmd[optval]{...}...
, then within defn the
parameter #1
is set to the value of optval. On the
other hand, if \cmd
is called without the square brackets
then within defn the parameter #1
is set to the value of
optargdefault. In either case, the required arguments start with
#2
.
Omitting [optargdefault]
is different from having the
square brackets with no contents, as in []
. The former sets
#1
to the value of optargdefault; the latter sets #1
to the empty string.
Required; the text to be substituted for every occurrence of
\cmd
. The parameters #1
, #2
,
... #nargs
are replaced by the values that you supply when
you call the command (or by the default value if there is an optional
argument and you don’t exercise the option).
TeX ignores spaces in the source following an alphabetic control
sequence, as in ‘\cmd ’. If you actually want a space there, one
solution is to type {}
after the command (‘\cmd{} ’, and
another solution is to use an explicit control space (‘\cmd\ ’).
A simple example of defining a new command:
\newcommand{\RS}{Robin Smith}
results in \RS
being
replaced by the longer text. Redefining an existing command is similar:
\renewcommand{\qedsymbol}{{\small QED}}
.
If you try to define a command and the name has already been used then you get something like ‘LaTeX Error: Command \fred already defined. Or name \end... illegal, see p.192 of the manual’. If you try to redefine a command and the name has not yet been used then you get something like ‘LaTeX Error: \hank undefined’.
Here the first command definition has no arguments, and the second has one required argument.
\newcommand{\student}{Ms~O'Leary} \newcommand{\defref}[1]{Definition~\ref{#1}}
Use the first as in I highly recommend \student{} to you
. The
second has a variable, so that \defref{def:basis}
expands to
Definition~\ref{def:basis}
, which ultimately expands to
something like ‘Definition~3.14’.
Similarly, but with two required arguments:
\newcommand{\nbym}[2]{$#1 \times #2$}
is invoked as
\nbym{2}{k}
.
This example has an optional argument.
\newcommand{\salutation}[1][Sir or Madam]{Dear #1:}
Then \salutation
gives ‘Dear Sir or Madam:’ while
\salutation[John]
gives ‘Dear John:’. And
\salutation[]
gives ‘Dear :’.
This example has an optional argument and two required arguments.
\newcommand{\lawyers}[3][company]{#2, #3, and~#1} I employ \lawyers[Howe]{Dewey}{Cheatem}.
The output is ‘I employ Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe’. The optional
argument, the Howe
, is associated with #1
, while
Dewey
and Cheatem
are associated with #2
and #3
. Because of the optional argument,
\lawyers{Dewey}{Cheatem}
will give the output ‘I employ
Dewey, Cheatem, and company’.
The braces around defn do not define a group, that is, they do not
delimit the scope of the result of expanding defn. For example,
with \newcommand{\shipname}[1]{\it #1}
, in this sentence,
The \shipname{Monitor} met the \shipname{Merrimac}.
the words ‘met the’ would incorrectly be in italics. The solution
is to put another pair of braces inside the definition:
\newcommand{\shipname}[1]{{\it #1}}
.
Next: \makeatletter & \makeatother, Previous: \newcommand & \renewcommand, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\providecommand
Synopses, one of:
\providecommand{cmd}{defn} \providecommand{cmd}[nargs]{defn} \providecommand{cmd}[nargs][optargdefault]{defn} \providecommand*{cmd}{defn} \providecommand*{cmd}[nargs]{defn} \providecommand*{cmd}[nargs][optargdefault]{defn}
Defines a command, as long as no command of this name already exists.
If no command of this name already exists then this has the same effect
as \newcommand
. If a command of this name already exists then
this definition does nothing. This is particularly useful in a file
that may be loaded more than once, such as a style file.
See \newcommand & \renewcommand for the description of the arguments.
This example
\providecommand{\myaffiliation}{Saint Michael's College} \providecommand{\myaffiliation}{Saint Michael's College} From \myaffiliation.
outputs ‘From Saint Michael's College’. Unlike \newcommand
,
the repeated use of \providecommand
does not give an error.
Next: \@ifstar, Previous: \providecommand, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\makeatletter
& \makeatother
Synopsis:
\makeatletter ... definition of commands with @ in their name .. \makeatother
Use this pair when you redefine LaTeX commands that are named with an
at-sign character ‘@
’. The \makeatletter
declaration makes the at-sign character have the category code of a
letter, code 11. The \makeatother
declaration sets the
category code of the at-sign to code 12, its default value.
As TeX reads characters, it assigns each one a category code, or
catcode. For instance, it assigns the backslash
character ‘\
’ the catcode 0. Command names
consist of a category 0 character, ordinarily backslash, followed
by letters, category 11 characters (except that a command name can
also consist of a category 0 character followed by a single
non-letter symbol).
LaTeX’s source code has the convention that some commands use
@
in their name. These commands are mainly intended for package
or class writers. The convention prevents authors who are just using a
package or class from accidentally replacing such a command with one of
their own, because by default the at-sign has catcode 12.
The pair \makeatletter
and \makeatother
changes the
default code and then changes it back. Use them inside a .tex
file, in the preamble, when you are defining or redefining commands
named with @
, by having them surround your definition. Don’t
use these inside .sty or .cls files since the
\usepackage
and \documentclass
commands already arrange
that the at-sign has the character code of a letter, catcode 11.
For a comprehensive list of macros with an at-sign in their names see http://ctan.org/pkg/macros2e.
In this example the class file has a command
\thesis@universityname
that the user wants to change. These
three lines should go in the preamble, before the
\begin{document}
.
\makeatletter \renewcommand{\thesis@universityname}{Saint Michael's College} \makeatother
Next: \newcounter, Previous: \makeatletter & \makeatother, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\@ifstar
Synopsis:
\newcommand{\mycmd}{\@ifstar{\mycmd@star}{\mycmd@nostar}} \newcommand{\mycmd@nostar}[nostar-num-args]{nostar-body} \newcommand{\mycmd@star}[star-num-args]{star-body}
Many standard LaTeX environments or commands have a variant with the
same name but ending with a star character *
, an asterisk.
Examples are the table
and table*
environments and the
\section
and \section*
commands.
When defining environments, following this pattern is straightforward
because \newenvironment
and \renewenvironment
allow the
environment name to contain a star. For commands the situation is more
complex. As in the synopsis above, there will be a user-called command,
given above as \mycmd
, which peeks ahead to see if it is followed
by a star. For instance, LaTeX does not really have a
\section*
command; instead, the \section
command peeks
ahead. This command does not accept arguments but instead expands to
one of two commands that do accept arguments. In the synopsis these two
are \mycmd@nostar
and \mycmd@star
. They could take the
same number of arguments or a different number, or no arguments at all.
As always, in a LaTeX document a command using at-sign @
must be enclosed inside a \makeatletter ... \makeatother
block
(see \makeatletter & \makeatother).
This example of \@ifstar
defines the command \ciel
and a
variant \ciel*
. Both have one required argument. A call to
\ciel{night}
will return "starry night sky" while
\ciel*{blue}
will return "starry not blue sky".
\newcommand*{\ciel@unstarred}[1]{starry #1 sky} \newcommand*{\ciel@starred}[1]{starry not #1 sky} \newcommand*{\ciel}{\@ifstar{\ciel@starred}{\ciel@unstarred}}
In the next example, the starred variant takes a different number of
arguments than the unstarred one. With this definition, Agent 007’s
``My name is \agentsecret*{Bond},
\agentsecret{James}{Bond}.''
is equivalent to entering the commands
``My name is \textsc{Bond}, \textit{James} textsc{Bond}.''
\newcommand*{\agentsecret@unstarred}[2]{\textit{#1} \textsc{#2}} \newcommand*{\agentsecret@starred}[1]{\textsc{#1}} \newcommand*{\agentsecret}{% \@ifstar{\agentsecret@starred}{\agentsecret@unstarred}}
There are two sometimes more convenient ways to accomplish the work of
\@ifstar
. The suffix package allows the construct
\newcommand\mycommand{unstarred version}
followed by
\WithSuffix\newcommand\mycommand*{starred version}
. And
LaTeX3 has the xparse package that allows this code.
\NewDocumentCommand\foo{s}{\IfBooleanTF#1 {starred version}% {unstarred version}% }
Next: \newlength, Previous: \@ifstar, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\newcounter
: Allocating a counterSynopsis, one of:
\newcounter{countername} \newcounter{countername}[supercounter]
Globally defines a new counter named countername and initialize it to zero (see Counters).
The name countername must consist of letters only. It does not begin with a backslash. This name must not already be in use by another counter.
When you use the optional argument [supercounter]
then the
counter countername will be reset to zero whenever
supercounter is incremented. For example, ordinarily
subsection
is numbered within section
so that any time you
increment section, either with \stepcounter
(see \stepcounter) or \refstepcounter
(see \refstepcounter), then LaTeX will reset subsection to
zero.
This example
\newcounter{asuper} \setcounter{asuper}{1} \newcounter{asub}[asuper] \setcounter{asub}{3} % Note `asuper' The value of asuper is \arabic{asuper} and of asub is \arabic{asub}. \stepcounter{asuper} Now asuper is \arabic{asuper} while asub is \arabic{asub}.
produces ‘The value of asuper is 1 and that of asub is 3’ and ‘Now asuper is 2 while asub is 0’.
If the counter already exists, for instance by entering asuper
twice, then you get something like ‘LaTeX Error: Command \c@asuper
already defined. Or name \end... illegal, see p.192 of the manual.’.
If you use the optional argument then the super counter must already
exist. Entering \newcounter{jh}[lh]
when lh
is not a
defined counter will get you ‘LaTeX Error: No counter 'lh'
defined.’
Next: \newsavebox, Previous: \newcounter, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\newlength
Synopsis:
\newlength{arg}
Allocate a new length register (see Lengths). The required argument
arg must begin with a backslash, \
. The new register holds
rubber lengths such as 72.27pt
or 1in plus.2in minus.1in
(a LaTeX length register is what plain TeX calls a skip
register). The initial value is zero. The control sequence
\arg
must not be already defined.
An example:
\newlength{\graphichgt}
If you forget the backslash then you get ‘Missing control sequence inserted’. If the command sequence already exists then you get something like ‘LaTeX Error: Command \graphichgt already defined. Or name \end... illegal, see p.192 of the manual’.
Next: \newenvironment & \renewenvironment, Previous: \newlength, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\newsavebox
Synopsis:
\newsavebox{\cmd}
Define \cmd, the string consisting of a backslash followed by cmd, to refer to a new bin for storing material. These bins hold material that has been typeset, to use multiple times or to measure or manipulate (see Boxes). The bin name \cmd is required, must start with a backslash, \, and must not already be a defined command. This command is fragile (see \protect).
This allocates a bin and then puts typeset material into it.
\newsavebox{\logobox} \savebox{\logobox}{LoGo} Our logo is \usebox{\logobox}.
The output is ‘Our logo is LoGo’.
If there is an already defined bin then you get something like ‘LaTeX Error: Command \logobox already defined. Or name \end... illegal, see p.192 of the manual’.
The allocation of a box is global.
Next: \newtheorem, Previous: \newsavebox, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\newenvironment
& \renewenvironment
Synopses, one of:
\newenvironment{env}{begdef}{enddef} \newenvironment{env}[nargs]{begdef}{enddef} \newenvironment{env}[nargs][optargdefault]{begdef}{enddef} \newenvironment*{env}{begdef}{enddef} \newenvironment*{env}[nargs]{begdef}{enddef} \newenvironment*{env}[nargs][optargdefault]{begdef}{enddef}
or one of these.
\renewenvironment{env}{begdef}{enddef} \renewenvironment{env}[nargs]{begdef}{enddef} \renewenvironment{env}[nargs][optargdefault]{begdef}{enddef} \renewenvironment*{env}{begdef}{enddef} \renewenvironment*{env}[nargs]{begdef}{enddef} \renewenvironment*{env}[nargs][optargdefault]{begdef}{enddef}
Define or redefine the environment env, that is, create the
construct \begin{env} ... body ... \end{env}
.
The starred form of these commands requires that the arguments not contain multiple paragraphs of text. However, the body of these environments can contain multiple paragraphs.
Required; the environment name. It consists only of letters or the
*
character, and thus does not begin with backslash, \
.
It must not begin with the string end
. For
\newenvironment
, the name env must not be the name of an
already existing environment, and also the command \env
must be undefined. For \renewenvironment
, env must be the
name of an existing environment.
Optional; an integer from 0 to 9 denoting the number of arguments of
that the environment takes. When you use the environment these
arguments appear after the \begin
, as in
\begin{env}{arg1} ... {argn}
. Omitting
this is equivalent to setting it to 0; the environment will have no
arguments. When redefining an environment, the new version can have a
different number of arguments than the old version.
Optional; if this is present then the first argument of the defined environment is optional, with default value optargdefault (which may be the empty string). If this is not in the definition then the environment does not take an optional argument.
That is, when optargdefault is present in the definition of the
environment then you can start the environment with square brackets, as
in \begin{env}[optval]{...} ... \end{env}
.
In this case, within begdefn the parameter #1
is set to the
value of optval. If you call \begin{env}
without
square brackets, then within begdefn the parameter #1
is
set to the value of the default optargdefault. In either case,
any required arguments start with #2
.
Omitting [myval]
in the call is different than having the
square brackets with no contents, as in []
. The former results
in #1
expanding to optargdefault; the latter results in
#1
expanding to the empty string.
Required; the text expanded at every occurrence of
\begin{env}
. Within begdef, the parameters
#1
, #2
, ... #nargs
, are replaced by the
values that you supply when you call the environment; see the examples
below.
Required; the text expanded at every occurrence of
\end{env}
. This may not contain any parameters, that is,
you cannot use #1
, #2
, etc., here (but see the final
example below).
All environments, that is to say the begdef code, the environment
body, and the enddef code, are processed within a group. Thus, in
the first example below, the effect of the \small
is limited to
the quote and does not extend to material following the environment.
If you try to define an environment and the name has already been used then you get something like ‘LaTeX Error: Command \fred already defined. Or name \end... illegal, see p.192 of the manual’. If you try to redefine an environment and the name has not yet been used then you get something like ‘LaTeX Error: Environment hank undefined.’.
This example gives an environment like LaTeX’s quotation
except that it will be set in smaller type.
\newenvironment{smallquote}{% \small\begin{quotation} }{% \end{quotation} }
This has an argument, which is set in boldface at the start of a paragraph.
\newenvironment{point}[1]{% \noindent\textbf{#1} }{% }
This one shows the use of a optional argument; it gives a quotation environment that cites the author.
\newenvironment{citequote}[1][Shakespeare]{% \begin{quotation} \noindent\textit{#1}: }{% \end{quotation} }
The author’s name is optional, and defaults to ‘Shakespeare’. In the document, use the environment like this.
\begin{citequote}[Lincoln] ... \end{citequote}
The final example shows how to save the value of an argument to use in enddef, in this case in a box (see \sbox & \savebox).
\newsavebox{\quoteauthor} \newenvironment{citequote}[1][Shakespeare]{% \sbox\quoteauthor{#1}% \begin{quotation} }{% \hspace{1em plus 1fill}---\usebox{\quoteauthor} \end{quotation} }
Next: \newfont, Previous: \newenvironment & \renewenvironment, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\newtheorem
Synopses:
\newtheorem{name}{title} \newtheorem{name}{title}[numbered_within] \newtheorem{name}[numbered_like]{title}
Define a new theorem-like environment. You can specify one of numbered_within and numbered_like, or neither, but not both.
The first form, \newtheorem{name}{title}
, creates
an environment that will be labelled with title; see the first
example below.
The second form,
\newtheorem{name}{title}[numbered_within]
,
creates an environment whose counter is subordinate to the existing
counter numbered_within, so this counter will be reset when
numbered_within is reset. See the second example below.
The third form
\newtheorem{name}[numbered_like]{title}
,
with optional argument between the two required arguments, creates an
environment whose counter will share the previously defined counter
numbered_like. See the third example.
This command creates a counter named name. In addition, unless
the optional argument numbered_like is used, inside of the
theorem-like environment the current \ref
value will be that of
\thenumbered_within
(see \ref).
This declaration is global. It is fragile (see \protect).
Arguments:
The name of the environment. It is a string of letters. It must not
begin with a backslash, \
. It must not be the name of an
existing environment, and the command name \name
must not
already be defined.
The text to be printed at the beginning of the environment, before the number. For example, ‘Theorem’.
Optional; the name of an already defined counter, usually a sectional
unit such as chapter
or section
. When the
numbered_within counter is reset then the name environment’s
counter will also be reset.
If this optional argument is not used then the command
\thename
is set to \arabic{name}
.
Optional; the name of an already defined theorem-like environment. The new environment will be numbered in sequence with numbered_like.
Without any optional arguments the environments are numbered sequentially. The example below has a declaration in the preamble that results in ‘Definition 1’ and ‘Definition 2’ in the output.
\newtheorem{defn}{Definition} \begin{document} \section{...} \begin{defn} First def \end{defn} \section{...} \begin{defn} Second def \end{defn}
This example has the same document body as the prior one. But here
\newtheorem
’s optional argument numbered_within is given as
section
, so the output is like ‘Definition 1.1’ and
‘Definition 2.1’.
\newtheorem{defn}{Definition}[section] \begin{document} \section{...} \begin{defn} First def \end{defn} \section{...} \begin{defn} Second def \end{defn}
In the next example there are two declarations in the preamble, the
second of which calls for the new thm
environment to use the same
counter as defn
. It gives ‘Definition 1.1’, followed
by ‘Theorem 2.1’ and ‘Definition 2.2’.
\newtheorem{defn}{Definition}[section] \newtheorem{thm}[defn]{Theorem} \begin{document} \section{...} \begin{defn} First def \end{defn} \section{...} \begin{thm} First thm \end{thm} \begin{defn} Second def \end{defn}
Next: \protect, Previous: \newtheorem, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\newfont
This command is obsolete. This description is here only to help with old documents. New documents should define fonts in families through the New Font Selection Scheme which allows you to, for example, associate a boldface with a roman (see Fonts).
Synopsis:
\newfont{\cmd}{font description}
Define a command \cmd
that will change the current font.
The control sequence must not already be defined. It must begin with a
backslash, \
.
The font description consists of a fontname and an optional
at clause. LaTeX will look on your system for a file named
fontname.tfm. The at clause can have the form either
at dimen
or scaled factor
, where a
factor of ‘1000’ means no scaling. For LaTeX’s purposes,
all this does is scale all the character and other font dimensions
relative to the font’s design size, which is a value defined in the
.tfm file.
This defines two equivalent fonts and typesets a few characters in each.
\newfont{\testfontat}{cmb10 at 11pt} \newfont{\testfontscaled}{cmb10 scaled 1100} \testfontat abc \testfontscaled abc
Next: \ignorespaces & \ignorespacesafterend, Previous: \newfont, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\protect
All LaTeX commands are either fragile or robust. A
fragile command can break when it is used in the argument to certain
other commands. Commands that contain data that LaTeX writes to an
auxiliary file and re-reads later are fragile. This includes material
that goes into a table of contents, list of figures, list of tables,
etc. Fragile commands also include line breaks, any command that has an
optional argument, and many more. To prevent such commands from
breaking, one solution is to preceded them with the command
\protect
.
For example, when LaTeX runs the \section{section
name}
command it writes the section name text to the
.aux auxiliary file, moving it there for use elsewhere in the
document such as in the table of contents. Any argument that is
internally expanded by LaTeX without typesetting it directly is
referred to as a
moving argument. A command is fragile if it can
expand during this process into invalid TeX code. Some examples of
moving arguments are those that appear in the \caption{...}
command (see figure), in the \thanks{...}
command
(see \maketitle), and in @-expressions in the tabular
and
array
environments (see tabular).
If you get strange errors from commands used in moving arguments, try
preceding it with \protect
. Every fragile commands must be
protected with their own \protect
.
Although usually a \protect
command doesn’t hurt, length
commands are robust and should not be preceded by a \protect
command. Nor can a \protect
command be used in the argument to
\addtocounter
or \setcounter
command.
In this example the \caption
command gives a mysterious error
about an extra curly brace. Fix the problem by preceding each
\raisebox
command with \protect
.
\begin{figure} ... \caption{Company headquarters of A\raisebox{1pt}{B}\raisebox{-1pt}{C}} \end{figure}
In the next example the \tableofcontents
command gives an error
because the \(..\)
in the section title expands to illegal TeX
in the .toc file. You can solve this by changing \(..\)
to \protect\(..\protect\)
.
\begin{document} \tableofcontents ... \section{Einstein's \( e=mc^2 \)} ...
Previous: \protect, Up: Definitions [Contents][Index]
\ignorespaces & \ignorespacesafterend
Synopsis:
\ignorespaces
or
\ignorespacesafterend
Both commands cause LaTeX to ignore spaces after the end of the command up until the first non-space character. The first is a command from Plain TeX, and the second is LaTeX-specific.
The ignorespaces
is often used when defining commands via
\newcommand
, or \newenvironment
, or \def
. The
example below illustrates. It allows a user to show the points values
for quiz questions in the margin but it is inconvenient because, as
shown in the enumerate
list, users must not put any space between
the command and the question text.
\newcommand{\points}[1]{\makebox[0pt]{\makebox[10em][l]{#1~pts}} \begin{enumerate} \item\points{10}no extra space output here \item\points{15} extra space between the number and the `extra' \end{enumerate}
The solution is to change to this.
\newcommand{\points}[1]{% \makebox[0pt]{\makebox[10em][l]{#1~pts}}\ignorespaces}
A second example shows spaces being removed from the front of text. The
commands below allow a user to uniformly attach a title to names. But,
as given, if a title accidentally starts with a space then
\fullname
will reproduce that.
\makeatletter \newcommand{\honorific}[1]{\def\@honorific{#1}} % remember title \newcommand{\fullname}[1]{\@honorific~#1} % put title before name \makeatother \begin{tabular}{|l|} \honorific{Mr/Ms} \fullname{Jones} \\ % no extra space here \honorific{ Mr/Ms} \fullname{Jones} % extra space before title \end{tabular}
To fix this, change to
\newcommand{\fullname}[1]{\ignorespaces\@honorific~#1}
.
The \ignorespaces
is also often used in a \newenvironment
at the end of the begin clause, that is, as part of the second
argument, as in \begin{newenvironment}{env
name}{... \ignorespaces}{...}
.
To strip spaces off the end of an environment use
\ignorespacesafterend
. An example is that this will show a much
larger vertical space between the first and second environments than
between the second and third.
\newenvironment{eq}{\begin{equation}}{\end{equation}} \begin{eq} e=mc^2 \end{eq} \begin{equation} F=ma \end{equation} \begin{equation} E=IR \end{equation}
Putting a comment character %
immediately after the
\end{eq}
will make the vertical space disappear, but that is
inconvenient. The solution is to change to
\newenvironment{eq}{\begin{equation}}{\end{equation}\ignorespacesafterend}
.
Next: Lengths, Previous: Definitions, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Everything LaTeX numbers for you has a counter associated with
it. The name of the counter is often the same as the name of the
environment or command associated with the number, except that the
counter’s name has no backslash \
. Thus, associated with
the \chapter
command is the chapter
counter that keeps
track of the chapter number.
Below is a list of the counters used in LaTeX’s standard document classes to control numbering.
part paragraph figure enumi chapter subparagraph table enumii section page footnote enumiii subsection equation mpfootnote enumiv subsubsection
The mpfootnote
counter is used by the \footnote
command
inside of a minipage (see minipage). The counters enumi
through enumiv
are used in the enumerate
environment, for
up to four levels of nesting (see enumerate).
Counters can have any integer value but they are typically positive.
New counters are created with \newcounter
. See \newcounter.
• \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol: | Print value of a counter. | |
• \usecounter: | Use a specified counter in a list environment. | |
• \value: | Use the value of a counter in an expression. | |
• \setcounter: | Set the value of a counter. | |
• \addtocounter: | Add a quantity to a counter. | |
• \refstepcounter: | Add to a counter. | |
• \stepcounter: | Add to a counter, resetting subsidiary counters. | |
• \day & \month & \year: | Numeric date values. |
Next: \usecounter, Up: Counters [Contents][Index]
\alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol
: Printing countersPrint the value of a counter, in a specified style. For instance, if
the counter counter has the value 1 then a
\alph{counter}
in your source will result in a lowercase
letter a appearing in the output.
All of these commands take a single counter as an argument, for
instance, \alph{enumi}
. Note that the counter name does not
start with a backslash.
\alph{counter}
Print the value of counter in lowercase letters: ‘a’, ‘b’, ... If the counter’s value is less than 1 or more than 26 then you get ‘LaTeX Error: Counter too large.’
\Alph{counter}
Print in uppercase letters: ‘A’, ‘B’, ... If the counter’s value is less than 1 or more than 26 then you get ‘LaTeX Error: Counter too large.’
\arabic{counter}
Print in Arabic numbers such as ‘5’ or ‘-2’.
\roman{counter}
Print in lowercase roman numerals: ‘i’, ‘ii’, ... If the counter’s value is less than 1 then you get no warning or error but LaTeX does not print anything in the output.
\Roman{counter}
Print in uppercase roman numerals: ‘I’, ‘II’, ... If the counter’s value is less than 1 then you get no warning or error but LaTeX does not print anything in the output.
\fnsymbol{counter}
Prints the value of counter using a sequence of nine symbols that are traditionally used for labeling footnotes. The value of counter should be between 1 and 9, inclusive. If the counter’s value is less than 0 or more than 9 then you get ‘LaTeX Error: Counter too large’, while if it is 0 then you get no error or warning but LaTeX does not output anything.
Here are the symbols:
Number | Name | Command | Symbol |
---|---|---|---|
1 | asterisk | \ast | * |
2 | dagger | \dagger | † |
3 | ddagger | \ddagger | ‡ |
4 | section-sign | \S | § |
5 | paragraph-sign | \P | ¶ |
6 | double-vert | \parallel | ‖ |
7 | double-asterisk | \ast\ast | ** |
8 | double-dagger | \dagger\dagger | †† |
9 | double-ddagger | \ddagger\ddagger | ‡‡ |
Next: \value, Previous: \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol, Up: Counters [Contents][Index]
\usecounter
Synopsis:
\usecounter{counter}
Used in the second argument of the list
environment
(see list), this declares that list items will be numbered by
counter. It initializes counter to zero, and arranges that
when \item
is called without its optional argument then
counter is incremented by \refstepcounter
, making its value
be the current ref
value (see \ref). This command is fragile
(see \protect).
Put in the document preamble, this example makes a new list environment enumerated with testcounter:
\newcounter{testcounter} \newenvironment{test}{% \begin{list}{}{% \usecounter{testcounter} } }{% \end{list} }
Next: \setcounter, Previous: \usecounter, Up: Counters [Contents][Index]
\value
Synopsis:
\value{counter}
Expands to the value of the counter counter. (Note that the name of a counter does not begin with a backslash.)
This example outputs ‘Test counter is 6. Other counter is 5.’.
\newcounter{test} \setcounter{test}{5} \newcounter{other} \setcounter{other}{\value{test}} \addtocounter{test}{1} Test counter is \arabic{test}. Other counter is \arabic{other}.
The \value
command is not used for typesetting the value of the
counter. For that, see \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol.
It is often used in \setcounter
or \addtocounter
but
\value
can be used anywhere that LaTeX expects a number, such
as in \hspace{\value{foo}\parindent}
. It must not be
preceded by \protect
(see \protect).
This example inserts \hspace{4\parindent}
.
\setcounter{myctr}{3} \addtocounter{myctr}{1} \hspace{\value{myctr}\parindent}
Next: \addtocounter, Previous: \value, Up: Counters [Contents][Index]
\setcounter
Synopsis:
\setcounter{counter}{value}
Globally set the counter counter to have the value of the
value argument, which must be an integer. Thus, you can set a
counter’s value as \setcounter{section}{5}
. Note that the
counter name does not start with a backslash.
In this example if the counter theorem
has value 12 then the
second line will print ‘XII’.
\setcounter{exercise}{\value{theorem}} Here it is in Roman: \Roman{exercise}.
Next: \refstepcounter, Previous: \setcounter, Up: Counters [Contents][Index]
\addtocounter
Synopsis:
\addtocounter{counter}{value
Globally increment counter by the amount specified by the value argument, which may be negative.
In this example the section value appears as ‘VII’.
\setcounter{section}{5} \addtocounter{section}{2} Here it is in Roman: \Roman{section}.
Next: \stepcounter, Previous: \addtocounter, Up: Counters [Contents][Index]
\refstepcounter
Synopsis:
\refstepcounter{counter}
Globally increments the value of counter by one, as does
\stepcounter
(see \stepcounter). The difference is that this
command resets the value of any counter numbered within it. (For the
definition of “counters numbered within”, see \newcounter.)
In addition, this command also defines the current \ref
value
to be the result of \thecounter
.
While the counter value is set globally, the \ref
value is set
locally, i.e., inside the current group.
Next: \day & \month & \year, Previous: \refstepcounter, Up: Counters [Contents][Index]
\stepcounter
Synopsis:
\stepcounter{counter}
Globally adds one to counter and resets all counters numbered within it. (For the definition of “counters numbered within”, see \newcounter.)
This command differs from \refstepcounter
in that this one does
not influence references — it does not define the current
\ref
value to be the result of \thecounter
(see \refstepcounter).
Previous: \stepcounter, Up: Counters [Contents][Index]
\day
& \month
& \year
LaTeX defines the counter \day
for the day of the month
(nominally with value between 1 and 31), \month
for the month of
the year (nominally with value between 1 and 12), and year \year
.
When TeX starts up, they are set from the current values on the
system. The related command \today
produces a string
representing the current day (see \today).
They counters are not updated as the job progresses so in principle they could be incorrect by the end. In addition, TeX does no sanity check:
\day=-2 \month=13 \year=-4 \today
gives no error or warning and results in the output ‘-2, -4’ (the bogus month value produces no output).
Next: Making paragraphs, Previous: Counters, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
A length is a measure of distance. Many LaTeX commands take a length as an argument.
Lengths come in two types. A rigid length such as 10pt
does not contain a plus
or minus
component. (Plain TeX
calls this a dimen.) A rubber length (what Plain TeX
calls a skip) such as as with 1cm plus0.05cm minus0.01cm
can contain either or both of those components. In that rubber length,
the 1cm
is the natural length while the other two, the
plus
and minus
components, allow TeX to stretch or
shrink the length to optimize placement.
The illustrations below use these two commands.
% make a black bar 10pt tall and #1 wide \newcommand{\blackbar}[1]{\rule{#1}{10pt}} % Make a box around #2 that is #1 wide (excluding the border) \newcommand{\showhbox}[2]{% \fboxsep=0pt\fbox{\hbox to #1{#2}}}
This example uses those commands to show a black bar 100 points long between ‘XXX’ and ‘YYY’. This length is rigid.
XXX\showhbox{100pt}{\blackbar{100pt}}YYY
As for rubber lengths, shrinking is simpler one: with 1cm minus
0.05cm
, the natural length is 1cm but TeX can shrink it down
as far as 0.95cm. Beyond that, TeX refuses to shrink any more.
Thus, below the first one works fine, producing a space of
98 points between the two bars.
XXX\showhbox{300pt}{% \blackbar{101pt}\hspace{100pt minus 2pt}\blackbar{101pt}}YYY XXX\showhbox{300pt}{% \blackbar{105pt}\hspace{100pt minus 1pt}\blackbar{105pt}}YYY
But the second one gets a warning like ‘Overfull \hbox (1.0pt too wide) detected at line 17’. In the output the first ‘Y’ is overwritten by the end of the black bar, because the box’s material is wider than the 300pt allocated, as TeX has refused to shrink the total to less than 309 points.
Stretching is like shrinking except that if TeX is asked to stretch beyond the given amount, it will do it. Here the first line is fine, producing a space of 110 points between the bars.
XXX\showhbox{300pt}{% \blackbar{95pt}\hspace{100pt plus 10pt}\blackbar{95pt}}YYY XXX\showhbox{300pt}{% \blackbar{95pt}\hspace{100pt plus 1pt}\blackbar{95pt}}YYY
In the second line TeX needs a stretch of 10 points and only 1 point was specified. TeX stretches the space to the required length but it gives you a warning like ‘Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) detected at line 22’. (We won’t discuss badness.)
You can put both stretch and shrink in the same length, as in
1ex plus 0.05ex minus 0.02ex
.
If TeX is setting two or more rubber lengths then it allocates the stretch or shrink in proportion.
XXX\showhbox{300pt}{% \blackbar{100pt}% left \hspace{0pt plus 50pt}\blackbar{80pt}\hspace{0pt plus 10pt}% middle \blackbar{100pt}}YYY % right
The left and right bars take up 100 points, so the middle needs
another 100. The middle bar is 80 points so the two
\hspace
’s must stretch 20 points. Because the two are
plus 50pt
and plus 10pt
, TeX gets 5/6 of the stretch
from the first space and 1/6 from the second.
The plus
or minus
component of a rubber length can contain
a fill component, as in 1in plus2fill
. This gives the
length infinite stretchability or shrinkability so that TeX could set
it to any distance. Here the two figures will be equal-spaced across
the page.
\begin{minipage}{\linewidth} \hspace{0pt plus 1fill}\includegraphics{godel.png}% \hspace{0pt plus 1fill}\includegraphics{einstein.png}% \hspace{0pt plus 1fill} \end{minipage}
TeX actually has three levels of infinity for glue components:
fil
, fill
, and filll
. The later ones are more
infinite than the earlier ones. Ordinarily document authors only use
the middle one (see \hfill and see \vfill).
Multiplying a rubber length by a number turns it into a rigid length, so
that after \setlength{\ylength}{1in plus 0.2in}
and
\setlength{\zlength}{3\ylength}
then the value of
\zlength
is 3in
.
• Units of length: | The units that LaTeX knows. | |
• \setlength: | Set the value of a length. | |
• \addtolength: | Add a quantity to a length. | |
• \settodepth: | Set a length to the depth of something. | |
• \settoheight: | Set a length to the height of something. | |
• \settowidth: | Set a length to the width of something. |
Next: \setlength, Up: Lengths [Contents][Index]
TeX and LaTeX know about these units both inside and outside of math mode.
pt
Point, 1/72.27 inch. The conversion to metric units, to two decimal places, is 1point = 2.85mm = 28.45cm.
pc
Pica, 12 pt
in
Inch, 72.27 pt
bp
Big point, 1/72 inch. This length is the definition of a point in PostScript and many desktop publishing systems.
cm
Centimeter
mm
Millimeter
dd
Didot point, 1.07 pt
cc
Cicero, 12 dd
sp
Scaled point, 1/65536 pt
Two other lengths that are often used are values set by the designer of
the font. The x-height of the current font ex, traditionally the
height of the lowercase letter x, is often used for vertical
lengths. Similarly em, traditionally the width of the capital
letter M, is often used for horizontal lengths (there is also
\enspace
, which is 0.5em
). Use of these can help make a
definition work better across font changes. For example, a definition
of the vertical space between list items given as
\setlength{\itemsep}{1ex plus 0.05ex minus 0.01ex}
is more
likely to still be reasonable if the font is changed than a definition
given in points.
In math mode, many definitions are expressed in terms of the math unit mu given by 1 em = 18 mu, where the em is taken from the current math symbols family. See Spacing in math mode.
Next: \addtolength, Previous: Units of length, Up: Lengths [Contents][Index]
\setlength
Synopsis:
\setlength{len}{amount}
Set the length len to amount. The length name len
must begin with a backslash, \
. The amount
can be a
rubber length (see Lengths). It can be positive, negative or zero,
and can be in any units that LaTeX understands (see Units of length).
Below, with LaTeX’s defaults the first paragraph will be indented while the second will not.
I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. \setlength{\parindent}{0em} He said stop going to those places.
If you did not declare len with \newlength
, for example if
you mistype the above as
\newlength{\specparindent}\setlength{\sepcparindent}{...}
,
then you get an error like ‘Undefined control sequence. <argument>
\sepcindent’. If you omit the backslash at the start of the length name
then you get an error like ‘Missing number, treated as zero. <to be
read again> \relax l.19 \setlength{specparindent}{0.6\parindent}’
Next: \settodepth, Previous: \setlength, Up: Lengths [Contents][Index]
\addtolength
Synopsis:
\addtolength{len}{amount}
Increment the length len by amount. The length name
len begins with a backslash, \
. The amount
is a
rubber length (see Lengths). It can be positive, negative or zero,
and can be in any units that LaTeX understands (see Units of length).
Below, if \parskip
starts with the value 0pt plus 1pt
Doctor: how is the boy who swallowed the silver dollar? \addtolength{\parskip}{1pt} Nurse: no change.
then it has the value 1pt plus 1pt
for the second paragraph.
If you did not declare the length len with \newlength
, if
for example you mistype the above as
\addtolength{\specparindent}{0.6\praindent}
, then you get
something like ‘Undefined control sequence. <argument> \praindent’.
If you leave off the backslash at the start of len, as in
\addtolength{parindent}{1pt}
, then you get something like
‘You can't use `the letter p' after \advance’.
Next: \settoheight, Previous: \addtolength, Up: Lengths [Contents][Index]
\settodepth
Synopsis:
\settodepth{len}{text}
Set the length len to the depth of box that LaTeX gets on
typesetting the text argument. The length name len must
begin with a backslash, \
.
This will show how low the character descenders go.
\newlength{\alphabetdepth} \settodepth{\alphabetdepth}{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz} \the\alphabetdepth
If you did not set aside the length len, if for example you
mistype the above as \settodepth{\aplhabetdepth}{abc...}
,
then you get something like ‘Undefined control sequence. <argument>
\aplhabetdepth’. If you leave the backslash out of len, as in
\settodepth{alphabetdepth}{...}
then you get something like
‘Missing number, treated as zero. <to be read again> \setbox’.
Next: \settowidth, Previous: \settodepth, Up: Lengths [Contents][Index]
\settoheight
Synopsis:
\settoheight{len}{text}
Sets the length len to the height of box that LaTeX gets on
typesetting the text
argument. The length name len must
begin with a backslash, \
.
This will show how high the characters go.
\newlength{\alphabetheight} \settoheight{\alphabetheight}{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz} \the\alphabetheight
If no such length len has been declared with \newlength
, if
for example you mistype as
\settoheight{\aplhabetheight}{abc...}
, then you get something
like ‘Undefined control sequence. <argument> \alphabetheight’. If
you leave the backslash out of len, as in
\settoheight{alphabetheight}{...}
then you get something like
‘Missing number, treated as zero. <to be read again> \setbox’.
Previous: \settoheight, Up: Lengths [Contents][Index]
\settowidth
Synopsis:
\settowidth{len}{text}
Set the length len to the width of the box that LaTeX gets on
typesetting the text argument. The length name len must
begin with a backslash, \
.
This measures the width of the lowercase ASCII alphabet.
\newlength{\alphabetwidth} \settowidth{\alphabetwidth}{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz} \the\alphabetwidth
If no such length len has been set aside, if for example you
mistype the above as \settowidth{\aplhabetwidth}{abc...}
,
then you get something like ‘Undefined control sequence. <argument>
\aplhabetwidth’. If you leave the backslash out of len, as in
\settoheight{alphabetwidth}{...}
then you get something like
‘Missing number, treated as zero. <to be read again> \setbox’.
Next: Math formulas, Previous: Lengths, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
To start a paragraph, just type some text. To end the current paragraph, put an empty line. This is three paragraphs, separated by two empty lines.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. ``My dear Mr. Bennet,'' said his lady to him one day, ``have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?''
The separator lines must be empty, including not containing a comment
character, %
.
Once LaTeX has gathered all of a paragraph’s contents it divides that content into lines in a way that is optimized over the entire paragraph (see Line breaking).
There are places where a new paragraph is not permitted. Don’t put a
blank line in math mode (see Modes); here the line before the
\end{equation}
\begin{equation} 2^{|S|} > |S| \end{equation}
will get you the error ‘Missing $ inserted’. Similarly, the blank
line in this section
argument
\section{aaa bbb}
gets ‘Runaway argument? {aaa ! Paragraph ended before \@sect was complete’.
• \par: | End the current paragraph. | |
• \indent & \noindent: | Go into horizontal mode, possibly with an indent. | |
• \parindent & \parskip: | Space added before paragraphs. | |
• Marginal notes: | Put remarks in the margin. |
Next: \indent & \noindent, Up: Making paragraphs [Contents][Index]
\par
Synopsis (note that while reading the input TeX converts two
consecutive newlines to a \par
):
\par
End the current paragraph. The usual way to separate paragraphs is with
a blank line but the \par
command is entirely equivalent. This
command is robust (see \protect).
This example uses \par
rather than a blank line simply for
readability.
\newcommand{\syllabusLegalese}{% \whatCheatingIs\par\whatHappensWhenICatchYou}
In LR mode or a vertical mode the \par
command does nothing but
it terminates paragraph mode, switching LaTeX to vertical mode
(see Modes).
You cannot use the \par
command in a math mode. You also cannot
use it in the argument of many commands, such as the \section
command (see Making paragraphs and \newcommand & \renewcommand).
The \par
command is not the same as the \paragraph
command. The latter is, like \section
or \subsection
, a
sectioning unit used by the standard LaTeX documents
(see \subsubsection & \paragraph & \subparagraph).
The \par
command is not the same as \newline
or the line
break double backslash, \\
. The difference is that \par
ends the paragraph, not just the line, and also triggers the addition of
the between-paragraph vertical space \parskip
(see \parindent & \parskip).
The output from this example
xyz \setlength{\parindent}{3in} \setlength{\parskip}{5in} \noindent test\indent test1\par test2
is: after ‘xyz’ there is a vertical skip of 5 inches and then ‘test’ appears, aligned with the left margin. On the same line, there is an empty horizontal space of 3 inches and then ‘test1’ appears. Finally. there is a vertical space of 5 inches, followed by a fresh paragraph with a paragraph indent of 3 inches, and then LaTeX puts the text ‘test2’.
Next: \parindent & \parskip, Previous: \par, Up: Making paragraphs [Contents][Index]
\indent
& \noindent
Synopsis:
\indent
or
\noindent
Go into horizontal mode (see Modes). The \indent
command
first outputs an empty box whose width is \parindent
. These
commands are robust (see \protect).
Ordinarily you create a new paragraph by putting in a blank line.
See \par for the difference between this command and \par
. To
start a paragraph without an indent, or to continue an interrupted
paragraph, use \noindent
.
In the middle of a paragraph the \noindent
command has no effect,
because LaTeX is already in horizontal mode there. The
\indent
command’s only effect is to output a space.
This example starts a fresh paragraph.
... end of the prior paragraph. \noindent This paragraph is not indented.
and this continues an interrupted paragraph.
The data \begin{center} \begin{tabular}{rl} ... \end{tabular} \end{center} \noindent shows this clearly.
To omit indentation in the entire document put
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
in the preamble. If you do that,
you may want to also set the length of spaces between paragraphs,
\parskip
(see \parindent & \parskip).
Default LaTeX styles have the first paragraph after a section that is
not indented, as is traditional typesetting in English. To change that,
look on CTAN for the package indentfirst
.
Next: Marginal notes, Previous: \indent & \noindent, Up: Making paragraphs [Contents][Index]
\parindent
& \parskip
Synopsis:
\setlength{\parskip}{horizontal len} \setlength{\parinden}{vertical len}
Both are a rubber lengths (see Lengths). They give the indentation of ordinary paragraphs, not paragraphs inside minipages (see minipage), and the vertical space between paragraphs.
This, put in the preamble,
\setlength{\parindent}{0em} \setlength{\parskip}{1ex}
arranges that the document will have paragraphs that are not indented, but instead are vertically separated by about the height of a lowercase ‘x’.
In standard LaTeX documents, the default value for \parindent
in one-column documents is 15pt
when the default text size is
10pt
, 17pt
for 11pt
, and 1.5em
for
12pt
. In two-column documents it is 1em
. The default
value for \parskip
in LaTeX’s standard document styles is
0pt plus1pt
.
Previous: \parindent & \parskip, Up: Making paragraphs [Contents][Index]
Synopsis, one of:
\marginpar{right} \marginpar[left]{right}
Create a note in the margin. The first line of the note will have the
same baseline as the line in the text where the \marginpar
occurs.
The margin that LaTeX uses for the note depends on the current layout
(see Document class options) and also on \reversemarginpar
(see below). If you are using one-sided layout (document option
oneside
) then it goes in the right margin. If you are using
two-sided layout (document option twoside
) then it goes in the
outside margin. If you are in two-column layout (document option
twocolumn
) then it goes in the nearest margin.
If you declare \reversemarginpar
then LaTeX will place
subsequent marginal notes in the opposite margin to that given in the
prior paragraph. Revert that to the default position with
\normalmarginpar
.
When you specify the optional argument left then it is used for a note in the left margin, while the mandatory argument right is used for a note in the right margin.
Normally, a note’s first word will not be hyphenated. You can enable
hyphenation there by beginning left or right with
\hspace{0pt}
.
These parameters affect the formatting of the note:
\marginparpush
Minimum vertical space between notes; default ‘7pt’ for ‘12pt’ documents, ‘5pt’ else.
\marginparsep
Horizontal space between the main text and the note; default ‘11pt’ for ‘10pt’ documents, ‘10pt’ else.
\marginparwidth
Width of the note itself; default for a one-sided ‘10pt’ document is ‘90pt’, ‘83pt’ for ‘11pt’, and ‘68pt’ for ‘12pt’; ‘17pt’ more in each case for a two-sided document. In two column mode, the default is ‘48pt’.
The standard LaTeX routine for marginal notes does not prevent notes from falling off the bottom of the page.
Next: Modes, Previous: Making paragraphs, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Produce mathematical text by putting LaTeX into math mode or display math mode (see Modes). This example shows both.
The wave equation for \( u \) is \begin{displaymath} \frac{\partial^2u}{\partial t^2} = c^2\nabla^2u \end{displaymath} where \( \nabla^2 \) is the spatial Laplacian and \( c \) is constant.
Math mode is for inline mathematics. In the above example it is invoked
by the starting \(
and finished by the matching ending \)
.
Display math mode is for displayed equations and here is invoked by the
displaymath
environment. Note that any mathematical text
whatever, including mathematical text consisting of just one character,
is handled in math mode.
When in math mode or display math mode, LaTeX handles many aspects of your input text differently than in other text modes. For example,
contrast x+y with \( x+y \)
in math mode the letters are in italics and the spacing around the plus sign is different.
There are three ways to make inline formulas, to put LaTeX in math mode.
\( mathematical material \) $ mathematical material $ \begin{math} mathematical material \end{math}
The first form is preferred and the second is quite common, but the
third form is rarely used. You can sometimes use one and sometimes
another, as in \(x\) and $y$
. You can use these in paragraph
mode or in LR mode (see Modes).
To make displayed formulas, put LaTeX into display math mode with either:
\begin{displaymath} mathematical material \end{displaymath}
or
\begin{equation} mathematical material \end{equation}
(see displaymath, see equation). The only difference is that
with the equation
environment, LaTeX puts a formula number
alongside the formula. The construct \[ math \]
is
equivalent to \begin{displaymath} math
\end{displaymath}
. These environments can only be used in paragraph
mode (see Modes).
The two mathematics modes are similar, but there are some differences. One involves the placement of subscripts and superscripts; in display math mode they are further apart and in inline math mode they are closer together.
Sometimes you want the display math typographical treatment to happen in
the inline math mode. For this, the \displaystyle
declaration
forces the size and style of the formula to be that of
displaymath
. Thus \(\displaystyle \sum_{n=0}^\infty
x_n\)
will have the limits above and below the summation sign, not next
to it. Another example is that
\begin{tabular}{r|cc} \textsc{Name} &\textsc{Series} &\textsc{Sum} \\ \hline Arithmetic &\( a+(a+b)+(a+2b)+\cdots+(a+(n-1)b) \) &\( na+(n-1)n\cdot\frac{b}{2}\) \\ Geometric &\( a+ab+ab^2+\cdots+ab^{n-1} \) &\(\displaystyle a\cdot\frac{1-b^n}{1-b}\) \\ \end{tabular}
because it has no \displaystyle
, the ‘Arithmetic’ line’s
fraction will be scrunched. But, because of its \displaystyle
,
the ‘Geometric’ line’s fraction will be easy to read, with
characters the same size as in the rest of the line.
The American Mathematical Society has made freely available a set of packages that greatly expand your options for writing mathematics, amsmath and amssymb (also be aware of the mathtools package that is an extension to, and loads, amsmath). New documents that will have mathematical text should use these packages. Descriptions of these packages is outside the scope of this document; see their documentation on CTAN.
• Subscripts & superscripts: | Also known as exponent or index. | |
• Math symbols: | Various mathematical squiggles. | |
• Math functions: | Math function names like sin and exp. | |
• Math accents: | Accents in math. | |
• Over- and Underlining: | Things over or under formulas. | |
• Spacing in math mode: | Thick, medium, thin, and negative spaces. | |
• Math miscellany: | Stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. |
Next: Math symbols, Up: Math formulas [Contents][Index]
Synopsis (in math mode or display math mode), one of:
base^exp base^{exp}
or, one of:
base_exp base_{exp}
Make exp appear as a superscript of base (with the caret
character, ^
) or a subscript (with
underscore, _
).
In this example the 0
’s and 1
’s are subscripts while the
2
’s are superscripts.
\( (x_0+x_1)^2 \leq (x_0)^2+(x_1)^2 \)
To have the subscript or superscript contain more than one character,
surround the expression with curly braces, as in e^{-2x}
.
This example’s fourth line shows curly braces used to group an expression
for the exponent.
\begin{displaymath} (3^3)^3=27^3=19\,683 \qquad 3^{(3^3)}=3^{27}=7\,625\,597\,484\,987 \end{displaymath}
LaTeX knows how to handle a superscript on a superscript, or a
subscript on a subscript, or supers on subs, or subs on supers. So,
expressions such as e^{x^2}
and x_{i_0}
give correct
output. Note the use in those expressions of curly braces to give the
base a determined exp. If you enter \(3^3^3\)
then
you get ‘Double superscript’.
LaTeX does the right thing when something has both a subscript and a superscript. In this example the integral has both. They come out in the correct place without any author intervention.
\begin{displaymath} \int_{x=a}^b f'(x)\,dx = f(b)-f(a) \end{displaymath}
Note the parentheses around x=a
to make the entire expression a
subscript.
To put a superscript or subscript before a symbol, use a construct like
{}_t K^2
. The empty curly braces {}
give the
subscript something to attach to and keeps it from accidentally
attaching to a prior symbols.
Using the subscript or superscript command outside of math mode or
display math mode, as in the expression x^2
, will get you
the error ‘Missing $ inserted’.
A common reason to want subscripts outside of a mathematics mode is to typeset chemical formulas. There are packages for that such as mhchem; see CTAN.
Next: Math functions, Previous: Subscripts & superscripts, Up: Math formulas [Contents][Index]
LaTeX provides almost any mathematical or technical symbol that
anyone uses. For example, if you include $\pi$
in your source,
you will get the pi symbol π. See the Comprehensive
LaTeX Symbol List at
https://ctan.org/tex-archive/info/symbols/comprehensive/.
Here is a list of commonly-used symbols. It is by no means exhaustive. Each symbol is described with a short phrase, and its symbol class, which determines the spacing around it, is given in parenthesis. Unless said otherwise, the commands for these symbols can be used only in math mode. To redefine a command so that it can be used whatever the current mode, see \ensuremath.
\|
∥ Parallel (relation). Synonym: \parallel
.
\aleph
ℵ Aleph, transfinite cardinal (ordinary).
\alpha
α Lowercase Greek letter alpha (ordinary).
\amalg
⨿ Disjoint union (binary)
\angle
∠ Geometric angle (ordinary). Similar: less-than
sign <
and angle bracket \langle
.
\approx
≈ Almost equal to (relation).
\ast
∗ Asterisk operator, convolution, six-pointed
(binary). Synonym: *
, which is often a superscript or
subscript, as in the Kleene star. Similar: \star
, which is
five-pointed, and is sometimes used as a general binary operation, and
sometimes reserved for cross-correlation.
\asymp
≍ Asymptotically equivalent (relation).
\backslash
\ Backslash (ordinary). Similar: set minus \setminus
, and
\textbackslash
for backslash outside of math mode.
\beta
β Lowercase Greek letter beta (ordinary).
\bigcap
⋂ Variable-sized, or n-ary, intersection (operator). Similar:
binary intersection \cap
.
\bigcirc
⚪ Circle, larger (binary). Similar: function
composition \circ
.
\bigcup
⋃ Variable-sized, or n-ary, union (operator). Similar: binary
union \cup
.
\bigodot
⨀ Variable-sized, or n-ary, circled dot operator (operator).
\bigoplus
⨁ Variable-sized, or n-ary, circled plus operator (operator).
\bigotimes
⨂ Variable-sized, or n-ary, circled times operator (operator).
\bigtriangledown
▽ Variable-sized, or n-ary, open triangle pointing down (operator).
\bigtriangleup
△ Variable-sized, or n-ary, open triangle pointing up (operator).
\bigsqcup
⨆ Variable-sized, or n-ary, square union (operator).
\biguplus
⨄ Variable-sized, or n-ary, union operator with a plus (operator). (Note that the name has only one p.)
\bigvee
⋁ Variable-sized, or n-ary, logical-and (operator).
\bigwedge
⋀ Variable-sized, or n-ary, logical-or (operator).
\bot
⊥ Up tack, bottom, least element of a partially ordered
set, or a contradiction (ordinary). See also \top
.
\bowtie
⋈ Natural join of two relations (relation).
\Box
□ Modal operator for necessity; square open box (ordinary). Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package.
\bullet
• Bullet (binary). Similar: multiplication
dot \cdot
.
\cap
∩ Intersection of two sets (binary). Similar: variable-sized
operator \bigcap
.
\cdot
⋅ Multiplication (binary). Similar: Bullet
dot \bullet
.
\chi
χ Lowercase Greek chi (ordinary).
\circ
∘ Function composition, ring operator (binary). Similar:
variable-sized operator \bigcirc
.
\clubsuit
♣ Club card suit (ordinary).
\complement
∁ Set complement, used as a superscript as in
$S^\complement$
(ordinary). Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package. Also used:
$S^{\mathsf{c}}$
or $\bar{S}$
.
\cong
≅ Congruent (relation).
\coprod
∐ Coproduct (operator).
\cup
∪ Union of two sets (binary). Similar: variable-sized
operator \bigcup
.
\dagger
† Dagger relation (binary).
\dashv
⊣ Dash with vertical, reversed turnstile (relation). Similar:
turnstile \vdash
.
\ddagger
‡ Double dagger relation (binary).
\Delta
Δ Greek uppercase delta, used for increment (ordinary).
\delta
δ Greek lowercase delta (ordinary).
\Diamond
◇ Large diamond operator (ordinary). Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package.
\diamond
⋄ Diamond operator (binary). Similar: large
diamond \Diamond
, circle bullet \bullet
.
\diamondsuit
♢ Diamond card suit (ordinary).
\div
÷ Division sign (binary).
\doteq
≐ Approaches the limit (relation). Similar: geometrically equal
to \Doteq
.
\downarrow
↓ Down arrow, converges (relation). Similar:
\Downarrow
double line down arrow.
\Downarrow
⇓ Double line down arrow (relation). Similar:
\downarrow
single line down arrow.
\ell
ℓ Lowercase cursive letter l (ordinary).
\emptyset
∅ Empty set symbol (ordinary). The variant form is
\varnothing
.
\epsilon
ϵ Lowercase lunate epsilon (ordinary). Similar to
Greek text letter. More widely used in mathematics is the script small
letter epsilon \varepsilon
ε. Related:
the set membership relation \in
∈.
\equiv
≡ Equivalence (relation).
\eta
η Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\exists
∃ Existential quantifier (ordinary).
\flat
♭ Musical flat (ordinary).
\forall
∀ Universal quantifier (ordinary).
\frown
⌢ Downward curving arc (ordinary).
\Gamma
Γ uppercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\gamma
γ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\ge
≥ Greater than or equal to (relation). This is a synonym
for \geq
.
\geq
≥ Greater than or equal to (relation). This is a synonym
for \ge
.
\gets
← Is assigned the value (relation).
Synonym: \leftarrow
.
\gg
≫ Much greater than (relation). Similar: much less
than \ll
.
\hbar
ℏ Planck constant over two pi (ordinary).
\heartsuit
♡ Heart card suit (ordinary).
\hookleftarrow
↩ Hooked left arrow (relation).
\hookrightarrow
↪ Hooked right arrow (relation).
\iff
⟷ If and only if (relation). It is \Longleftrightarrow
with a \thickmuskip
on either side.
\Im
ℑ Imaginary part (ordinary). See: real part \Re
.
\imath
Dotless i; used when you are putting an accent on an i (see Math accents).
\in
∈ Set element (relation). See also: lowercase lunate
epsilon \epsilon
ϵ and small letter script
epsilon \varepsilon
.
\infty
∞ Infinity (ordinary).
\int
∫ Integral (operator).
\iota
ι Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\Join
⨝ Condensed bowtie symbol (relation). Not available in Plain TeX.
\jmath
Dotless j; used when you are putting an accent on a j (see Math accents).
\kappa
κ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\Lambda
Λ uppercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\lambda
λ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\land
∧ Logical and (binary). This is a synonym for \wedge
.
See also logical or \lor
.
\langle
⟨ Left angle, or sequence, bracket (opening). Similar:
less-than <
. Matches \rangle
.
\lbrace
{ Left curly brace
(opening). Synonym: \{
. Matches \rbrace
.
\lbrack
[ Left square bracket (opening).
Synonym: [
. Matches \rbrack
.
\lceil
⌈ Left ceiling bracket, like a square bracket but with the bottom
shaved off (opening). Matches \rceil
.
\le
≤ Less than or equal to (relation). This is a synonym
for \leq
.
\leadsto
⇝ Squiggly right arrow (relation). Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package.
To get this symbol outside of math mode you can put
\newcommand*{\Leadsto}{\ensuremath{\leadsto}}
in the
preamble and then use \Leadsto
instead.
\Leftarrow
⇐ Is implied by, double-line left arrow (relation). Similar:
single-line left arrow \leftarrow
.
\leftarrow
← Single-line left arrow (relation).
Synonym: \gets
. Similar: double-line left
arrow \Leftarrow
.
\leftharpoondown
↽ Single-line left harpoon, barb under bar (relation).
\leftharpoonup
↼ Single-line left harpoon, barb over bar (relation).
\Leftrightarrow
⇔ Bi-implication; double-line double-headed arrow (relation).
Similar: single-line double headed arrow \leftrightarrow
.
\leftrightarrow
↔ Single-line double-headed arrow (relation). Similar:
double-line double headed arrow \Leftrightarrow
.
\leq
≤ Less than or equal to (relation). This is a synonym
for \le
.
\lfloor
⌊ Left floor bracket (opening). Matches: \floor
.
\lhd
◁ Arrowhead, that is, triangle, pointing left (binary).
Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package. For the normal subgroup symbol you should load
amssymb and use \vartriangleleft
(which is a relation
and so gives better spacing).
\ll
≪ Much less than (relation). Similar: much greater
than \gg
.
\lnot
¬ Logical negation (ordinary). Synonym: \neg
.
\longleftarrow
⟵ Long single-line left arrow (relation). Similar: long
double-line left arrow \Longleftarrow
.
\longleftrightarrow
⟷ Long single-line double-headed arrow (relation). Similar: long
double-line double-headed arrow \Longleftrightarrow
.
\longmapsto
⟼ Long single-line left arrow starting with vertical bar
(relation). Similar: shorter version \mapsto
.
\longrightarrow
⟶ Long single-line right arrow (relation). Similar: long
double-line right arrow \Longrightarrow
.
\lor
∨ Logical or (binary). Synonym: wedge \wedge
.
\mapsto
↦ Single-line left arrow starting with vertical bar (relation).
Similar: longer version \longmapsto
.
\mho
℧ Conductance, half-circle rotated capital omega (ordinary). Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package.
\mid
∣ Single-line vertical bar (relation). A typical use of
\mid
is for a set \{\, x \mid x\geq 5 \,\}
.
Similar: \vert
and |
produce the same single-line
vertical bar symbol but without any spacing (they fall in class
ordinary) and you should not use them as relations but instead only as
ordinals, i.e., footnote symbols. For absolute value, see the entry
for \vert
and for norm see the entry for \Vert
.
\models
⊨ Entails, or satisfies; double turnstile, short double dash
(relation). Similar: long double dash \vDash
.
\mp
∓ Minus or plus (relation).
\mu
μ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\nabla
∇ Hamilton’s del, or differential, operator (ordinary).
\natural
♮ Musical natural notation (ordinary).
\ne
≠ Not equal (relation). Synonym: \neq
.
\nearrow
↗ North-east arrow (relation).
\neg
¬ Logical negation (ordinary).
Synonym: \lnot
. Sometimes instead used for
negation: \sim
.
\neq
≠ Not equal (relation). Synonym: \ne
.
\ni
∋ Reflected membership epsilon; has the member
(relation). Synonym: \owns
. Similar: is a member
of \in
.
\not
Long solidus, or slash, used to overstrike a following operator (relation).
Many negated operators are available that don’t require \not
,
particularly with the amssymb package. For example, \notin
is typographically preferable to \not\in
.
\notin
∉ Not an element of (relation). Similar: not subset
of \nsubseteq
.
\nu
ν Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\nwarrow
↖ North-west arrow (relation).
\odot
⊙ Dot inside a circle (binary). Similar: variable-sized
operator \bigodot
.
\oint
∮ Contour integral, integral with circle in the middle (operator).
\Omega
Ω uppercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\omega
ω Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\ominus
⊖ Minus sign, or dash, inside a circle (binary).
\oplus
⊕ Plus sign inside a circle (binary). Similar: variable-sized
operator \bigoplus
.
\oslash
⊘ Solidus, or slash, inside a circle (binary).
\otimes
⊗ Times sign, or cross, inside a circle (binary). Similar:
variable-sized operator \bigotimes
.
\owns
∋ Reflected membership epsilon; has the member
(relation). Synonym: \ni
. Similar: is a member
of \in
.
\parallel
∥ Parallel (relation). Synonym: \|
.
\partial
∂ Partial differential (ordinary).
\perp
⟂ Perpendicular (relation). Similar: \bot
uses the
same glyph but the spacing is different because it is in the class
ordinary.
\phi
ϕ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary). The variant form is
\varphi
φ.
\Pi
Π uppercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\pi
π Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary). The variant form is
\varpi
ϖ.
\pm
± Plus or minus (binary).
\prec
≺ Precedes (relation). Similar: less than <
.
\preceq
⪯ Precedes or equals (relation). Similar: less than or
equals \leq
.
\prime
′ Prime, or minute in a time expression (ordinary).
Typically used as a superscript: $f^\prime$
; $f^\prime$
and $f'$
produce the same result. An advantage of the second
is that $f'''$
produces the desired symbol, that is, the same
result as $f^{\prime\prime\prime}$
, but uses rather less
typing. You can only use \prime
in math mode. Using the right
single quote '
in text mode produces a different character
(apostrophe).
\prod
∏ Product (operator).
\propto
∝ Is proportional to (relation)
\Psi
Ψ uppercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\psi
ψ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\rangle
⟩ Right angle, or sequence, bracket (closing).
Similar: greater than >
. Matches:\langle
.
\rbrace
} Right curly brace
(closing). Synonym: \}
. Matches \lbrace
.
\rbrack
] Right square bracket
(closing). Synonym: ]
. Matches \lbrack
.
\rceil
⌉ Right ceiling bracket (closing). Matches \lceil
.
\Re
ℜ Real part, real numbers, cursive capital R (ordinary). Related:
double-line, or blackboard bold, R \mathbb{R}
; to access
this, load the amsfonts package.
\restriction
↾ Restriction of a function (relation). Synonym:
\upharpoonright
. Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package.
\revemptyset
⦰ Reversed empty set symbol (ordinary). Related:
\varnothing
. Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the stix package.
\rfloor
⌋ Right floor bracket, a right square bracket with the top cut
off (closing). Matches \lfloor
.
\rhd
◁ Arrowhead, that is, triangle, pointing right (binary).
Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package. For the normal subgroup symbol you should instead
load amssymb and use \vartriangleright
(which is a
relation and so gives better spacing).
\rho
ρ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary). The variant form is
\varrho
ϱ.
\Rightarrow
⇒ Implies, right-pointing double line arrow
(relation). Similar: right single-line arrow \rightarrow
.
\rightarrow
→ Right-pointing single line arrow (relation).
Synonym: \to
. Similar: right double line
arrow \Rightarrow
.
\rightharpoondown
⇁ Right-pointing harpoon with barb below the line (relation).
\rightharpoonup
⇀ Right-pointing harpoon with barb above the line (relation).
\rightleftharpoons
⇌ Right harpoon up above left harpoon down (relation).
\searrow
↘ Arrow pointing southeast (relation).
\setminus
⧵ Set difference, reverse solidus or reverse slash,
like \ (binary). Similar: backslash \backslash
and also
\textbackslash
outside of math mode.
\sharp
♯ Musical sharp (ordinary).
\Sigma
Σ uppercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\sigma
σ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary). The variant form is
\varsigma
ς.
\sim
∼ Similar, in a relation (relation).
\simeq
≃ Similar or equal to, in a relation (relation).
\smallint
∫ Integral sign that does not change to a larger size in a display (operator).
\smile
⌣ Upward curving arc, smile (ordinary).
\spadesuit
♠ Spade card suit (ordinary).
\sqcap
⊓ Square intersection symbol (binary). Similar:
intersection cap
.
\sqcup
⊔ Square union symbol (binary). Similar:
union cup
. Related: variable-sized
operator \bigsqcup
.
\sqsubset
⊏ Square subset symbol (relation). Similar:
subset \subset
. Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package.
\sqsubseteq
⊑ Square subset or equal symbol (binary). Similar: subset or
equal to \subseteq
.
\sqsupset
⊐ Square superset symbol (relation). Similar:
superset \supset
. Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package.
\sqsupseteq
⊒ Square superset or equal symbol (binary).
Similar: superset or equal \supseteq
.
\star
⋆ Five-pointed star, sometimes used as a general binary
operation but sometimes reserved for cross-correlation (binary).
Similar: the synonyms asterisk *
and \ast
, which
are six-pointed, and more often appear as a superscript or subscript,
as with the Kleene star.
\subset
⊂ Subset (occasionally, is implied by) (relation).
\subseteq
⊆ Subset or equal to (relation).
\succ
≻ Comes after, succeeds (relation). Similar: is less
than >
.
\succeq
⪰ Succeeds or is equal to (relation). Similar: less
than or equal to \leq
.
\sum
∑ Summation (operator). Similar: Greek capital
sigma \Sigma
.
\supset
⊃ Superset (relation).
\supseteq
⊇ Superset or equal to (relation).
\surd
√ Radical symbol (ordinary). The LaTeX command
\sqrt{...}
typesets the square root of the argument, with a bar
that extends to cover the argument.
\swarrow
↙ Southwest-pointing arrow (relation).
\tau
τ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\theta
θ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary). The variant form is
\vartheta
ϑ.
\times
× Primary school multiplication sign (binary). See
also \cdot
.
\to
→ Right-pointing single line arrow (relation).
Synonym: \rightarrow
.
\top
⊤ Top, greatest element of a partially ordered set
(ordinary). See also \bot
.
\triangle
△ Triangle (ordinary).
\triangleleft
◁ Not-filled triangle pointing left
(binary). Similar: \lhd
. For the normal subgroup symbol you
should load amssymb and use \vartriangleleft
(which
is a relation and so gives better spacing).
\triangleright
▷ Not-filled triangle pointing right
(binary). For the normal subgroup symbol you should instead load
amssymb and use \vartriangleright
(which is a
relation and so gives better spacing).
\unlhd
⊴ Left-pointing not-filled underlined arrowhead, that is,
triangle, with a line under (binary). Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package. For the
normal subgroup symbol load amssymb and
use \vartrianglelefteq
(which is a relation and so gives
better spacing).
\unrhd
⊵ Right-pointing not-filled underlined arrowhead, that is,
triangle, with a line under (binary). Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package. For the
normal subgroup symbol load amssymb and
use \vartrianglerighteq
(which is a relation and so gives
better spacing).
\Uparrow
⇑ Double-line upward-pointing arrow
(relation). Similar: single-line up-pointing
arrow \uparrow
.
\uparrow
↑ Single-line upward-pointing arrow, diverges
(relation). Similar: double-line up-pointing
arrow \Uparrow
.
\Updownarrow
⇕ Double-line upward-and-downward-pointing arrow
(relation). Similar: single-line upward-and-downward-pointing
arrow \updownarrow
.
\updownarrow
↕ Single-line upward-and-downward-pointing arrow
(relation). Similar: double-line upward-and-downward-pointing
arrow \Updownarrow
.
\upharpoonright
↾ Up harpoon, with barb on right side
(relation). Synonym: \restriction
.
Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package.
\uplus
⊎ Multiset union, a union symbol with a plus symbol in
the middle (binary). Similar: union \cup
. Related:
variable-sized operator \biguplus
.
\Upsilon
Υ uppercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\upsilon
υ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\varepsilon
ε Small letter script epsilon (ordinary). This is
more widely used in mathematics than the non-variant lunate epsilon form
\epsilon
ϵ. Related: set
membership \in
.
\vanothing
∅ Empty set symbol. Similar: \emptyset
. Related:
\revemptyset
. Not available in plain TeX. In LaTeX you need to load the amssymb package.
\varphi
φ Variant on the lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
The non-variant form is \phi
ϕ.
\varpi
ϖ Variant on the lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
The non-variant form is \pi
π.
\varrho
ϱ Variant on the lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
The non-variant form is \rho
ρ.
\varsigma
ς Variant on the lowercase Greek letter
(ordinary). The non-variant form is
\sigma
σ.
\vartheta
ϑ Variant on the lowercase Greek letter
(ordinary). The non-variant form is
\theta
θ.
\vdash
⊢ Provable; turnstile, vertical and a dash
(relation). Similar: turnstile rotated a
half-circle \dashv
.
\vee
∨ Logical or; a downwards v shape (binary). Related:
logical and \wedge
. Similar: variable-sized
operator \bigvee
.
\Vert
‖ Vertical double bar (ordinary). Similar: vertical single
bar \vert
.
For a norm symbol, you can use the mathtools package and put in
your preamble
\DeclarePairedDelimiter\norm{\lVert}{\rVert}
. This gives you
three command variants for double-line vertical bars that are correctly
horizontally spaced: if in the document body you write the starred
version $\norm*{M^\perp}$
then the height of the vertical bars
will match the height of the argument, whereas with
\norm{M^\perp}
the bars do not grow with the height of the
argument but instead are the default height, and \norm[size
command]{M^\perp}
also gives bars that do not grow but are set to
the size given in the size command, e.g., \Bigg
.
\vert
| Single line vertical bar (ordinary). Similar: double-line
vertical bar \Vert
. For such that, as in the definition of a
set, use \mid
because it is a relation.
For absolute value you can use the mathtools package and in your
preamble put
\DeclarePairedDelimiter\abs{\lvert}{\rvert}
. This gives you
three command variants for single-line vertical bars that are correctly
horizontally spaced: if in the document body you write the starred
version $\abs*{\frac{22}{7}}$
then the height of the
vertical bars will match the height of the argument, whereas with
\abs{\frac{22}{7}}
the bars do not grow with the height of
the argument but instead are the default height, and
\abs[size command]{\frac{22}{7}}
also gives bars that
do not grow but are set to the size given in the size command,
e.g., \Bigg
.
\wedge
∧ Logical and (binary). Synonym: \land
. See also
logical or \vee
. Similar: variable-sized
operator \bigwedge
.
\wp
℘ Weierstrass p (ordinary).
\wr
≀ Wreath product (binary).
\Xi
Ξ uppercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\xi
ξ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
\zeta
ζ Lowercase Greek letter (ordinary).
The following symbols are most often used in plain text but LaTeX provides versions to use in mathematical text.
\mathdollar
Dollar sign in math mode: $.
\mathparagraph
Paragraph sign (pilcrow) in math mode, ¶.
\mathsection
Section sign in math mode §.
\mathsterling
Sterling sign in math mode: £.
\mathunderscore
Underscore in math mode: _.
• Blackboard bold: | Doublestruck characters. | |
• Calligraphic: | Cursive characters. | |
• \boldmath & \unboldmath: | Symbols in boldface. | |
• Dots: | Ellipses, etc. |
Next: Calligraphic, Up: Math symbols [Contents][Index]
Synopsis:
\usepackage{amssymb} % in preamble ... \mathbb{uppercase-letter}
Provide blackboard bold symbols, sometimes also known as doublestruck letters, used to denote number sets such as the natural numbers, the integers, etc.
Here
\( \forall n \in \mathbb{N}, n^2 \geq 0 \)
the \mathbb{N}
gives blackboard bold symbol ℕ
representing the natural numbers.
If you use other than an uppercase letter then you do not get an error but you get strange results, including unexpected characters.
There are packages that give access to symbols other than just the capital letters; look on CTAN.
Next: \boldmath & \unboldmath, Previous: Blackboard bold, Up: Math symbols [Contents][Index]
Synopsis:
\mathcal{uppercase-letters}
Use a script-like font.
In this example the graph identifier is output in a cursive font.
Let the graph be \( \mathcal{G} \).
If you use something other than an uppercase letter then you do not get
an error. Instead you get unexpected output. For instance,
\mathcal{g}
outputs a close curly brace symbol, while
\mathcal{+}
outputs a plus sign.
Next: Dots, Previous: Calligraphic, Up: Math symbols [Contents][Index]
\boldmath
& \unboldmath
Synopsis (used in paragraph mode or LR mode):
\boldmath \( math \)
or
\unboldmath \( math \)
Declarations to change the letters and symbols in math to be in a bold font, or to countermand that and bring back the regular (non-bold) default. They must be used when not in math mode or display math mode (see Modes). Both commands are fragile (see \protect).
In this example each \boldmath
command takes place inside an
\mbox
,
we have $\mbox{\boldmath \( v \)} = 5\cdot\mbox{\boldmath \( u \)$}$
which means \boldmath
is only called in a text mode, here LR
mode, and explains why LaTeX must switch to math mode to set v
and u
.
If you use either command inside math mode, as with Trouble: \(
\boldmath x \)
, then you get something like ‘LaTeX Font Warning:
Command \boldmath invalid in math mode on input line 11’ and ‘LaTeX
Font Warning: Command \mathversion invalid in math mode on input line
11’.
There are many issues with \boldmath
. New documents should use
the bm package provided by the LaTeX Project team. A complete
description is outside the scope of this document (see the full
documentation on CTAN) but even this small example
\usepackage{bm} % in preamble ... we have $\bm{v} = 5\cdot\bm{u}$
shows that it is an improvement over \boldmath
.
Previous: \boldmath & \unboldmath, Up: Math symbols [Contents][Index]
Ellipses are the three dots (usually three) indicating that a pattern continues.
\begin{array}{cccc} a_{0,0} &a_{0,1} &a_{0,2} &\ldots \\ a_{1,0} &\ddots \\ \vdots \end{array}
LaTeX provides these.
\cdots
Horizontal ellipsis with the dots raised to the center of the line, as
in ⋯. Used as: \( a_0\cdot a_1\cdots a_{n-1}
\)
.
\ddots
Diagonal ellipsis, ⋱. See the above array example for a usage.
\ldots
Ellipsis on the baseline, …. Used as: \(
x_0,\ldots x_{n-1} \)
. Another example is the above array example. A
synonym is \mathellipsis
. A synonym from the amsmath
package is \hdots
.
You can also use this command outside of mathematical text, as in
The gears, brakes, \ldots{} are all broken
. (In a paragraph
mode or LR mode a synonym for \ldots
is \dots
.)
\vdots
Vertical ellipsis, ⋮. See the above array example for a usage.
The amsmath package has the command \dots
to semantically
mark up ellipses. This example produces two different-looking outputs
for the first two uses of the \dots
command.
\usepackage{amsmath} % in preamble ... Suppose that \( p_0, p_1, \dots, p_{n-1} \) lists all of the primes. Observe that \( p_0\cdot p_1 \dots \cdot p_{n-1} +1 \) is not a multiple of any \( p_i \). Conclusion: there are infinitely many primes \( p_0, p_1, \dotsc \).
In the first line LaTeX looks to the comma following \dots
to
determine that it should output an ellipsis on the baseline. The second
line has a \cdot
following \dots
so LaTeX outputs an
ellipsis that is on the math axis, vertically centered. However, the
third usage has no follow-on character so you have to tell LaTeX what
to do. You can use one of the commands: \dotsc
if you need the
ellipsis appropriate for a comma following, \dotsb
if you need
the ellipses that fits when the dots are followed by a binary operator
or relation symbol, \dotsi
for dots with integrals, or
\dotso
for others.
Next: Math accents, Previous: Math symbols, Up: Math formulas [Contents][Index]
These commands produce roman function names in math mode with proper spacing.
\arccos
Inverse cosine
\arcsin
Inverse sine
\arctan
Inverse tangent
\arg
Angle between the real axis and a point in the complex plane
\bmod
Binary modulo operator, used as in \( 5\bmod 3=2 \)
\cos
Cosine
\cosh
Hyperbolic cosine
\cot
Cotangent
\coth
Hyperbolic cotangent
\csc
Cosecant
\deg
Degrees
\det
Determinant
\dim
Dimension
\exp
Exponential
\gcd
Greatest common divisor
\hom
Homomorphism
\inf
Infinum
\ker
Kernel
\lg
Base 2 logarithm
\lim
Limit
\liminf
Limit inferior
\limsup
Limit superior
\ln
Natural logarithm
\log
Logarithm
\max
Maximum
\min
Minimum
\pmod
Parenthesized modulus, as used in \( 5\equiv 2\pmod 3 \)
\Pr
Probability
\sec
Secant
\sin
Sine
\sinh
Hyperbolic sine
\sup
sup
\tan
Tangent
\tanh
Hyperbolic tangent
The amsmath package adds improvements on some of these, and also
allows you to define your own. The full documentation is on CTAN, but
briefly, you can define an identity operator with
\DeclareMathOperator{\identity}{id}
that is like the ones
above but prints as ‘id’. The starred form
\DeclareMathOperator*{\op}{op}
sets any limits above and
below, as is traditional with \lim
, \sup
, or \max
.
Next: Over- and Underlining, Previous: Math functions, Up: Math formulas [Contents][Index]
LaTeX provides a variety of commands for producing accented letters in math. These are different from accents in normal text (see Accents).
\acute
Math acute accent
\bar
Math bar-over accent
\breve
Math breve accent
\check
Math háček (check) accent
\ddot
Math dieresis accent
\dot
Math dot accent
\grave
Math grave accent
\hat
Math hat (circumflex) accent
\mathring
Math ring accent
\tilde
Math tilde accent
\vec
Math vector symbol
\widehat
Math wide hat accent
\widetilde
Math wide tilde accent
When you are putting an accent on an i or a j, the tradition is to use
one without a dot, \imath
or jmath
(see Math symbols).
Next: Spacing in math mode, Previous: Math accents, Up: Math formulas [Contents][Index]
LaTeX provides commands for making overlines or underlines, or putting braces over or under some material.
\underline{text}
Underline text. Works inside math mode, and outside.
The line is always completely below the text, taking account of
descenders, so in \(\underline{y}\)
the line is lower than in
\(\underline{x}\)
. This command is fragile (see \protect).
Note that the package ulem does text mode underlining and allows line breaking as well as a number of other features. See the documentation on CTAN. See also \hrulefill & \dotfill for producing a line, for such things as a signature.
\overline{text}
Put a horizontal line over text. Works inside math mode, and
outside. For example, \overline{x+y}
.
Note that this differs from the command \bar
(see Math accents).
\underbrace{math}
Put a brace under math. For example, this
(1-\underbrace{1/2)+(1/2}-1/3)
emphasizes the telescoping part.
Attach text to the brace by using subscript, _
, or superscript,
^
, as here.
\begin{displaymath} 1+1/2+\underbrace{1/3+1/4}_{>1/2}+ \underbrace{1/5+1/6+1/7+1/8}_{>1/2}+\cdots \end{displaymath}
The superscript appears on top of the expression, and so can look unconnected to the underbrace.
\overbrace{math}
Put a brace over math, as with
\overbrace{x+x+\cdots+x}^{\mbox{\(k\) times}}
. See also
\underbrace
.
The package mathtools adds an over- and underbrace, as well as some improvements on the braces. See the documentation on CTAN.
Next: Math miscellany, Previous: Over- and Underlining, Up: Math formulas [Contents][Index]
When typesetting mathematics, LaTeX puts in spacing according to the
normal rules for mathematics texts. If you enter y=m x
then
LaTeX ignores the space and in the output the m is next to the x,
as y=mx.
But LaTeX’s rules sometimes need tweaking. For example, in an
integral the tradition is to put a small extra space between the
f(x)
and the dx
, here done with the \,
command.
\int_0^1 f(x)\,dx
LaTeX provides the commands that follow for use in math mode. Many
of these spacing definitions are expressed in terms of the math unit
mu. It is defined as 1/18em, where the em is taken from the
current math symbols family (see Units of length). Thus, a
\thickspace
is something like 5/18 times the width of
a ‘M’.
\;
Synonym: \thickspace
. Normally 5.0mu plus 5.0mu
. Math
mode only.
\:
\>
Synonym: \medspace
. Normally 4.0mu plus 2.0mu minus 4.0mu
.
Math mode only.
\,
Synonym: \thinspace
. Normally 3mu
, which is 1/6em.
Can be used in both math mode and text mode (see \thinspace & \negthinspace).
This space is widely used, for instance between the function and the
infinitesimal in an integral \int f(x)\,dx
and, if an author does
this, before punctuation in a displayed equation.
The antiderivative is \begin{equation} 3x^{-1/2}+3^{1/2}\,. \end{equation}
\!
A negative thin space. Normally -3mu
. The \!
command is
math mode only but the \negthinspace
command is available for
text mode (see \thinspace & \negthinspace).
\quad
This is 18mu, that is, 1em. This is often used for space
surrounding equations or expressions, for instance for the space between
two equations inside a displaymath
environment. It is available
in both text and math mode.
\qquad
A length of 2 quads, that is, 36mu = 2em. It is available in both text and math mode.
• \smash: | Eliminate height or depth of a subformula. | |
• \phantom & \vphantom & \hphantom: | Make empty box with the same size as the argument. |
Next: \phantom & \vphantom & \hphantom, Up: Spacing in math mode [Contents][Index]
\smash
Synopsis:
\smash{subformula}
Typeset subformula as if its height and depth were zero.
In this example the exponential is so tall that without the
\smash
command LaTeX would separate its line from the line
above it, and the uneven line spacing might be unsightly.
To compute the tetration $\smash{2^{2^{2^2}}}$, evaluate from the top down, as $2^{2^4}=2^{16}=65536$.
(Because of the \smash
the printed expression could run into the
line above so you may want to wait until the final version of the
document to make such adjustments.)
This pictures the effect of \smash
by using \fbox
to
surround the box that LaTeX will put on the line. The
\blackbar
command makes a bar extending from 10 points below
the baseline to 20 points above.
\newcommand{\blackbar}{\rule[-10pt]{5pt}{30pt}} \fbox{\blackbar} \fbox{\smash{\blackbar}}
The first box that LaTeX places is 20 points high and 10 points deep. But the second box is treated by LaTeX as having zero height and zero depth, despite that the ink printed on the page still extends well above and below the line.
The \smash
command appears often in mathematics to adjust the
size of an element that surrounds a subformula. Here the first radical
extends below the baseline while the second lies just on the baseline.
\begin{equation} \sqrt{\sum_{0\leq k< n} f(k)} \sqrt{\vphantom{\sum}\smash{\sum_{0\leq k< n}} f(k)} \end{equation}
Note the use of \vphantom
to give the \sqrt
command an
argument with the height of the \sum
(see \phantom & \vphantom & \hphantom).
While most often used in mathematics, the \smash
command can
appear in other contexts. However, it doesn’t change into horizontal
mode. So if it starts a paragraph then you should first put a
\leavevmode
, as in the bottom line below.
xxx xxx xxx \smash{yyy} % no paragraph indent \leavevmode\smash{zzz} % usual paragraph indent
The package mathtools
has operators that provide even finer
control over smashing a subformula box.
Previous: \smash, Up: Spacing in math mode [Contents][Index]
\phantom
& \vphantom
& \hphantom
Synopsis:
\phantom{subformula}
or
\vphantom{subformula}
or
\hphantom{subformula}
The \phantom
command creates a box with the same height, depth,
and width as subformula, but empty. That is, this command causes
LaTeX to typeset the box but not its ink. The \vphantom
variant also produces an invisible box with the same height and depth as
subformula, but it has width zero. And \hphantom
makes a
box with the same width as subformula but with height and depth
zero.
Without the \vphantom
in this example, the top bars of the two
square roots would be at different heights.
\( \sqrt{\vphantom{a^3}a}\cdot\sqrt{a^3} \)
The \vphantom{a^3}
causes the first \sqrt
to have inside
it a box of the same height as the second \sqrt
, so LaTeX
makes the bars align.
These commands often are combined with \smash
. See \smash
for another example of the use of \vphantom
.
The three phantom commands appear often but note that LaTeX provides
a suite of other commands to work with box sizes that may be more
convenient, including \makebox
(see \mbox & \makebox) as well
as \settodepth
(see \settodepth), \settoheight
(see \settoheight), and \settowidth
(see \settowidth).
In addition, the mathtools package has many commands that offer
fine-grained control over spacing.
All three commands produce an ordinary box, without any special
mathematics status. So to do something like attaching a superscript you
should give it such a status, for example with the \operatorname
command from the package amsmath.
While most often used in mathematics, these three can appear in other
contexts. However, they don’t cause LaTeX to change into horizontal
mode. So if one of these starts a paragraph then you should prefix it
with \leavevmode
.
Previous: Spacing in math mode, Up: Math formulas [Contents][Index]
LaTeX contains a wide variety of mathematics facilities. Here are some that don’t fit into other categories.
• Colon character & \colon: | Colon. | |
• \*: | Discretionary multiplication. | |
• \frac: | Fraction. | |
• \left & \right: | Paired delimiters. | |
• \sqrt: | Radicals. | |
• \stackrel: | Text over a relation. |
Next: \*, Up: Math miscellany [Contents][Index]
:
& \colon
Synopsis, one of:
: \colon
In mathematics, the colon character, :
, is a relation.
With side ratios \( 3:4 \) and \( 4:5 \), the triangle is right.
Ordinary LaTeX defines \colon
to produce the colon character
with the spacing appropriate for punctuation, as in set-builder notation
\{x\colon 0\leq x<1\}
.
But the widely-used amsmath package defines \colon
for use
in the definition of functions f\colon D\to C
. So if you want
the colon character as a punctuation then use \mathpunct{:}
.
Next: \frac, Previous: Colon character & \colon, Up: Math miscellany [Contents][Index]
\*
Synopsis:
\*
A multiplication symbol that allows a line break. If there is a break
then LaTeX puts a \times
symbol, ×, before
that break.
In \( A_1\* A_2\* A_3\* A_4 \)
, if there is no line break then
LaTeX outputs it as though it were \( A_1 A_2 A_3 A_4 \)
. If
a line break does happen, for example between the two middle ones, then
LaTeX sets it like \( A_1 A_2 \times \)
, followed by the
break, followed by \( A_3 A_4 \)
.
Next: \left & \right, Previous: \*, Up: Math miscellany [Contents][Index]
\frac
Synopsis:
\frac{numerator}{denominator}
Produces the fraction. Used as: \begin{displaymath}
\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi\sigma}} \end{displaymath}
. In inline math
mode it comes out small; see the discussion of \displaystyle
(see Math formulas).
Next: \sqrt, Previous: \frac, Up: Math miscellany [Contents][Index]
\left
& \right
Synopsis:
\left delimiter1 ... \right delimiter2
Make matching parentheses, braces, or other delimiters. The delimiters are sized according to the math they enclose. This makes a unit vector surrounded by appropriate-height parentheses.
\begin{equation} \left(\begin{array}{c} 1 \\ 0 \\ \end{array}\right)
Every \left
must have a matching \right
. Leaving out the
\left(
in the above gets ‘Extra \right’. Leaving off the
\right)
gets ‘You can't use `\eqno' in math mode’.
However, the two delimiters delimiter1 and delimiter2 need not match. A common case is that you want an unmatched brace, as below. Use a period, ‘.’, as a null delimiter.
\begin{equation} f(n)=\left\{\begin{array}{ll} 1 &\mbox{--if \(n=0\)} \\ f(n-1)+3n^2 &\mbox{--else} \end{array}\right. \end{equation}
Note that to get a curly brace as a delimiter you must prefix it with a
backslash, \{
.
Next: \stackrel, Previous: \left & \right, Up: Math miscellany [Contents][Index]
\sqrt
Synopsis, one of:
\sqrt{arg} \sqrt[root-number]{arg}
The square root, or optionally other roots, of arg. The optional
argument root-number gives the root, i.e., enter the cube root of
x+y
as \sqrt[3]{x+y}
.
The radical grows with the size of arg (as the height of the
radical grows, the angle on the leftmost part gets steeper, until for
a large enough arg
, it is vertical).
LaTeX has a separate \surd
character (see Math symbols).
Previous: \sqrt, Up: Math miscellany [Contents][Index]
\stackrel
Synopsis, one of:
\stackrel{text}{relation}
Put text above relation. To put a function name above an
arrow enter \stackrel{f}{\longrightarrow}
.
Next: Page styles, Previous: Math formulas, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
As LaTeX processes your document, at any point it is in one of six modes. They fall into three categories of two each, the horizontal modes, the math modes, and the vertical modes. Some commands only work in one mode or another (in particular, many commands only work in one of the math modes), and error messages will refer to these.
LR mode (for left-to-right mode; in plain TeX this is called
restricted horizontal mode) is in effect when LaTeX starts
making a box with an \mbox
command. As in paragraph mode,
LaTeX’s output is a string of words with spaces between them. Unlike
in paragraph mode, in LR mode LaTeX never starts a new line, it just
keeps going from left to right. (Although LaTeX will not complain
that the LR box is too long, when it is finished and next tries to put
that box into a line, it could very well complain that the finished LR
box won’t fit there.)
Display math mode is when LaTeX is generating a displayed
mathematical formula. (Displayed formulas differ somewhat from inline
ones. One example is that the placement of the subscript on \int
differs in the two situations.)
Internal vertical mode is in effect when LaTeX starts making a
\vbox
. This is the vertical analogue of LR mode.
For instance, if you begin a LaTeX article with ‘Let \( x \) be ...’ then these are the modes: first LaTeX starts every document in vertical mode, then it reads the ‘L’ and switches to paragraph mode, then the next switch happens at the ‘\(’ where LaTeX changes to math mode, and then when it leaves the formula it pops back to paragraph mode.
Paragraph mode has two subcases. If you use a \parbox
command
or a minipage
then LaTeX is put into paragraph mode. But it
will not put a page break here. Inside one of these boxes, called a
parbox, LaTeX is in inner paragraph mode. Its more usual
situation, where it can put page breaks, is outer paragraph mode
(see Page breaking).
• \ensuremath: | Ensure that math mode is active. |
\ensuremath
Synopsis:
\ensuremath{formula}
Ensure that formula is typeset in math mode.
For instance, you can redefine commands that ordinarily can be used only in math mode, so that they can be used both in math and in plain text.
\newcommand{\dx}{\ensuremath{dx}} In $\int f(x)\, \dx$, the \dx{} is an infinitesimal.
Caution: the \ensuremath
command is useful but not a panacea.
\newcommand{\alf}{\ensuremath{\alpha}} You get an alpha in text mode: \alf. But compare the correct spacing in $\alf+\alf$ with that in \alf+\alf.
Best is to typeset math things in a math mode.
The style of a page determines where LaTeX places the components of that page, such as headers and footers, and the text body. This includes pages in the main part of the document but also includes special pages such as the title page of a book, a page from an index, or the first page of an article.
The package fancyhdr is very helpful for constructing page styles. See its documentation on CTAN.
• \maketitle: | Generate a title page. | |
• \pagenumbering: | Set the style used for page numbers. | |
• \pagestyle: | Change the headings/footings style. | |
• \thispagestyle: | Change the headings/footings style for this page. |
Next: \pagenumbering, Up: Page styles [Contents][Index]
\maketitle
Synopsis:
\maketitle
Generate a title. In the standard classes the title appears on a
separate page, except in the article
class where it is at the top
of the first page. (See Document class options for information about
the titlepage
document class option.)
This example shows \maketitle
appearing in its usual place,
immediately after \begin{document}
.
\documentclass{article} \title{Constructing a Nuclear Reactor Using Only Coconuts} \author{Jonas Grumby\thanks{% With the support of a Ginger Grant from the Roy Hinkley Society.} \\ Skipper, \textit{Minnow} \and Willy Gilligan\thanks{% Thanks to the Mary Ann Summers foundation and to Thurston and Lovey Howell.} \\ Mate, \textit{Minnow} } \date{1964-Sep-26} \begin{document} \maketitle Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. That started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty sailin' man, the Skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day for a three hour tour. A three hour tour. ...
You tell LaTeX the information used to produce the title by making
the following declarations. These must come before the
\maketitle
, either in the preamble or in the document body.
\author{name1 \and name2 \and ...}
Required. Declare the document author or authors. The argument is a
list of authors separated by \and
commands. To separate lines
within a single author’s entry, for instance to give the author’s
institution or address, use a double backslash, \\
. If you omit
the \author
declaration then you get ‘LaTeX Warning: No
\author given’.
\date{text}
Optional. Declare text to be the document’s date. The text
doesn’t need to be in a date format; it can be any text at all. If you
omit \date
then LaTeX uses the current date (see \today).
To have no date, instead use \date{}
.
\thanks{text}
Optional. Produce a footnote. You can use it in the author information for acknowledgements as illustrated above, but you can also use it in the title, or any place a footnote makes sense. It can be any text at all so you can use it for any purpose, such as to print an email address.
\title{text}
Required. Declare text to be the title of the document. Get line
breaks inside text with a double backslash, \\
. If you
omit the \title
declaration then you get ‘LaTeX Error: No
\title given’.
To make your own title page, see titlepage. You can either
create this as a one-off or you can include it as part of a renewed
\maketitle
command. (Many publishers will provide a class to use
in place of article
that formats the title according to their
house requirements.)
Next: \pagestyle, Previous: \maketitle, Up: Page styles [Contents][Index]
\pagenumbering
Synopsis:
\pagenumbering{number-style}
Specifies the style of page numbers, and resets the page number. The numbering style is reflected on the page, and also in the table of contents and other page references. This declaration has global scope so its effect is not delimited by braces or environments.
In this example, before the Main section the pages are numbered ‘a’, etc. Starting on the page containing that section, the pages are numbered ‘1’, etc.
\begin{document}\pagenumbering{alph} ... \section{Main}\pagenumbering{arabic} ...
The argument number-style is one of the following (see also \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol).
arabic
Arabic numerals: 1, 2, …
roman
lowercase Roman numerals: i, ii, …
Roman
uppercase Roman numerals: I, II, …
alph
lowercase letters: a, b, … If you have more than 26 pages then you get ‘LaTeX Error: Counter too large’.
Alph
uppercase letters: A, B, … If you have more than 26 pages then you get ‘LaTeX Error: Counter too large’.
gobble
LaTeX does not output a page number, although it
does get reset. References to that page also are blank. (This does not
work with the popular package hyperref so to have the page number
not appear you may want to instead use \pagestyle{empty}
or
\thispagestyle{empty}
.)
Traditionally, if a document has front matter—preface, table of contents, etc.—then it is numbered with lowercase Roman numerals. The main matter of a document uses arabic. See \frontmatter & \mainmatter & \backmatter.
If you want to address where the page number appears on the page,
see \pagestyle. If you want to change the value of page
number then you will manipulate the page
counter
(see Counters).
Next: \thispagestyle, Previous: \pagenumbering, Up: Page styles [Contents][Index]
\pagestyle
Synopsis:
\pagestyle{style}
Declaration that specifies how the page headers and footers are typeset, from the current page onwards.
A discussion with an example is below. Note first that the package fancyhdr is now the standard way to manipulate headers and footers. New documents that need to do anything other than one of the standard options below should use this package. See its documentation on CTAN.
Values for style:
plain
The header is empty. The footer contains only a page number, centered.
empty
The header and footer is empty.
headings
Put running headers and footers on each page. The document style specifies what goes in there; see the discussion below.
myheadings
Custom headers, specified via the \markboth
or the
\markright
commands.
Some discussion of the motivation for LaTeX’s mechanism will help you
work with the options headings
or myheadings
. The
document source below produces an article, two-sided, with the pagestyle
headings
. On this document’s left hand pages, LaTeX wants (in
addition to the page number) the title of the current section. On its
right hand pages LaTeX wants the title of the current subsection.
When it makes up a page, LaTeX gets this information from the
commands \leftmark
and \rightmark
. So it is up to
\section
and \subsection
to store that information there.
\documentclass[twoside]{article} \pagestyle{headings} \begin{document} ... \section{Section 1} ... \subsection{Subsection 1.1} ... \section{Section 2} ... \subsection{Subsection 2.1} ... \subsection{Subsection 2.2} ...
Suppose that the second section falls on a left page. Although when the page starts it is in the first section, LaTeX will put ‘Section 2’ in the left page header. As to the right header, if no subsection starts before the end of the right page then LaTeX blanks the right hand header. If a subsection does appear before the right page finishes then there are two cases. If at least one subsection starts on the right hand page then LaTeX will put in the right header the title of the first subsection starting on that right page. If at least one of 2.1, 2.2, …, starts on the left page but none starts on the right then LaTeX puts in the right hand header the title of the last subsection to start, that is, the one in effect during the right hand page.
To accomplish this, in a two-sided article, LaTeX has \section
issue a command \markboth
, setting \leftmark
to ‘Section 2’ and setting \rightmark
to blank.
And, LaTeX has \subsection
issue a command \markright
,
setting \rightmark
to ‘Subsection 2.1’, etc.
Here are the descriptions of \markboth
and \markright
:
\markboth{left-head}{right-head}
Sets both the right hand and left hand heading information for either a
page style of headings
or myheadings
. A left hand page
heading left-head is generated by the last \markboth
command before the end of the page. A right hand page heading
right-head is generated by the first \markboth
or
\markright
that comes on the page if there is one, otherwise by
the last one that came before that page.
\markright{right}
Sets the right hand page heading, leaving the left unchanged.
Previous: \pagestyle, Up: Page styles [Contents][Index]
\thispagestyle
Synopsis:
\thispagestyle{style}
Works in the same way as the \pagestyle
(see \pagestyle),
except that it changes to style for the current page only. This
declaration has global scope, so its effect is not delimited by braces
or environments.
Often the first page of a chapter or section has a different style. For
example, this LaTeX book document has the first page of the first
chapter in plain
style, as is the default (see Page styles).
\documentclass{book} \pagestyle{headings} \begin{document} \chapter{First chapter} ... \chapter{Second chapter}\thispagestyle{empty} ...
The plain
style has a page number on it, centered in the footer.
To make the page entirely empty, the command
\thispagestyle{empty}
immediately follows the second
\chapter
.
Next: Boxes, Previous: Page styles, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
LaTeX has many ways to produce white (or filled) space. Some of these are best suited to mathematical text; see Spacing in math mode. Some spacing commands are suitable for both regular text and mathematical text; versions of some of these commands are in this chapter.
Horizontal space | ||
---|---|---|
• \enspace & \quad & \qquad: | Traditional horizontal spaces. | |
• \hspace: | Any horizontal space. | |
• \hfill: | Stretchable horizontal space. | |
• \hss: | Infinitely stretchable/shrinkable horizontal space. | |
• \spacefactor: | Stretchability of following space | |
• \(SPACE): | Backslash-space; and explicit space. | |
• ~: | Tie, an unbreakable space. | |
• \thinspace & \negthinspace: | One-sixth of an em, and negative one-sixth. | |
• \/: | Italic correction. | |
• \hrulefill & \dotfill: | Stretchable horizontal rule or dots. | |
Vertical space | ||
• \bigskip & \medskip & \smallskip: | Inter-paragraph vertical spaces. | |
• \bigbreak & \medbreak & \smallbreak: | Inter-paragraph space and page breaks. | |
• \strut: | Ensure height of a line. | |
• \vspace: | Vertical space. | |
• \vfill: | Stretchable vertical space. | |
• \addvspace: | Add arbitrary vertical space if needed. |
\enspace
& \quad
& \qquad
Synopsis, one of:
\enspace \quad \qquad
Insert a horizontal space of 1/2em, 1em, or 2em. The em is a length defined by a font designer, often thought of as being the width of a capital M. One advantage of describing space in ems is that it can be more portable across documents than an absolute measurement such as points (see Lengths/em).
This puts a suitable gap between two graphics.
\begin{center} \includegraphics{womensmile.png}% \qquad\includegraphics{mensmile.png} \end{center}
See Spacing in math mode for \quad
and \qquad
. These
are lengths from centuries of typesetting and so may be a better choice
in many circumstances than arbitrary lengths, such as you get with
\hspace
.
Next: \hfill, Previous: \enspace & \quad & \qquad, Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
\hspace
Synopsis, one of:
\hspace{length} \hspace*{length}
Insert the horizontal space length. The length can be
positive, negative, or zero; adding negative space is like backspacing.
It is a rubber length, that is, it may contain a plus
or
minus
component, or both (see Lengths). Because the space is
stretchable and shrinkable, it is sometimes called glue.
This makes a line with ‘Name:’ an inch from the right margin.
\noindent\makebox[\linewidth][r]{Name:\hspace{1in}}
The *
-version inserts horizontal space that non-discardable.
More precisely, when TeX breaks a paragraph into lines any white
space—glues and kerns—that come at a line break are discarded. The
*
-version avoids that (technically, it adds a non-discardable
invisible item in front of the space).
In this example
\parbox{0.8\linewidth}{% Fill in each blank: Four \hspace*{1in} and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new \hspace*{1in}, conceived in \hspace*{1in}, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created \hspace*{1in}.}
the 1 inch blank following ‘conceived in’ falls at the start
of a line. If you erase the *
then LaTeX discards the blank.
Here, the \hspace
separates the three graphics.
\begin{center} \includegraphics{lion.png}% comment keeps out extra space \hspace{1cm minus 0.25cm}\includegraphics{tiger.png}% \hspace{1cm minus 0.25cm}\includegraphics{bear.png} \end{center}
Because the argument to each \hspace
has minus 0.25cm
,
each can shrink a little if the three figures are too wide. But each
space won’t shrink more than 0.25cm (see Lengths).
\hfill
Synopsis:
\hfill
Produce a rubber length which has no natural space but that can stretch horizontally as far as needed (see Lengths).
This creates a one-line paragraph with ‘Name:’ on the left side of the page and ‘Quiz One’ on the right.
\noindent Name:\hfill Quiz One
The \hfill
command is equivalent to \hspace{\fill}
and
so the space can be discarded at line breaks. To avoid that instead use
\hspace*{\fill}
(see \hspace).
Here the graphs are evenly spaced in the middle of the figure.
\newcommand*{\vcenteredhbox}[1]{\begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}}#1\end{tabular}} ... \begin{figure} \hspace*{\fill}% \vcenteredhbox{\includegraphics{graph0.png}}% \hfill\vcenteredhbox{\includegraphics{graph1.png}}% \hspace*{\fill}% \caption{Comparison of two graphs} \label{fig:twographs} \end{figure}
Note the \hspace*
’s where the space could otherwise be dropped.
Next: \spacefactor, Previous: \hfill, Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
\hss
Synopsis:
\hss
Produce a horizontal space that is infinitely shrinkable as well as
infinitely stretchable (this command is a TeX primitive). LaTeX
authors should reach first for the \makebox
command to get the
effects of \hss
(see \mbox & \makebox).
Here, the first line’s \hss
makes the Z stick out to the right,
overwriting the Y. In the second line the Z sticks out to the left,
overwriting the X.
X\hbox to 0pt{Z\hss}Y X\hbox to 0pt{\hss Z}Y
Without the \hss
you get something like ‘Overfull \hbox
(6.11111pt too wide) detected at line 20’.
\spacefactor
Synopsis:
\spacefactor=integer
Influence LaTeX’s glue stretch and shrink behavior. Most user-level documents do not use this command.
While LaTeX is laying out the material, it may stretch or shrink the
gaps between words. (This space is not a character; it is called the
interword glue; see \hspace). The \spacefactor
command
(from Plain TeX) allows you to, for instance, have the space
after a period stretch more than the space after a word-ending letter.
After LaTeX places each character, or rule or other box, it sets a parameter called the space factor. If the next thing in the input is a space then this parameter affects how much stretching or shrinking can happen. A space factor that is larger than the normal value means that the glue can stretch more and shrink less. Normally, the space factor is 1000. This value is in effect following most characters, and any non-character box or math formula. But it is 3000 after a period, exclamation mark, or question mark, it is 2000 after a colon, 1500 after a semicolon, 1250 after a comma, and 0 after a right parenthesis or bracket, or closing double quote or single quote. Finally, it is 999 after a capital letter.
If the space factor f is 1000 then the glue gap will be the font’s normal space value (for Computer Modern Roman 10 point this is 3.3333 points). Otherwise, if the space factor f is greater than 2000 then TeX adds the font’s extra space value (for Computer Modern Roman 10 point this is 1.11111 points), and then the font’s normal stretch value is multiplied by f /1000 and the normal shrink value is multiplied by 1000/f (for Computer Modern Roman 10 point these are 1.66666 and 1.11111 points).
For example, consider the period ending A man's best friend is his
dog.
After it, TeX puts in a fixed extra space, and also allows the
glue to stretch 3 times as much and shrink 1/3 as much, as the glue
after friend
, which does not end in a period.
The rules for space factors are even more complex because they play additional roles. In practice, there are two consequences. First, if a period or other punctuation is followed by a right parenthesis or bracket, or right single or double quote then the spacing effect of that period carries through those characters (that is, the following glue will have increased stretch and shrink). Second, if punctuation comes after a capital letter then its effect is not in place so you get an ordinary space. This second case also affects abbreviations that do not end in a capital letter (see \@).
You can only use \spacefactor
in paragraph mode or LR mode
(see Modes). You can see the current value with
\the\spacefactor
or \showthe\spacefactor
.
(Comment, not really related to \spacefactor
: if you get errors
like ‘You can't use `\spacefactor' in vertical mode’, or ‘You
can't use `\spacefactor' in math mode.’, or ‘Improper \spacefactor’
then you have probably tried to redefine an internal command.
See \makeatletter & \makeatother.)
• \@: | Distinguish sentence-ending periods from abbreviations. | |
• \frenchspacing: | Equal interword and inter-sentence space. | |
• \normalsfcodes: | Restore space factor settings to the default. |
Next: \frenchspacing, Up: \spacefactor [Contents][Index]
\@
Synopsis:
capital-letter\@.
Treat a period as sentence-ending, where LaTeX would otherwise think it is part of an abbreviation. LaTeX thinks that a period ends an abbreviation if the period comes after a capital letter, and otherwise thinks the period ends the sentence. By default, in justifying a line LaTeX adjusts the space after a sentence-ending period (or a question mark, exclamation point, comma, or colon) more than it adjusts the space between words (see \spacefactor).
This example shows the two cases to remember.
The songs \textit{Red Guitar}, etc.\ are by Loudon Wainwright~III\@.
The second period ends the sentence, despite that it is preceded by a
capital. We tell LaTeX that it ends the sentence by putting
\@
before it. The first period ends the abbreviation
‘etc.’ but not the sentence. The backslash-space, \
,
produces a mid-sentence space.
So: if you have a capital letter followed by a period that ends the
sentence, then put \@
before the period. This holds even if
there is an intervening right parenthesis or bracket, or right single or
double quote, because the spacing effect of that period carries through
those characters. For example, this
Use the \textit{Instructional Practices Guide}, (a book by the MAA)\@.
will have correct inter-sentence spacing after the period.
The \@
command is only for a text mode. If you use it outside of
a text mode then you get ‘You can't use `\spacefactor' in vertical
mode’ (see Modes).
Comment: the converse case is a period ending an abbreviation whose last
letter is not a capital letter, and that abbreviation is not the last
word in the sentence. For that case follow the period with a
backslash-space, (\
), or a tie, (~
), or \@
.
Examples are Nat.\ Acad.\ Science
, and Mr.~Bean
, and
(manure, etc.\@) for sale
(note in the last one that the
\@
comes before the closing parenthesis).
Next: \normalsfcodes, Previous: \@, Up: \spacefactor [Contents][Index]
\frenchspacing
Synopsis, one of:
\frenchspacing \nonfrenchspacing
The first declaration causes LaTeX to treat spacing between sentences in the same way as spacing between words in the middle of a sentence. The second causes spacing between sentences to stretch or shrink more (see \spacefactor); this is the default.
Some typographic traditions, including English, prefer to adjust the
space between sentences (or spaces following a question mark,
exclamation point, comma, or colon) more than the space between words
that are in the middle of a sentence. Declaring \frenchspacing
(the command is from Plain TeX) switches to the tradition that all
spaces are treated equally.
Previous: \frenchspacing, Up: \spacefactor [Contents][Index]
\normalsfcodes
Synopsis:
\normalsfcodes
Reset the LaTeX space factor values to the default (see \spacefactor).
Next: ~, Previous: \spacefactor, Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
\
This section refers to the command consisting of two characters, a backslash followed by a space. Synopsis:
\
Produce a space. By default it produces white space of length 3.33333pt plus 1.66666pt minus 1.11111pt.
When you type one or more blanks between words, LaTeX produces white space. But that is different than an explicit space. This illustrates.
\begin{tabular}{l} One blank: makes some space \\ Three blanks: in a row \\ Three spaces:\ \ \ in a row \\ \end{tabular}
On the first line LaTeX puts some space after the colon. On the
second line LaTeX collapses the three blanks to output one
whitespace, so you end with the same space after the colon as in the
first line. LaTeX would similarly collapse a blank followed by a
tab, or a blank and a newline and a blank. However, the bottom line
asks for three spaces so the white area is wider. That is, the
backslash-space command creates a fixed amount of horizontal space.
(Note that you can define a horizontal space of any width at all with
\hspace
; see \hspace.)
The backslash-space command has two main uses. It is often used after
control sequences to keep them from gobbling the space that follows, as
in \TeX\ is nice
. (But using curly parentheses, as in
\TeX{} is best
, has the advantage of still working if the next
character is a period.) The other common use is that it marks a period
as ending an abbreviation instead of ending a sentence, as in So
says Prof.\ Smith
(see \@).
Under normal circumstances, \
tab and \
newline
are equivalent to backslash-space, \
.
Next: \thinspace & \negthinspace, Previous: \(SPACE), Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
~
Synopsis:
before~after
The tie character, ~
, produces a space between before and
after at which the line will not be broken. By default the white
space has length 3.33333pt plus 1.66666pt minus
1.11111pt (see Lengths).
Here LaTeX will not break the line between the final two words.
Thanks to Prof.~Lerman.
In addition, despite the period, LaTeX does not use the end-of-sentence spacing (see \@).
Ties prevent the end of line separation of things where that could cause confusion. But they also reduce LaTeX’s options when it breaks lines into paragraphs, so you can use too many. They are also matters of taste, sometimes alarmingly dogmatic taste, among readers. Nevertheless, here are some usage models, many of them from the TeXbook.
Chapter~12
, or Theorem~\ref{th:Wilsons}
, or
Figure~\ref{fig:KGraph}
. When cases are enumerated inline:
(b)~Show that $f(x)$ is (1)~continuous, and (2)~bounded
.
$745.7.8$~watts
(the
siunitx package has a special facility for this) or
144~eggs
. This includes between a month and a date:
October~12
or 12~Oct
. In general, in any expressions where
numbers and abbreviations or symbols are separated by a space:
AD~565
, or 2:50~pm
, or Boeing~747
, or
268~Plains Road
, or \$$1.4$~billion
.
equals~$n$
, or
less than~$\epsilon$
, or given~$X$
, or modulo~$p^e$
for all large~$n$
(but compare is~$15$
with is $15$~times
the height
). Between mathematical symbols in apposition with nouns:
dimension~$d$
or function~$f(x)$
(but compare with
length $l$~or more
). When a symbol is a tightly bound object of a
preposition: of~$x$
, or from $0$ to~$1$
, or in
common with~$m$
.
$1$,~$2$, or~$3$
or $1$,~$2$,
\ldots,~$n$
.
Donald~E. Knuth
, or Luis~I. Trabb~Pardo
, or
Charles~XII
(but you must give TeX places to break the line so
you may do Charles Louis Xavier~Joseph de~la Vall\'ee~Poussin
).
pages 12~--14
or it is~--- it must be
said~--- plausible
.
\thinspace
& \negthinspace
Synopsis, one of:
\thinspace \negthinspace
Produce an unbreakable and unstretchable space of 1/6em and
-1/6em. These are the text mode equivalents of \,
and
\!
(see Spacing in math mode/\thinspace). You can use
\,
as a synonym for \thinspace
in text mode.
The \negthinspace
command is used in text mode mostly for
fiddling with spaces. One common use of \thinspace
is as the
space between nested quotes.
Killick replied, ``I heard the Captain say, `Ahoy there.'\thinspace''
Another use is that some style guides call for a \thinspace
between an ellipsis and a sentence ending period (other style guides,
though, think the three dots are quite enough already). Still another
use is between initials, as in D.\thinspace E.\ Knuth
.
Next: \hrulefill & \dotfill, Previous: \thinspace & \negthinspace, Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
\/
Synopsis:
before-character\/after-character
Insert an italic correction, a small space defined by the font
designer for each character, to avoid the character colliding with
whatever follows. When you use \/
, LaTeX takes the correction
from the font metric file, scales it by any scaling that has been
applied to the font, and then inserts that much horizontal space.
Here, were it not for the \/
, the before-character
italic f would hit the after-character roman H
\newcommand{\companylogo}{{\it f}\/H}
because the italic letter leans far to the right.
If after-character is a period or comma then don’t insert an italic correction since those punctuation symbols have a very small height. However, with semicolons or colons as well as with normal letters, the italic correction can help.
When you use commands such as \textit
or \itshape
to
change fonts, LaTeX will automatically insert any needed italic
correction (see Font styles).
Roman characters can also have an italic correction. An example is in
the name pdf\/\TeX
.
There is no concept of italic correction in math mode; spacing is done in a different way.
Next: \bigskip & \medskip & \smallskip, Previous: \/, Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
\hrulefill
& \dotfill
Synopsis, one of:
\hrulefill \dotfill
Produce an infinite horizontal rubber length (see Lengths) that LaTeX fills with a rule (that is, a line) or with dots, instead of white space.
This outputs a line 2 inches long.
Name:~\makebox[2in]{\hrulefill}
This example, when placed between blank lines, creates a paragraph that is left and right justified and where the middle is filled with evenly spaced dots.
\noindent John Aubrey, RN \dotfill{} Melbury Lodge
To make the rule or dots go to the line’s end use \null
at the
start or end.
To change the rule’s thickness, copy the definition and adjust it, as here
\renewcommand{\hrulefill}{% \leavevmode\leaders\hrule height 1pt\hfill\kern\z@}
which changes the default thickness of 0.4pt to 1pt. Similarly, adjust the dot spacing as with
\renewcommand{\dotfill}{% \leavevmode\cleaders\hb@xt@1.00em{\hss .\hss }\hfill\kern\z@}
which changes the default length of 0.33em to 1.00em.
This example produces a line for a signature.
\begin{minipage}{4cm} \centering \hrulefill\\ Signed \end{minipage}
The line is 4cm long.
Next: \bigbreak & \medbreak & \smallbreak, Previous: \hrulefill & \dotfill, Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
\bigskip
& \medskip
& \smallskip
Synopsis, one of:
\bigskip \medskip \smallskip
Produce an amount of vertical space, large or medium-sized or small. These commands are fragile (see \protect).
Here the skip suggests the passage of time (from The Golden Ocean by O’Brian).
Mr Saumarez would have something rude to say to him, no doubt: he was at home again, and it was delightful. \bigskip ``A hundred and fifty-seven miles and one third, in twenty-four hours,'' said Peter.
Each command is associated with a length defined in the document class file.
\bigskip
The same as \vspace{\bigskipamount}
, ordinarily about one line
space, with stretch and shrink. The default for the book
and
article
classes is 12pt plus 4pt minus 4pt
.
\medskip
The same as \vspace{\medskipamount}
, ordinarily about half of a
line space, with stretch and shrink. The default for the book
and article
classes is 6pt plus 2pt minus 2pt
.
\smallskip
The same as \vspace{\smallskipamount}
, ordinarily about a
quarter of a line space, with stretch and shrink. The default for the
book
and article
classes is 3pt plus 1pt minus 1pt
.
Because each command is a \vspace
, if you use on in mid-paragraph
then it will insert its vertical space between the line in which you use
it and the next line, not necessarily at the place that you use it. So
these are best between paragraphs.
The commands \bigbreak
, \medbreak
, and \smallbreak
are similar but also suggest to LaTeX that this is a good place to
put a page break (see \bigbreak & \medbreak & \smallbreak.
Next: \strut, Previous: \bigskip & \medskip & \smallskip, Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
\bigbreak
& \medbreak
& \smallbreak
Synopsis, one of:
\bigbreak \medbreak \smallbreak
Produce a vertical space that is big or medium-sized or small, and suggest to LaTeX that this is a good place to break the page. (The associated penalties are -200, -100, and -50.)
See \bigskip & \medskip & \smallskip, for more. These commands
produce the same vertical space but differ in that they also remove a
preceding vertical space if it is less than what they would insert (as
with \addvspace
). In addition, they terminate a paragraph where
they are used: this example
abc\bigbreak def ghi jkl mno pqr
will output three paragraphs, the first ending in ‘abc’ and the second starting, after an extra vertical space and a paragraph indent, with ‘def’.
Next: \vspace, Previous: \bigbreak & \medbreak & \smallbreak, Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
\strut
Synopsis:
\strut
Ensure that the current line has height at least 0.7\baselineskip
and depth at least 0.3\baselineskip
. Essentially, LaTeX
inserts into the line a rectangle having zero width,
\rule[-0.3\baselineskip]{0pt}{\baselineskip}
(see \rule).
The \baselineskip
changes with the current font and fontsize.
In this example the \strut
keeps the box inside the frame from
having zero height.
\setlength{\fboxsep}{0pt}\framebox[2in]{\strut}
This example has four lists. In the first there is a much bigger gap
between items 2 and 3 than there is between items 1 and 2.
The second list fixes that with a \strut
at the end of its first
item’s second line.
\setlength{\fboxsep}{0pt} \noindent\begin{minipage}[t]{0.2\linewidth} \begin{enumerate} \item \parbox[t]{15pt}{test \\ test} \item test \item test \end{enumerate} \end{minipage}% \begin{minipage}[t]{0.2\linewidth} \begin{enumerate} \item \parbox[t]{15pt}{test \\ test\strut} \item test \item test \end{enumerate} \end{minipage}% \begin{minipage}[t]{0.2\linewidth} \begin{enumerate} \item \fbox{\parbox[t]{15pt}{test \\ test}} \item \fbox{test} \item \fbox{test} \end{enumerate} \end{minipage}% \begin{minipage}[t]{0.2\linewidth} \begin{enumerate} \item \fbox{\parbox[t]{15pt}{test \\ test\strut}} \item \fbox{test} \item \fbox{test} \end{enumerate} \end{minipage}%
The final two lists use \fbox
to show what’s happening. The
third list’s \parbox
goes only to the bottom of its second
‘test’, which happens not have any characters that descend below
the baseline. The fourth list adds the strut that gives the needed
extra below-baseline space.
The \strut
command is often useful in graphics, such as in
TikZ or Asymptote. For instance, you may have a command
such as \graphnode{node-name}
that fits a circle around
node-name. However, unless you are careful the node-name’s
‘x’ and ‘y’ will produce different-diameter circles because
the characters are different sizes. A careful \graphnode
might
insert a \strut
, then node-name, and then draw the circle.
The general approach of using a zero width \rule
is useful in
many circumstances. In this table, the zero-width rule keeps the top of
the first integral from hitting the \hline
. Similarly, the
second rule keeps the second integral from hitting the first.
\begin{tabular}{rl} \textsc{Integral} &\textsc{Value} \\ \hline $\int_0^x t\, dt$ &$x^2/2$ \rule{0em}{2.5ex} \\ $\int_0^x t^2\, dt$ &$x^3/3$ \rule{0em}{2.5ex} \end{tabular}
(Although the line-ending double backslash command has an available
optional argument to put in more vertical room, that won’t work here.
Changing the first double backslash to something like \\[2.5ex]
will put the room between the header line and the \hline
, and the
integral would still hit the line.)
\vspace
Synopsis, one of:
\vspace{length} \vspace*{length}
Add the vertical space length. The length can be positive,
negative, or zero. It is a rubber length—it may contain a plus
or minus
component (see Lengths).
This puts space between the two paragraphs.
And I slept. \vspace{1ex plus 0.5ex} The new day dawned cold.
(See \bigskip & \medskip & \smallskip for common inter-paragraph spaces.)
The *
-version inserts vertical space that non-discardable. More
precisely, LaTeX discards vertical space at a page break and the
*
-version causes the space to stay. This example leaves space
between the two questions.
Question: Find the integral of \( 5x^4+5 \). \vspace*{2cm plus 0.5cm} Question: Find the derivative of \( x^5+5x+9 \).
That space will be present even if the page break happens to fall between the questions.
If you use \vspace
in the middle of a paragraph (i.e., in
horizontal mode) then the space is inserted after the line containing
the \vspace
command; it does not start a new paragraph at the
\vspace
command.
In this example the two questions will be evenly spaced vertically on the page, with at least one inch of space below each.
\begin{document} 1) Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? \vspace{1in plus 1fill} 2) Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong? \vspace{1in plus 1fill} \end{document}
Next: \addvspace, Previous: \vspace, Up: Spaces [Contents][Index]
\vfill
Synopsis:
\vfill
End the current paragraph and insert a vertical rubber length that is infinite, so it can stretch or shrink as far as needed (see Lengths).
It is often used in the same way as \vspace{\fill}
, except that
\vfill
ends the current paragraph whereas \vspace{\fill}
adds the infinite vertical space below its line, irrespective of the
paragraph structure. In both cases that space will disappear at a page
boundary; to circumvent this see the starred option
in \vspace.
In this example the page is filled, so the top and bottom lines contain the text ‘Lost Dog!’ and the second ‘Lost Dog!’ is exactly halfway between them.
\begin{document} Lost Dog! \vfill Lost Dog! % perfectly in the middle \vfill Lost Dog! \end{document}
\addvspace
Synopsis:
\addvspace{vert-length}
Add a vertical space of vert-length. However, if there are two or
more \addvspace
’s in a sequence then together they only add the
space needed to make the natural length equal to the maximum of the
vert-length’s in that sequence. This command is fragile
(see \protect). The vert-length is a rubber length
(see Lengths).
This example illustrates. The picture
draws a scale. In a
standard LaTeX article the length \baselineskip
is 12pt.
The two rules here are 22pt apart: the sum of the
\baselineskip
and the 10pt from the first addvspace
.
\documentclass{article} \usepackage{color} \begin{document} \setlength{\unitlength}{2pt}% \noindent\begin{picture}(0,0)% \multiput(0,0)(0,-1){25}{{\color{blue}\line(1,0){1}}} \multiput(0,0)(0,-5){6}{{\color{red}\line(1,0){2}}} \end{picture}% \rule{0.25\linewidth}{0.1pt}% \par\addvspace{10pt}% \addvspace{20pt}% \par\noindent\rule{0.25\linewidth}{0.1pt}% \end{document}
Now uncomment the second \addvspace
. It does not make the gap
20pt longer; instead the gap is the sum of \baselineskip
and 20pt. So \addvspace
in a sense does the opposite of
its name — it makes sure that multiple vertical spaces do not
accumulate, but instead that only the largest one is used.
LaTeX uses this command to adjust the vertical space above or below
an environment that starts a new paragraph. For instance, a
theorem
environment begins and ends with \addvspace
so
that two consecutive theorem
’s are separated by one vertical
space, not two.
A error ‘Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item’ pointing to an
\addvspace
means that you were not in vertical mode when you hit
this command. One way to change that is to precede \addvspace
with a \par
command (see \par), as in the above example.
At its core, LaTeX puts things in boxes and then puts the boxes on a page. So these commands are central.
There are many packages on CTAN that are useful for manipulating boxes. One useful adjunct to the commands here is adjustbox.
• \mbox & \makebox: | Horizontal boxes. | |
• \fbox & \framebox: | Put a frame around a box. | |
• \parbox: | Box with text in paragraph mode. | |
• \raisebox: | Raise or lower text. | |
• \sbox & \savebox: | Like \makebox but save the text for later.
| |
• lrbox: | Environment version of \sbox .
| |
• \usebox: | Print saved text. |
Next: \fbox & \framebox, Up: Boxes [Contents][Index]
\mbox
& \makebox
Synopsis, one of:
\mbox{text} \makebox{text} \makebox[width]{text} \makebox[width][position]{text}
Create a box, a container for material. The text is typeset in
LR mode (see Modes) so it is not broken into lines. The
\mbox
command is robust, while \makebox
is fragile
(see \protect).
Because text
is not broken into lines, you can use \mbox
to prevent hyphenation. In this example, LaTeX will not hyphenate
the table name, ‘T-4’.
See Table~\mbox{T-4}
The first two command versions, \mbox
and \makebox
, are
roughly equivalent. They create a box just wide enough to contain the
text. (They are like plain TeX’s \hbox
.)
In the third version the optional argument width specifies the width of the box. Note that the space occupied by the text need not equal the width of the box. For one thing, text can be too small; this creates a full-line box
\makebox[\linewidth]{Chapter Exam}
with ‘Chapter Exam’ centered. But text can also be too wide for width. See the example below of zero-width boxes.
In the width argument you can use the following lengths that refer
to the dimension of the box that LaTeX gets on typesetting
text: \depth
, \height
, \width
,
\totalheight
(this is the box’s height plus its depth). For
example, to make a box with the text stretched to double the natural
size you can say this.
\makebox[2\width]{Get a stretcher}
For the fourth command version the optional argument position gives position of the text within the box. It may take the following values:
c
The text is centered (default).
l
The text is flush left.
r
Flush right.
s
Stretch the interword space in text across the entire width.
The text must contain stretchable space for this to work. For
instance, this could head a press release:
\noindent\makebox[\textwidth][s]{\large\hfil IMMEDIATE\hfil
RELEASE\hfil}
A common use of \makebox
is to make zero-width text boxes. This
puts the value of the quiz questions to the left of those questions.
\newcommand{\pts}[1]{\makebox[0em][r]{#1 points\hspace*{1em}}} \pts{10}What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow? \pts{90}An African or European swallow?
The right edge of the output ‘10 points ’ (note the ending space)
will be just before the ‘What’ (note the space after
‘points’). You can use \makebox
similarly when making
graphics, such as in TikZ or Asymptote, where you put the
edge of the text at a known location, regardless of the length of that
text.
For boxes with frames see \fbox & \framebox. For colors see Colored boxes.
There is a related version of \makebox
that is used within the
picture
environment, where the length is given in terms of
\unitlength
(see \makebox (picture)).
If you put a double-backslash into text then LaTeX will not
give you a new line; for instance \makebox{abc def \\ ghi}
outputs ‘abc defghi’ while \makebox{abc def \par ghi}
outputs ‘abc def ghi’, but neither go to a second line. To get
multiple lines see \parbox and minipage.
Next: \parbox, Previous: \mbox & \makebox, Up: Boxes [Contents][Index]
\fbox
& \framebox
Synopses, one of:
\fbox{text} \framebox{text} \framebox[width]{text} \framebox[width][position]{text}
Create a box with an enclosing frame, four lines surrounding the space.
These commands are the same as \mbox
and \makebox
except
for the frame (see \mbox & \makebox). The \fbox
command is
robust, the \framebox
command is fragile (see \protect).
\fbox{Warning! No work shown, no credit given.}
LaTeX puts the text into a box that cannot be split or hyphenated. Around that box, separated from it by a small gap, are four lines making a frame.
The first two command invocations, \fbox{...}
and
\framebox{...}
, are roughly the same. As to the third and
fourth invocations, the optional arguments allow you to specify the box
width as width and the position of the text inside that box as
position. See \mbox & \makebox for the full description but
here is an example creating an empty box that is 1/4in wide.
\setlength{\fboxsep}{0pt}\framebox[0.25in]{\strut}}
The \strut
inserts a vertical height of \baselineskip
(see \strut).
These parameters determine the frame layout.
\fboxrule
The thickness of the lines around the enclosed box. The default is
0.2pt. Change it with a command such as
\setlength{\fboxrule}{0.8pt}
(see \setlength).
\fboxsep
The distance from the frame to the enclosed box. The default is 3pt.
Change it with a command such as \setlength{\fboxsep}{0pt}
(see \setlength). Setting it to 0pt is useful sometimes:
this will put a frame around the picture with no white border.
{\setlength{\fboxsep}{0pt} \framebox{% \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{prudence.jpg}}}
The extra curly braces keep the effect of the \setlength
local.
As with \mbox
and \makebox
, LaTeX will not break lines
in text. But this example has LaTeX break lines to make a
paragraph, and then frame the result.
\framebox{% \begin{minipage}{0.6\linewidth} My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that. \end{minipage}}
See Colored boxes for colors other than black and white.
The picture
environment has a version of this command where the
units depend on picture
’s \unitlength
(see \framebox (picture)).
Next: \raisebox, Previous: \fbox & \framebox, Up: Boxes [Contents][Index]
\parbox
Synopses, one of:
\parbox{width}{contents} \parbox[position]{width}{contents} \parbox[position][height]{width}{contents} \parbox[position][height][inner-pos]{width}{contents}
Produce a box of text that is width wide. Use this command to make a box of small pieces of text, of a single paragraph. This command is fragile (see \protect).
\begin{picture}(0,0) ... \put(1,2){\parbox{1.75in}{\raggedright Because the graph is a line on this semilog paper, the relationship is exponential.}} \end{picture}
The contents are processed in a text mode (see Modes) so
LaTeX will break lines to make a paragraph. But it won’t make
multiple paragraphs; for that, use a minipage
environment
(see minipage).
The options for \parbox
(except for contents) are the same
as those for minipage
. For convenience a summary of the options
is here but see minipage for a complete description.
There are two required arguments. The width is a rigid length (see Lengths). It sets the width of the box into which LaTeX typesets contents. The contents is the text that is placed in that box. It should not have any paragraph-making components.
There are three optional arguments, position, height, and
inner-pos. The position gives the vertical alignment of the
parbox
with respect to the surrounding material. The possible
values are c
or m
to make the vertical center of the
parbox
lines up with the center of the adjacent line (this is the
default), or t
to match the top line of the parbox
with
the baseline of the surrounding material, or b
to match the
bottom line.
The optional argument height overrides the natural height of the box.
The optional argument inner-pos controls the placement of
content inside the parbox
. Its default is the value of
position. Its possible values are: t
to put the
content at the top of the box, c
to put it in the vertical
center, b
to put it at the bottom of the box, and s
to
stretch it out vertically (for this, the text must contain vertically
stretchable space).
Next: \sbox & \savebox, Previous: \parbox, Up: Boxes [Contents][Index]
\raisebox
Synopsis, one of:
\raisebox{distance}{text} \raisebox{distance}[height]{text} \raisebox{distance}[height][depth]{text}
Raise or lower text. This command is fragile (see \protect).
This example makes a command for the restriction of a function by lowering the vertical bar symbol.
\newcommand\restricted[1]{\raisebox{-.5ex}{$|$}_{#1}} $f\restricted{A}$
The first mandatory argument distance specifies how far to raise the second mandatory argument text. This is a rigid length (see Lengths). If it is negative then it lowers text. The text is processed in LR mode so it cannot contain line breaks (see Modes).
The optional arguments height and depth are dimensions. If they are specified, they override the natural height and depth of the box LaTeX gets by typesetting text.
In the arguments distance, height, and depth you can
use the following lengths that refer to the dimension of the box that
LaTeX gets on typesetting text: \depth
, \height
,
\width
, \totalheight
(this is the box’s height plus its
depth).
This will align two graphics on their top (see Graphics).
\usepackage{graphicx} \usepackage{calc} % in preamble ... \begin{center} \raisebox{1ex-\height}{% \includegraphics[width=0.4\linewidth]{lion.png}} \qquad \raisebox{1ex-\height}{% \includegraphics[width=0.4\linewidth]{meta.png}} \end{center}
The first \height
is the height of lion.png while the
second is the height of meta.png.
\sbox
& \savebox
Synopsis, one of:
\sbox{box-cmd}{text} \savebox{box-cmd}{text} \savebox{box-cmd}[width]{text} \savebox{box-cmd}[width][pos]{text}
Typeset text just as with \makebox
(see \mbox & \makebox) except that LaTeX does not output it but instead saves it
in a storage bin named box-cmd. The bin name box-cmd begins
with a backslash, \
. You must have previously allocated the bin
box-cmd with \newsavebox
(see \newsavebox).The
\sbox
command is robust while \savebox
is fragile
(see \protect).
This creates and uses a bin.
\newsavebox{\fullname} \sbox{\fullname}{John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt} ... \usebox{\fullname}! His name is my name, too! Whenever we go out, the people always shout! There goes \\usebox{\fullname}! Ya da da da da da da.
One advantage of using and reusing a bin over a \newcommand
is
efficiency, that LaTeX need not repeatedly retypeset the contents.
See the example below.
The first two command invocations,
\sbox{box-cmd}{text}
and
\savebox{box-cmd}{text}
, are roughly equivalent.
As to the third and fourth, the optional arguments allow you to specify
the box width as width, and the position of the text inside that
box as position. See \mbox & \makebox for the full
description.
In the \sbox
and \savebox
commands the text is
typeset in LR mode so it does not have line breaks (see Modes). If
you use these then LaTeX doesn’t give you an error but it ignores
what you want: if you enter \sbox{\newbin}{test \\ test}
and
\usebox{\newbin}
then you get ‘testtest’, while if you
enter \sbox{\newbin}{test \par test}
and
\usebox{\newbin}
then you get ‘test test’, but no error or
warning. To fix this use a \parbox
or minipage
as here.
\savebox{\abin}{% \begin{minipage}{\linewidth} \begin{enumerate} \item First item \item Second item \end{enumerate} \end{minipage}} ... \usebox{\abin}
As an example of the efficiency of reusing a bin’s contents, this puts the same picture on each page of the document by putting it in the header. LaTeX only typesets it once.
\usepackage{graphicx} % all this in the preamble \newsavebox{\sealbin} \savebox{\sealbin}{% \setlength{\unitlength}{1in}% \begin{picture}(0,0)% \put(1.5,-2.5){% \begin{tabular}{c} \includegraphics[height=2in]{companylogo.png} \\ Office of the President \end{tabular}} \end{picture}% } \markright{\usebox{\sealbin}} \pagestyle{headings}
The picture
environment is good for fine-tuning the placement.
If the bin has not already been defined then you get something like ‘Undefined control sequence. <argument> \nobin’.
Next: \usebox, Previous: \sbox & \savebox, Up: Boxes [Contents][Index]
lrbox
Synopsis:
\begin{lrbox}{box-cmd} text \end{lrbox}
The text inside the environment is saved in the bin
box-cmd
. The box-cmd must begin with a
backslash. You must create this bin in advance with \newsavebox
(see \newsavebox). This is the environment form of the \sbox
and \savebox
commands, and is equivalent to them. See \sbox & \savebox for the full information.
In this example the environment is convenient for entering the
tabular
.
\newsavebox{\jhbin} \begin{lrbox}{\jhbin} \begin{tabular}{c} \includegraphics[height=1in]{jh.png} \\ Jim Hef{}feron \end{tabular} \end{lrbox} ... \usebox{\jhbin}
\usebox
Synopsis:
\usebox{box-cmd}
Produce the box most recently saved in the bin box-cmd by the
commands \sbox
or \savebox
, or the lrbox
environment. See \sbox & \savebox for more information and examples.
(Note that box-cmd starts with a backslash.) This command is
robust (see \protect).
You can add color to text, rules, etc. You can also have color in a box or on an entire page and write text on top of it.
Color support comes as an additional package. So put
\usepackage{color}
in your document preamble to use the
commands described here.
Many other packages also supplement LaTeX’s color abilities. Particularly worth mentioning is xcolor, which is widely used and significantly extends the capabilities described here, including adding ‘HTML’ and ‘Hsb’ color models.
• Color package options: | Options when you load the standard package. | |
• Color models: | How colors are represented. | |
• Commands for color: | The available commands. |
Next: Color models, Up: Color [Contents][Index]
color
package optionsSynopsis (must be in the document preamble):
\usepackage[comma-separated option list]{color}
When you load the color package there are two kinds of available options.
The first specifies the printer driver. LaTeX doesn’t contain information about different output systems but instead depends on information stored in a file. Normally you should not specify the driver option in the document, and instead rely on your system’s default. One advantage of this is that it makes the document portable across systems. For completeness we include a list of the drivers. The currently relevant ones are: dvipdfmx, dvips, dvisvgm, luatex, pdftex, xetex. The two xdvi and oztex are essentially aliases for dvips (and xdvi is monochrome). Ones that should not be used for new systems are: dvipdf, dvipdfm, dviwin, dvipsone, emtex, pctexps, pctexwin, pctexhp, pctex32, truetex, tcidvi, vtex (and dviwindo is an alias for dvipsone).
The second kind of options, beyond the drivers, are below.
monochrome
Disable the color commands, so that they do not generate errors but do not generate color either.
dvipsnames
Make available a list of 68 color names that are often used, particularly in legacy documents. These color names were originally provided by the dvips driver, giving the option name.
nodvipsnames
Do not load that list of color names, saving LaTeX a tiny amount of memory space.
Next: Commands for color, Previous: Color package options, Up: Color [Contents][Index]
A color model is a way of representing colors. LaTeX’s capabilities depend on the printer driver. However, the pdftex, xetex, and luatex printer drivers are today by far the most commonly used. The models below work for those drivers. All but one of these is also supported by essentially all other printer drivers used today.
Note that color combination can be additive or subtractive. Additive mixes colors of light, so that for instance combining full intensities of red, green, and blue produces white. Subtractive mixes pigments, such as with inks, so that combining full intensity of cyan, magenta, and yellow makes black.
cmyk
A comma-separated list with four real numbers between 0 and 1, inclusive. The first number is the intensity of cyan, the second is magenta, and the others are yellow and black. A number value of 0 means minimal intensity, while a 1 is for full intensity. This model is often used in color printing. It is a subtractive model.
gray
A single real number between 0 and 1, inclusive. The colors are shades of grey. The number 0 produces black while 1 gives white.
rgb
A comma-separated list with three real numbers between 0 and 1, inclusive. The first number is the intensity of the red component, the second is green, and the third the blue. A number value of 0 means that none of that component is added in, while a 1 means full intensity. This is an additive model.
RGB
(pdftex, xetex, luatex drivers) A comma-separated
list with three integers between 0 and 255, inclusive. This model is a
convenience for using rgb
since outside of LaTeX colors are
often described in a red-green-blue model using numbers in this range.
The values entered here are converted to the rgb
model by
dividing by 255.
named
Colors are accessed by name, such as ‘PrussianBlue’. The list of
names depends on the driver, but all support the names ‘black’,
‘blue’, ‘cyan’, ‘green’, ‘magenta’, ‘red’,
‘white’, and ‘yellow’ (See the dvipsnames
option in
Color package options).
Previous: Color models, Up: Color [Contents][Index]
These are the commands available with the color package.
• Define colors: | Give a color a name. | |
• Colored text: | Text or rules in color. | |
• Colored boxes: | A box of color, to write over. | |
• Colored pages: | A whole page colored. |
Next: Colored text, Up: Commands for color [Contents][Index]
Synopsis:
\definecolor{name}{model}{specification}
Give the name name to the color. For example, after this
\definecolor{silver}{rgb}{0.75,0.75,0.74}
you can use that color name with Hi ho,
\textcolor{silver}{Silver}!
.
This example gives the color a more abstract name, so it could change and not be misleading.
\definecolor{logocolor}{RGB}{145,92,131} % RGB needs pdflatex \newcommand{\logo}{\textcolor{logocolor}{Bob's Big Bagels}}
Often a document’s colors are defined in the preamble, or in the class or style, rather than in the document body.
Next: Colored boxes, Previous: Define colors, Up: Commands for color [Contents][Index]
Synopses:
\textcolor{name}{...} \textcolor[color model]{color specification}{...}
or
\color{name} \color[color model]{specification}
The affected text gets the color. This line
\textcolor{magenta}{My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:} Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
causes the first half to be in magenta while the rest is in black. You
can use a color declared with \definecolor
in exactly the same
way that we just used the builtin color ‘magenta’.
\definecolor{MidlifeCrisisRed}{rgb}{1.0,0.11,0.0} I'm thinking about getting a \textcolor{MidlifeCrisisRed}{sports car}.
The two \textcolor
and \color
differ in that the first is
a command form, enclosing the text to be colored as an argument. Often
this form is more convenient, or at least more explicit. The second
form is a declaration, as in The moon is made of {\color{green}
green} cheese
, so it is in effect until the end of the current group
or environment. This is sometimes useful when writing macros or as
below where it colors everything inside the center
environment,
including the vertical and horizontal lines.
\begin{center} \color{blue} \begin{tabular}{l|r} UL &UR \\ \hline LL &LR \end{tabular} \end{center}
You can use color in equations. A document might have this definition in the preamble
\definecolor{highlightcolor}{RGB}{225,15,0}
and then contain this equation.
\begin{equation} \int_a^b \textcolor{highlightcolor}{f'(x)}\,dx=f(b)-f(a) \end{equation}
Typically the colors used in a document are declared in a class or style but sometimes you want a one-off. Those are the second forms in the synopses.
Colors of \textcolor[rgb]{0.33,0.14,0.47}{Purple} and {\color[rgb]{0.72,0.60,0.37} Gold} for the team.
The format of color specification depends on the color model
(see Color models). For instance, while rgb
takes three
numbers, gray
takes only one.
The selection was \textcolor[gray]{0.5}{grayed out}.
Colors inside colors do not combine. Thus
\textcolor{green}{kind of \textcolor{blue}{blue}}
has a final word that is blue, not a combination of blue and green.
Next: Colored pages, Previous: Colored text, Up: Commands for color [Contents][Index]
Synopses:
\colorbox{name}{...} \colorbox[model name]{box background color}{...}
or
\fcolorbox{frame color}{box background color}{...} \fcolorbox[model name]{frame color}{box background color}{...}
Make a box with the stated background color. The \fcolorbox
command puts a frame around the box. For instance this
Name:~\colorbox{cyan}{\makebox[5cm][l]{\strut}}
makes a cyan-colored box that is five centimeters long and gets its
depth and height from the \strut
(so the depth is
-.3\baselineskip
and the height is \baselineskip
). This
puts white text on a blue background.
\colorbox{blue}{\textcolor{white}{Welcome to the machine.}}
The \fcolorbox
commands use the same parameters as \fbox
(see \fbox & \framebox), \fboxrule
and \fboxsep
, to
set the thickness of the rule and the boundary between the box interior
and the surrounding rule. LaTeX’s defaults are 0.4pt
and
3pt
, respectively.
This example changes the thickness of the border to 0.8 points. Note that it is surrounded by curly braces so that the change ends at the end of the second line.
{\setlength{\fboxrule}{0.8pt} \fcolorbox{black}{red}{Under no circumstances turn this knob.}}
Previous: Colored boxes, Up: Commands for color [Contents][Index]
Synopses:
\pagecolor{name} \pagecolor[color model]{color specification} \nopagecolor
The first two set the background of the page, and all subsequent pages,
to the color. For an explanation of the specification in the second
form see Colored text. The third returns the background to normal,
which is a transparent background. (If that is not supported use
\pagecolor{white}
, although that will make a white background
rather than the default transparent background.)
... \pagecolor{cyan} ... \nopagecolor
Next: Special insertions, Previous: Color, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
You can use graphics such as PNG or PDF files in your LaTeX document. You need an additional package, which comes standard with LaTeX. This example is the short how-to.
\include{graphicx} % goes in the preamble ... \includegraphics[width=0.5\linewidth]{plot.pdf}
To use the commands described here your document preamble must contain
either \usepackage{graphicx}
or
\usepackage{graphics}
. Most of the time, graphicx is the
better choice.
Graphics come in two main types, raster and vector. LaTeX can use both. In raster graphics the file contains an entry for each location in an array, describing what color it is. An example is a photograph, in JPG format. In vector graphics, the file contains a list of instructions such as ‘draw a circle with this radius and that center’. An example is a line drawing produced by the Asymptote program, in PDF format. Generally vector graphics are more useful because you can rescale their size without pixelation or other problems, and because they often have a smaller size.
There are systems particularly well-suited to make graphics for a
LaTeX document. For example, these allow you to use the same fonts
as in your document. LaTeX comes with a picture
environment
(see picture) that has simple capabilities. Besides that, there are
other ways to include the graphic-making commands in the document. Two
such systems are the PSTricks and TikZ packages. There are also systems
external to LaTeX, that generate a graphic that you include using the
commands of this chapter. Two that use a programming language are
Asymptote and MetaPost. One that uses a graphical interface is Xfig.
Full description of these systems is outside the scope of this document;
see their documentation on CTAN.
• Graphics package options: | Options when you load the package. | |
• Graphics package configuration: | Where to look for files, which file types. | |
• Commands for graphics: | The available commands. |
Next: Graphics package configuration, Up: Graphics [Contents][Index]
graphics
package optionsSynopsis (must be in the document preamble):
\usepackage[comma-separated option list]{graphics}
or
\usepackage[comma-separated option list]{graphicx}
The graphicx
package has a format for optional arguments to the
\includegraphics
command that is convenient (it is the key-value
format), so it is the better choice for new documents. When you load
the graphics or graphicx package with \usepackage
there are two kinds of available options.
The first is that LaTeX does not contain information about different output systems but instead depends on information stored in a printer driver file. Normally you should not specify the driver option in the document, and instead rely on your system’s default. One advantage of this is that it makes the document portable across systems.
For completeness here is a list of the drivers. The currently relevant ones are: dvipdfmx, dvips, dvisvgm, luatex, pdftex, xetex. The two xdvi and oztex are essentially aliases for dvips (and xdvi is monochrome). Ones that should not be used for new systems are: dvipdf, dvipdfm, dviwin, dvipsone, emtex, pctexps, pctexwin, pctexhp, pctex32, truetex, tcidvi, vtex (and dviwindo is an alias for dvipsone). These are stored in files with a .def extension, such as pdftex.def.
The second kind of options are below.
demo
Instead of an image file, LaTeX puts in a 150 pt by 100 pt
rectangle (unless another size is specified in the
\includegraphics
command).
draft
For each graphic file, it is not shown but instead the file name is printed in a box of the correct size. In order to determine the size, the file must be present.
final
(Default) Override any previous draft
option, so that the
document shows the contents of the graphic files.
hiderotate
Do not show rotated text. (This allows for the possibility that a previewer does not have the capability to rotate text.)
hidescale
Do not show scaled text. (This allows for the possibility that a previewer does not have the capability to scale.)
hiresbb
In a PS or EPS file the graphic size may be specified in two ways. The
%%BoundingBox
lines describe the graphic size using integer
multiples of a PostScript point, that is, integer multiples of 1/72
inch. A later addition to the PostScript language allows decimal
multiples, such as 1.23, in %%HiResBoundingBox
lines. This
option has LaTeX to read the size from the latter.
Next: Commands for graphics, Previous: Graphics package options, Up: Graphics [Contents][Index]
graphics
package configurationThese commands configure the way LaTeX searches the file system for the graphic.
The behavior of file system search code is necessarily platform dependent. In this document we cover GNU/Linux, Macintosh, and Windows, as those systems are typically configured. For other situations consult the documentation in grfguide.pdf, or the LaTeX source, or your TeX distribution’s documentation.
• \graphicspath: | Directories to search. | |
• \DeclareGraphicsExtensions: | File types, such as JPG or EPS. | |
• \DeclareGraphicsRule: | How to handle file types. |
\graphicspath
Synopsis:
\graphicspath{list of dir names inside curly brackets}
Declare a list of directories to search for graphics files. This allows
you to later say something like \includegraphics{lion.png}
instead of having to give its path.
LaTeX always looks for graphic files first in the current directory. The declaration below tells the system to then look in the subdirectory pix, and then ../pix.
\usepackage{graphicx} % or graphics; put in preamble ... \graphicspath{ {pix/} {../pix/} }
The \graphicspath
declaration is optional. If you don’t include
it then LaTeX’s default is to search all of the places that it
usually looks for a file (it uses LaTeX’s \input@path
). In
particular, in this case one of the places it looks is the current
directory.
Enclose each directory name in curly braces; for example, above it says
‘{pix}
’. Do this even if there is only one directory.
Each directory name must end in a forward slash, /. This is true
even on Windows, where good practice is to use forward slashes for all
the directory separators since it makes the document portable to other
platforms. If you have spaces in your directory name then use double
quotes, as with {"my docs/"}
. Getting one of these rules wrong
will cause LaTeX to report Error: File `filename' not
found
.
Basically, the algorithm is that with this example, after looking in the current directory,
\graphicspath{ {pix/} {../pix/} } ... \usepackage{lion.png}
for each of the listed directories, LaTeX concatenates it with the
file name and searches for the result, checking for pix/lion.png
and then ../pix/lion.png. This algorithm means that the
\graphicspath
command does not recursively search subdirectories:
if you issue \graphicspath{{a/}}
and the graphic is in
a/b/lion.png then LaTeX will not find it. It also means that
you can use absolute paths such as
\graphicspath{{/home/jim/logos/}}
or
\graphicspath{{C:/Users/Albert/Pictures/}}
. However, using
these means that the document is not portable. (You could preserve
portability by adjusting your TeX system settings configuration file
parameter TEXINPUTS
; see the documentation of your system.)
You can use \graphicspath
anywhere in the document. You can use
it more than once. Show its value with
\makeatletter\typeout{\Ginput@path}\makeatother
.
The directories are taken with respect to the base file. That is,
suppose that you are working on a document based on book/book.tex
and it contains \include{chapters/chap1}
. If in
chap1.tex you put \graphicspath{{plots/}}
then
LaTeX will not search for graphics in book/chapters/plots, but
instead in book/plots.
Next: \DeclareGraphicsRule, Previous: \graphicspath, Up: Graphics package configuration [Contents][Index]
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions
Synopses:
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{comma-separated list of file extensions}
Declare the filename extensions to try. This allows you to specify the
order in which to choose graphic formats when you include graphic files
by giving the filename without the extension, as in
\includegraphics{functionplot}
.
In this example, LaTeX will find files in the PNG format before PDF files.
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.png,PNG,.pdf,.PDF} ... \includegraphics{lion} % will find lion.png before lion.pdf
Because the file name lion does not have a period, LaTeX uses the extension list. For each directory in the graphics path (see \graphicspath), LaTeX will try the extensions in the order given. If it does not find such a file after trying all the directories and extensions then it reports ‘! LaTeX Error: File `lion' not found’. Note that you must include the periods at the start of the extensions.
Because GNU/Linux and Macintosh filenames are case sensitive, the list of file extensions is case sensitive on those platforms. The Windows platform is not case sensitive.
You are not required to include \DeclareGraphicsExtensions
in
your document; the printer driver has a sensible default. For example,
the most recent pdftex.def has this extension list.
.png,.pdf,.jpg,.mps,.jpeg,.jbig2,.jb2,.PNG,.PDF,.JPG,.JPEG,.JBIG2,.JB2
You can use this command anywhere in the document. You can use it more
than once. Show its value with
\makeatletter\typeout{\Gin@extensions}\makeatother
.
Previous: \DeclareGraphicsExtensions, Up: Graphics package configuration [Contents][Index]
\DeclareGraphicsRule
Synopsis:
\DeclareGraphicsRule{extension}{type}{size-file extension}{command}
Declare how to handle graphic files whose names end in extension.
This example declares that all files with names have the form filename-without-dot.mps will be treated as output from MetaPost, meaning that the printer driver will use its MetaPost-handling code to input the file.
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.mps}{mps}{.mps}{}
This
\DeclareGraphicsRule{*}{mps}{*}{}
tells LaTeX that it should handle as MetaPost output any file with an extension not covered by another rule, so it covers filename.1, filename.2, etc.
This describes the four arguments.
The file extension to which this rule applies. The extension is anything
after and including the first dot in the filename. Use the Kleene star,
*
, to denote the default behaviour for all undeclared extensions.
The type of file involved. This type is a string that must be defined
in the printer driver. For instance, files with extensions .ps,
.eps, or .ps.gz may all be classed as type eps
.
All files of the same type will be input with the same internal command
by the printer driver. For example, the file types that pdftex
recognizes are: jpg
, jbig2
, mps
, pdf
,
png
, tif
.
The extension of the file to be read to determine the size of the graphic, if there is such a file. It may be the same as extension but it may be different.
As an example, consider a PostScript graphic. To make it smaller, it
might be compressed into a .ps.gz file. Compressed files are not
easily read by LaTeX so you can put the bounding box information in a
separate file. If size-file extension is empty then you must
specify size information in the arguments of \includegraphics
.
If the driver file has a procedure for reading size files for
type
then that will be used, otherwise it will use the procedure
for reading .eps files. (Thus you may specify the size of bitmap
files in a file with a PostScript style %%BoundingBox
line if no
other format is available.)
A command that will be applied to the
file. This is very often left blank. This command must start with a
single backward quote. Thus,
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.eps.gz}{eps}{.eps.bb}{`gunzip -c
#1}
specifies that any file with the extension .eps.gz should
be treated as an eps
file, with the BoundingBox information
stored in the file with extension .eps.bb, and that the command
gunzip -c
will run on your platform to decompresses the file.
Such a command is specific to your platform. In addition, your TeX system must allow you to run external commands; as a security measure modern systems restrict running commands unless you explicitly allow it. See the documentation for your TeX distribution.
Previous: Graphics package configuration, Up: Graphics [Contents][Index]
These are the commands available with the graphics and graphicx packages.
• \includegraphics: | Using a graphic in your document. | |
• \rotatebox: | Rotating boxes, including graphics. | |
• \scalebox: | Scaling boxes, including graphics. | |
• \resizebox: | Scaling boxes, including graphics, to a set size. |
Next: \rotatebox, Up: Commands for graphics [Contents][Index]
\includegraphics
Synopses for graphics package:
\includegraphics{filename} \includegraphics[urx,ury]{filename} \includegraphics[llx,lly][urx,ury]{filename} \includegraphics*{filename} \includegraphics*[urx,ury]{filename} \includegraphics*[llx,lly][urx,ury]{filename}
Synopses for graphicx package:
\includegraphics{filename} \includegraphics[key-value list]{filename} \includegraphics*{filename} \includegraphics*[key-value list]{filename}
Include a graphics file. The starred form \includegraphics*
will
clip the graphic to the size specified, while for the unstarred form any
part of the graphic that is outside the box of the specified size will
over-print the surrounding area.
This
\usepackage{graphicx} % in preamble ... \begin{center} \includegraphics{plot.pdf} \end{center}
will incorporate into the document the graphic in plot.pdf,
centered and at its nominal size. You can also give a path to the file,
as with \includegraphics{graphics/plot.pdf}
. To specify a list
of locations to search for the file, see \graphicspath.
If your filename includes spaces then put it in double quotes. An example
is \includegraphics{"sister picture.jpg"}
.
The \includegraphics{filename}
command decides on the
type of graphic by splitting filename on the first dot. You can
use filename with no dot, as in \includegraphics{turing}
and then LaTeX tries a sequence of extensions such as .png
and
.pdf
until it finds a file with that extension
(see \DeclareGraphicsExtensions).
If your file name contains dots before the extension then you can hide
them with curly braces, as in
\includegraphics{{plot.2018.03.12.a}.pdf}
. Or, if you use
the graphicx package then you can use the options type
and
ext
; see below. This and other filename issues are also handled
with the package grffile.
This example puts a graphic in a figure environment so LaTeX can move it to the next page if fitting it on the current page is awkward (see figure).
\begin{figure} \centering \includegraphics[width=3cm]{lungxray.jpg} \caption{The evidence is overwhelming: don't smoke.} \label{fig:xray} \end{figure}
This places a graphic that will not float, so it is sure to appear at this point in the document even if makes LaTeX stretch the text or resort to blank areas on the page. It will be centered and will have a caption.
\usepackage{caption} % in preamble ... \begin{center} \includegraphics{pix/nix.png} \captionof{figure}{The spirit of the night} \label{pix:nix} % optional \end{center}
This example puts a box with a graphic side by side with one having text, with the two vertically centered.
\newcommand*{\vcenteredhbox}[1]{\begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}}#1\end{tabular}} ... \begin{center} \vcenteredhbox{\includegraphics[width=0.4\textwidth]{plot}} \hspace{1em} \vcenteredhbox{\begin{minipage}{0.4\textwidth} \begin{displaymath} f(x)=x\cdot \sin (1/x) \end{displaymath} \end{minipage}} \end{center}
If you use the graphics package then the only options involve the
size of the graphic (but see \rotatebox and \scalebox).
When one optional argument is present then it is
[urx,ury]
and it gives the coordinates of the top
right corner of the image, as a pair of TeX dimensions (see Units of length). If the units are omitted they default to bp
. In
this case, the lower left corner of the image is assumed to be at (0,0).
If two optional arguments are present then the leading one is
[llx,lly]
, specifying the coordinates of the image’s
lower left. Thus, \includegraphics[1in,0.618in]{...}
calls for
the graphic to be placed so it is 1 inch wide and 0.618 inches
tall and so its origin is at (0,0).
The graphicx package gives you many more options. Specify them in a key-value form, as here.
\begin{center} \includegraphics[width=1in,angle=90]{lion} \hspace{2em} \includegraphics[angle=90,width=1in]{lion} \end{center}
The options are read left-to-right. So the first graphic above is made one inch wide and then rotated, while the second is rotated and then made one inch wide. Thus, unless the graphic is perfectly square, the two will end with different widths and heights.
There are many options. The primary ones are listed first.
Note that a graphic is placed by LaTeX into a box, which is traditionally referred to as its bounding box (distinct from the PostScript BoundingBox described below). The graphic’s printed area may go beyond this box, or sit inside this box, but when LaTeX makes up a page it puts together boxes and this is the box allocated for the graphic.
width
The graphic will be shown so its bounding box is this width. An example
is \includegraphics[width=1in]{plot}
. You can use the standard
TeX dimensions (see Units of length) and also convenient is
\linewidth
, or in a two-column document, \columnwidth
(see Page layout parameters). An example is that by using the
calc package you can make the graphic be 1 cm narrow than
the width of the text with
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth-1.0cm]{hefferon.jpg}
.
height
The graphic will be shown so its bounding box is this height. You can
use the standard TeX dimensions (see Units of length), and also
convenient are \pageheight
and \textheight
(see Page layout parameters). For instance, the command
\includegraphics[height=0.25\textheight]{godel}
will make the
graphic a quarter of the height of the text area.
totalheight
The graphic will be shown so its bounding box has this height plus depth. This differs from the height if the graphic was rotated. For instance, if it has been rotated by -90 then it will have zero height but a large depth.
keepaspectratio
If set to true
, or just specified as here
\includegraphics[...,keepaspectratio,...]{...}
and you give as options both width
and height
(or
totalheight
), then LaTeX will make the graphic is as large as
possible without distortion. That is, LaTeX will ensure that neither
is the graphic wider than width
nor taller than height
(or
totalheight
).
scale
Factor by which to scale the graphic. To make a graphic twice its
nominal size, enter \includegraphics[scale=2.0]{...}
. This
number may be any value; a number between 1 and 0 will shrink the
graphic and a negative number will reflect it.
angle
Rotate the graphic. The angle is taken in degrees and counterclockwise.
The graphic is rotated about its origin
; see that option. For a
complete description of how rotated material is typeset,
see \rotatebox.
origin
The point of the graphic about which the rotation happens. Possible
values are any string containing one or two of: l
for left,
r
for right, b
for bottom, c
for center, t
for top, and B
for baseline. Thus, entering the command
\includegraphics[angle=180,origin=c]{moon}
will turn the
picture upside down about that picture’s center, while the command
\includegraphics[angle=180,origin=lB]{LeBateau}
will turn its
picture upside down about its left baseline. (The character c
gives the horizontal center in bc
or tc
, but gives the
vertical center in lc
or rc
.) The default is lB
.
To rotate about an arbitrary point, see \rotatebox.
These are lesser-used options.
viewport
Pick out a subregion of the graphic to show. Takes four arguments,
separated by spaces and given in TeX dimensions, as with
\includegraphics[.., viewport=0in 0in 1in 0.618in]{...}
. The
dimensions default to big points, bp
. They are taken
relative to the origin specified by the bounding box. See also the
trim
option.
trim
Gives parts of the graphic to not show. Takes four arguments, separated
by spaces, that are given in TeX dimensions, as with
\includegraphics[.., trim= 0in 0.1in 0.2in 0.3in, ...]{...}
.
These give the amounts of the graphic not to show, that is, LaTeX
will crop the picture by 0 inches on the left, 0.1 inches on
the bottom, 0.2 inches on the right, and 0.3 inches on the
top. See also the viewport
option.
clip
If set to true
, or just specified as here
\includegraphics[...,clip,...]{...}
then the graphic is cropped to the bounding box. This is the same as
using the starred form of the command,
\includegraphics*[...]{...}
.
page
Give the page number of a multi-page PDF file. The default is
page=1
.
pagebox
Specifies which bounding box to use for PDF files from among
mediabox
, cropbox
, bleedbox
, trimbox
, or
artbox
. PDF files do not have the BoundingBox that PostScript
files have, but may specify up to four predefined rectangles. The
MediaBox gives the boundaries of the physical medium. The CropBox is the
region to which the contents of the page are to be clipped when
displayed. The BleedBox is the region to which the contents of the page
should be clipped in production. The TrimBox is the intended dimensions
of the finished page. The ArtBox is the extent of the page’s meaningful
content. The driver will set the image size based on CropBox if
present, otherwise it will not use one of the others, with a
driver-defined order of preference. MediaBox is always present.
interpolate
Enable or disable interpolation of raster images by the viewer. Can be
set with interpolate=true
or just specified as here.
\includegraphics[...,interpolate,...]{...}
quiet
Do not write information to the log. You can set it with
quiet=true
or just specified it with
\includegraphics[...,quite,...]{...}
,
draft
If you set it with draft=true
or just specify it with
\includegraphics[...,draft,...]{...}
then the graphic will not appear in the document, possibly saving color printer ink. Instead, LaTeX will put an empty box of the correct size with the filename printed in it.
These options address the bounding box for Encapsulated PostScript
graphic files, which have a size specified with a line
%%BoundingBox
that appears in the file. It has four values,
giving the lower x coordinate, lower y coordinate, upper
x coordinate, and upper y coordinate. The units are
PostScript points, equivalent to TeX’s big points, 1/72 inch.
For example, if an .eps file has the line %%BoundingBox 10
20 40 80
then its natural size is 30/72 inch wide by
60/72 inch tall.
bb
Specify the bounding box of the displayed region. The argument is four
dimensions separated by spaces, as with \includegraphics[.., bb=
0in 0in 1in 0.618in]{...}
. Usually \includegraphics
reads the
BoundingBox numbers from the EPS file automatically, so this option is
only useful if the bounding box is missing from that file or if you want
to change it.
bbllx, bblly, bburx, bbury
Set the bounding box. These four are obsolete, but are retained for compatibility with old packages.
natwidth, natheight
An alternative for bb
. Setting
\includegraphics[...,natwidth=1in,natheight=0.618in,...]{...}
is the same as setting bb=0 0 1in 0.618in
.
hiresbb
If set to true
, or just specified as with
\includegraphics[...,hiresbb,...]{...}
then LaTeX will look for %%HiResBoundingBox
lines instead of
%%BoundingBox
lines. (The BoundingBox
lines use only
natural numbers while the HiResBoundingBox
lines use decimals;
both use units equivalent to TeX’s big points, 1/72 inch.) To
override a prior setting of true
, you can set it to false
.
These following options allow a user to override LaTeX’s method of
choosing the graphic type based on the filename extension. An example
is that \includegraphics[type=png,ext=.xxx,read=.xxx]{lion}
will read the file lion.xxx as though it were
lion.png. For more on these, see \DeclareGraphicsRule.
type
Specify the graphics type.
ext
Specify the graphics extension.
Only use this in conjunction with the option type
.
read
Specify the file extension of the read file.
Only use this in conjunction with the option type
.
command
Specify a command to be applied to this file. Only use this in
conjunction with the option type
. See Command line options
for a discussion of enabling the \write18
functionality to run
external commands.
Next: \scalebox, Previous: \includegraphics, Up: Commands for graphics [Contents][Index]
\rotatebox
Synopsis if you use the graphics package:
\rotatebox{angle}{material}
Synopses if you use the graphicx package:
\rotatebox{angle}{material} \rotatebox[key-value list]{angle}{material}
Put material in a box and rotate it angle degrees counterclockwise.
This example rotates the table column heads forty five degrees.
\begin{tabular}{ll} \rotatebox{45}{Character} &\rotatebox{45}{NATO phonetic} \\ A &AL-FAH \\ B &BRAH-VOH \end{tabular}
The material can be anything that goes in a box, including a graphic.
\rotatebox[origin=c]{45}{\includegraphics[width=1in]{lion}}
To place the rotated material, the first step is that LaTeX sets material in a box, with a reference point on the left baseline. The second step is the rotation, by default about the reference point. The third step is that LaTeX computes a box to bound the rotated material. Fourth, LaTeX moves this box horizontally so that the left edge of this new bounding box coincides with the left edge of the box from the first step (they need not coincide vertically). This new bounding box, in its new position, is what LaTeX uses as the box when typesetting this material.
If you use the graphics package then the rotation is about the
reference point of the box. If you use the graphicx package
then these are the options that can go in the key-value list,
but note that you can get the same effect without needing this
package, except for the x
and y
options
(see \includegraphics).
origin
The point of the material’s box about which the rotation happens.
Possible value is any string containing one or two of: l
for
left, r
for right, b
for bottom, c
for center,
t
for top, and B
for baseline. Thus, the first line here
\rotatebox[origin=c]{180}{moon} \rotatebox[origin=lB]{180}{LeBateau}
will turn the picture upside down from the center while the second will
turn its picture upside down about its left baseline. (The character
c
gives the horizontal center in bc
or tc
but gives
the vertical center in lc
or rc
, and gives both in
c
.) The default is lB
.
x, y
Specify an arbitrary point of rotation with
\rotatebox[x=TeX dimension,y=TeX
dimension]{...}
(see Units of length). These give the offset
from the box’s reference point.
units
This key allows you to change the default of degrees counterclockwise.
Setting units=-360
changes the direction to degrees clockwise and
setting units=6.283185
changes to radians counterclockwise.
Next: \resizebox, Previous: \rotatebox, Up: Commands for graphics [Contents][Index]
\scalebox
Synopses:
\scalebox{horizontal factor}{material} \scalebox{horizontal factor}[vertical factor]{material} \reflectbox{material}
Scale the material.
This example halves the size, both horizontally and vertically, of the first text and doubles the size of the second.
\scalebox{0.5}{DRINK ME} and \scalebox{2.0}{Eat Me}
If you do not specify the optional vertical factor then it defaults to the same value as the horizontal factor.
You can use this command to resize a graphic, as here.
\scalebox{0.5}{\includegraphics{lion}}
If you use the graphicx package then you can accomplish the same
thing with optional arguments to \includegraphics
(see \includegraphics).
The \reflectbox
command abbreviates
\scalebox{-1}[1]{material}
. Thus, Able was
I\reflectbox{Able was I}
will show the phrase ‘Able was I’
immediately followed by its mirror reflection.
Previous: \scalebox, Up: Commands for graphics [Contents][Index]
\resizebox
Synopses:
\resizebox{horizontal length}{vertical length}{material} \resizebox*{horizontal length}{vertical length}{material}
Given a size, such as 3cm
, transform material to make it
that size. If either horizontal length or vertical length
is an exclamation point !
then the other argument is used
to determine a scale factor for both directions.
This example makes the graphic be a half inch wide and scales it vertically by the same factor to keep it from being distorted.
\resizebox{0.5in}{!}{\includegraphics{lion}}
The unstarred form \resizebox
takes vertical length to be
the box’s height while the starred form \resizebox*
takes it to
be height+depth. For instance, make the text have a height+depth of a
quarter inch with \resizebox*{!}{0.25in}{\parbox{1in}{This
box has both height and depth.}}
.
You can use \depth
, \height
, \totalheight
, and
\width
to refer to the original size of the box. Thus, make the
text two inches wide but keep the original height with
\resizebox{2in}{\height}{Two inches}
.
Next: Splitting the input, Previous: Graphics, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
LaTeX provides commands for inserting characters that have a special meaning do not correspond to simple characters you can type.
• Reserved characters: | Inserting ‘# $ % & { } _ ~ ^ \’ | |
• Upper and lower case: | Make text upper or lower case. | |
• Symbols by font position: | Inserting font symbols by number. | |
• Text symbols: | Inserting other non-letter symbols in text. | |
• Accents: | Inserting accents. | |
• Additional Latin letters: | Inserting other non-English characters. | |
• \rule: | Inserting lines and rectangles. | |
• \today: | Inserting today’s date. |
Next: Upper and lower case, Up: Special insertions [Contents][Index]
LaTeX sets aside the following characters for special purposes. For
example, the percent sign %
is for comments. They are
called reserved characters or special characters.
# $ % & { } _ ~ ^ \
If you want a reserved character to be printed as itself, in the text
body font, for all but the final three characters in that list simply
put a backslash \
in front of the character. Thus,
typing \$1.23
will produce $1.23
in your output.
As to the last three characters, to get a tilde in the text body font
use \~{}
(omitting the curly braces would result in the next
character receiving a tilde accent). Similarly, to get a get a text
body font circumflex use \^{}
. To get a backslash in the font
of the text body, enter \textbackslash{}
.
To produce the reserved characters in a typewriter font use
\verb!!
as below (the double backslash \\
is only
there to split the lines).
\begin{center} \# \$ \% \& \{ \} \_ \~{} \^{} \textbackslash \\ \verb!# $ % & { } _ ~ ^ \! \end{center}
Next: Symbols by font position, Previous: Reserved characters, Up: Special insertions [Contents][Index]
Synopsis:
\uppercase{text} \lowercase{text} \MakeUppercase{text} \MakeLowercase{text}
Change the case of characters. The TeX primitives commands
\uppercase
and \lowercase
only work for American
characters. The LaTeX commands \MakeUppercase
and
\MakeLowercase
commands also change characters accessed by
commands such as \ae
or \aa
. The commands
\MakeUppercase
and \MakeLowercase
are robust but they have
moving arguments (see \protect).
These commands do not change the case of letters used in the name of a
command within text. But they do change the case of every other
Latin letter inside the argument text. Thus,
\MakeUppercase{Let $y=f(x)$
} produces ‘LET Y=F(X)’. Another
example is that the name of an environment will be changed, so that
\MakeUppercase{\begin{tabular} ... \end{tabular}}
will
produce an error because the first half is changed to
\begin{TABULAR}
.
LaTeX uses the same fixed table for changing case throughout a document, The table used is designed for the font encoding T1; this works well with the standard TeX fonts for all Latin alphabets but will cause problems when using other alphabets.
To change the case of text that results from a macro inside text
you need to do expansion. Here the \Schoolname
produces
‘COLLEGE OF MATHEMATICS’.
\newcommand{\schoolname}{College of Mathematics} \newcommand{\Schoolname}{\expandafter\MakeUppercase \expandafter{\schoolname}}
The textcase package brings some of the missing feature of the
standard LaTeX commands \MakeUppercase
and
\MakeLowerCase
.
To uppercase only the first letter of words, you can use the package mfirstuc.
Next: Text symbols, Previous: Upper and lower case, Up: Special insertions [Contents][Index]
You can access any character of the current font using its number with
the \symbol
command. For example, the visible space character
used in the \verb*
command has the code decimal 32, so it can be
typed as \symbol{32}
.
You can also specify numbers in octal (base 8) by using a '
prefix, or hexadecimal (base 16) with a "
prefix, so the previous
example could also be written as \symbol{'40}
or
\symbol{"20}
.
Next: Accents, Previous: Symbols by font position, Up: Special insertions [Contents][Index]
LaTeX provides commands to generate a number of non-letter symbols in
running text. Some of these, especially the more obscure ones, are not
available in OT1. Unless you are using XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX then
you may need to load the textcomp
package.
\copyright
\textcopyright
© The copyright symbol.
\dag
† The dagger symbol (in text).
\ddag
‡ The double dagger symbol (in text).
\LaTeX
The LaTeX logo.
\LaTeXe
The LaTeX2e logo.
\guillemotleft («)
\guillemotright (»)
\guilsinglleft (‹)
\guilsinglright (›)
«, », ‹, › Double and single angle quotation marks, commonly used in French.
\ldots
\dots
\textellipsis
… An ellipsis (three dots at the baseline): \ldots
and \dots
also work in math mode.
\lq
‘ Left (opening) quote.
\P
\textparagraph
¶ Paragraph sign (pilcrow).
\pounds
\textsterling
£ English pounds sterling.
\quotedblbase („)
\quotesinglbase (‚)
„ and ‚ Double and single quotation marks on the baseline.
\rq
’ Right (closing) quote.
\S
\textsection
§ Section sign.
\TeX
The TeX logo.
\textasciicircum
^ ASCII circumflex.
\textasciitilde
~ ASCII tilde.
\textasteriskcentered
* Centered asterisk.
\textbackslash
\ Backslash.
\textbar
| Vertical bar.
\textbardbl
⏸ Double vertical bar.
\textbigcircle
◯ Big circle symbol.
\textbraceleft
{ Left brace.
\textbraceright
} Right brace.
\textbullet
• Bullet.
\textcircled{letter}
Ⓐ Circle around letter.
\textcompwordmark
\textcapitalcompwordmark
\textascendercompwordmark
Used to separate letters that would normally ligature. For example,
f\textcompwordmark i
produces ‘fi’ without a ligature. This
is most useful in non-English languages. The
\textcapitalcompwordmark
form has the cap height of the font
while the \textascendercompwordmark
form has the ascender height.
\textdagger
† Dagger.
\textdaggerdbl
‡ Double dagger.
\textdollar (or \$
)
$ Dollar sign.
\textemdash (or ---
)
— Em-dash (used for punctuation, as in
The playoffs --- if you are fortunate enough to make the playoffs ---
is more like a sprint.
).
\textendash (or --
)
– En-dash (used for ranges, as in See pages 12--14
).
\texteuro
The Euro symbol: €. For an alternative glyph design, try the eurosym package; also, most fonts nowadays come with their own Euro symbol (Unicode U+20AC).
\textexclamdown (or !`
)
¡ Upside down exclamation point.
\textgreater
> Greater than symbol.
\textless
< Less than symbol.
\textleftarrow
← Left arrow.
\textordfeminine
\textordmasculine
ª, º Feminine and masculine ordinal symbols.
\textperiodcentered
· Centered period.
\textquestiondown (or ?`
)
¿ Upside down question mark.
\textquotedblleft (or ``
)
“ Double left quote.
\textquotedblright (or ''
)
” Double right quote.
\textquoteleft (or `
)
‘ Single left quote.
\textquoteright (or '
)
’ Single right quote.
\textquotesingle
' Straight single quote. (From TS1 encoding.)
\textquotestraightbase
\textquotestraightdblbase
Single and double straight quotes on the baseline.
\textregistered
® Registered symbol.
\textrightarrow
→ Right arrow.
\textthreequartersemdash
﹘ “Three-quarters” em-dash, between en-dash and em-dash.
\texttrademark
™ Trademark symbol.
\texttwelveudash
﹘ “Two-thirds” em-dash, between en-dash and em-dash.
\textunderscore
_ Underscore.
\textvisiblespace
␣ Visible space symbol.
Next: Additional Latin letters, Previous: Text symbols, Up: Special insertions [Contents][Index]
LaTeX has wide support for many of the world’s scripts and languages,
through the babel
package and related support if you are using
pdfLaTeX, or polyglossia if you are using XeLaTeX or
LuaLaTeX. This section does not cover that support. It only lists
the core LaTeX commands for creating accented characters. The
\capital...
commands shown here produce alternative forms for use
with capital letters. These are not available with OT1.
Below, to make them easier to find, the accents are all illustrated with lowercase ‘o’.
Note that \i
produces a dotless i,
and \j
produces a dotless j.
These are often used in place of their dotted counterparts when they are
accented.
\"
\capitaldieresis
ö Umlaut (dieresis).
\'
\capitalacute
ó Acute accent.
\.
ȯ Dot accent.
\=
\capitalmacron
ō Macron (overbar) accent.
\^
\capitalcircumflex
ô Circumflex (hat) accent.
\`
\capitalgrave
ò Grave accent.
\~
\capitaltilde
ñ Tilde accent.
\b
o_ Bar accent underneath.
Related to this, \underbar{text}
produces a bar under
text. The argument is always processed in LR mode
(see Modes). The bar is always a fixed position under the baseline,
thus crossing through descenders. See also \underline
in
Math miscellany.
\c
\capitalcedilla
ç Cedilla accent underneath.
\d
\capitaldotaccent
ọ Dot accent underneath.
\H
\capitalhungarumlaut
ő Long Hungarian umlaut accent.
\k
\capitalogonek
ǫ Ogonek. Not available in the OT1 encoding.
\r
\capitalring
o* Ring accent.
\t
\capitaltie
\newtie
\capitalnewtie
oo[ Tie-after accent. The \newtie
form is centered in
its box.
\u
\capitalbreve
ŏ Breve accent.
\v
\capitalcaron
ǒ Háček (check, caron) accent.
Next: \rule, Previous: Accents, Up: Special insertions [Contents][Index]
Here are the basic LaTeX commands for inserting letters beyond A–Z that extend the Latin alphabet, used primarily in languages other than English.
\aa
\AA
å and Å.
\ae
\AE
æ and Æ.
\dh
\DH
Icelandic letter eth: ð and Ð. Not available with OT1 encoding, you need the fontenc package to select an alternate font encoding, such as T1.
\dj
\DJ
Crossed d and D, a.k.a. capital and small letter d with stroke. Not available with OT1 encoding, you need the fontenc package to select an alternate font encoding, such as T1.
\ij
\IJ
ij and IJ (except somewhat closer together than appears here).
\l
\L
ł and Ł.
\ng
\NG
Lappish letter eng, also used in phonetics.
\o
\O
ø and Ø.
\oe
\OE
œ and Œ.
\ss
\SS
ß and SS.
\th
\TH
Icelandic letter thorn: þ and Þ. Not available with OT1 encoding, you need the fontenc package to select an alternate font encoding, such as T1.
Next: \today, Previous: Additional Latin letters, Up: Special insertions [Contents][Index]
\rule
Synopsis, one of:
\rule{width}{thickness} \rule[raise]{width}{thickness}
Produce a rule, a filled-in rectangle.
This produces a rectangular blob, sometimes called a Halmos symbol, often used to mark the end of a proof.
\newcommand{\qedsymbol}{\rule{0.4em}{2ex}}
The amsthm package includes this command, with a somewhat different-looking symbol.
The mandatory arguments give the horizontal width and vertical thickness of the rectangle. They are rigid lengths (see Lengths). The optional argument raise is also a rigid length, and tells LaTeX how much to raise the rule above the baseline, or lower it if the length is negative.
This produces a line, a rectangle that is wide but not tall.
\noindent\rule{\textwidth}{0.4pt}
The line is the width of the page and 0.4 points tall. This line thickness is common in LaTeX.
A rule that has zero width, or zero thickness, will not show up in the output, but can cause LaTeX to change the output around it. See \strut for examples.
Previous: \rule, Up: Special insertions [Contents][Index]
\today
Synopsis:
\today
Produce today’s date in the format ‘month dd, yyyy’. An example of a date in that format is ‘July 4, 1976’.
Multilingual packages such as babel or polyglossia, or
classes such as lettre, will localize \today
. For example,
the following will output ‘4 juillet 1976’:
\year=1976 \month=7 \day=4 \documentclass{minimal} \usepackage[french]{babel} \begin{document} \today \end{document}
\today
uses the counters \day
, \month
, and
\year
(see \day & \month & \year).
A number of package on CTAN work with dates. One is datetime package which can produce a wide variety of date formats, including ISO standards.
The date is not updated as the LaTeX process runs, so in principle the date could be incorrect by the time the program finishes.
Next: Front/back matter, Previous: Special insertions, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
LaTeX lets you split a large document into several smaller ones. This can simplify editing or allow multiple authors to work on the document. It can also speed processing.
Regardless of how many separate files you use, there is always one root file, on which LaTeX compilation starts. This shows such a file with five included files.
\documentclass{book} \includeonly{ % comment out lines below to omit compiling pref, chap1, chap2, append, bib } \begin{document} \frontmatter \include{pref} \mainmatter \include{chap1} \include{chap2} \appendix \include{append} \backmatter \include{bib} \end{document}
This will bring in material from pref.tex, chap1.tex,
chap2.tex, append.tex, and bib.tex. If you compile
this file, and then comment out all of the lines inside
\includeonly{...}
except for chap1,
and compile again,
then LaTeX will only process the material in the first chapter.
Thus, your output will appear more quickly and be shorter to print.
However, the advantage of the \includeonly
command is that
LaTeX will retain the page numbers and all of the cross reference
information from the other parts of the document so these will appear in
your output correctly.
See Larger book template for another example of \includeonly
.
• \endinput: | Stop including material from a file. | |
• \include & \includeonly: | Conditionally include files. | |
• \input: | Unconditionally include a file. |
Next: \include & \includeonly, Up: Splitting the input [Contents][Index]
\endinput
Synopsis:
\endinput
When you \include{filename}
, inside filename.tex the
material after \endinput
will not be included. This command is
optional; if filename.tex has no \endinput
then LaTeX
will read all of the file.
For example, suppose that a document’s root file has
\input{chap1}
and this is chap1.tex.
\chapter{One} This material will appear in the document. \endinput This will not appear.
This can be useful for putting documentation or comments at the end of a
file, or for avoiding junk characters that can be added during mailing.
It is also useful for debugging: one strategy to localize errors is to
put \endinput
halfway through the included file and see if the
error disappears. Now, knowing which half contains the error, moving
\endinput
to halfway through that area further narrows down the
location. This process rapidly finds the offending line.
After reading \endinput
, LaTeX continues to read to the end of
the line, so something can follow this command and be read nonetheless.
This allows you, for instance, to close an \if...
with a
\fi
.
Next: \input, Previous: \endinput, Up: Splitting the input [Contents][Index]
\include
& \includeonly
Synopsis:
\includeonly{ % in document preamble ... filename, ... } ... \include{filename} % in document body
Bring material from the external file filename.tex into a LaTeX document.
The \include
command does three things: it executes
\clearpage
(see \clearpage & \cleardoublepage), then it
inputs the material from filename.tex into the document,
and then it does another \clearpage
. This command can only
appear in the document body. The \includeonly
command controls
which files will be read by LaTeX under subsequent \include
commands. Its list of filenames is comma-separated, and it can only
appear in the preamble.
This example root document, constitution.tex, brings in three files, preamble.tex, articles.tex, and amendments.tex.
\documentclass{book} \includeonly{ preamble, articles, amendments } \begin{document} \include{preamble} \include{articles} \include{amendments} \end{document}
The file preamble.tex contains no special code; you have just excerpted the chapter from consitution.tex and put it in a separate file just for editing convenience.
\chapter{Preamble} We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, ...
Running LaTeX on constitution.tex makes the material from the
three files appear in the document but also generates the auxiliary
files preamble.aux, articles.aux, and
amendments.tex. These contain information such as page numbers
and cross-references (see Cross references). If you now comment out
\includeonly
’s lines with preamble
and amendments
and run LaTeX again then the resulting document shows only the
material from articles.tex, not the material from
preamble.tex or amendments.tex. Nonetheless, all of the
auxiliary information from the omitted files is still there, including
the starting page number of the chapter.
If the document preamble does not have \includeonly
then
LaTeX will include all the files you call for with \include
commands.
The \include
command makes a new page. To avoid that, see
\input (which, however, does not retain the auxiliary
information).
See Larger book template for another example using \include
and \includeonly
. That example also uses \input
for some
material that will not necessarily start on a new page.
File names can involve paths.
\documentclass{book} \includeonly{ chapters/chap1, } \begin{document} \include{chapters/chap1} \end{document}
To make your document portable across distributions and platforms you should avoid spaces in the file names. The tradition is to instead use dashes or underscores. Nevertheless, for the name ‘amo amas amat’, this works under TeX Live on GNU/Linux:
\documentclass{book} \includeonly{ "amo\space amas\space amat" } \begin{document} \include{"amo\space amas\space amat"} \end{document}
and this works under MiKTeX on Windows:
\documentclass{book} \includeonly{ {"amo amas amat"} } \begin{document} \include{{"amo amas amat"}} \end{document}
You cannot use \include
inside a file that is being included or
you get ‘LaTeX Error: \include cannot be nested.’ The
\include
command cannot appear in the document preamble; you will
get ‘LaTeX Error: Missing \begin{document}’.
If a file that you \include
does not exist, for instance if you
\include{athiesm}
but you meant \include{atheism}
,
then LaTeX does not give you an error but will warn you ‘No file
athiesm.tex.’ (It will also create athiesm.aux.)
If you \include
the root file in itself then you first get
‘LaTeX Error: Can be used only in preamble.’ Later runs get
‘TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [text input levels=15]’. To fix
this, you must remove the inclusion \include{root}
but also
delete the file root.aux and rerun LaTeX.
Previous: \include & \includeonly, Up: Splitting the input [Contents][Index]
\input
Synopsis:
\input{filename}
LaTeX processes the file as if its contents were inserted in the current file. For a more sophisticated inclusion mechanism see \include & \includeonly.
If filename does not end in ‘.tex’ then LaTeX first tries the filename with that extension; this is the usual case. If filename ends with ‘.tex’ then LaTeX looks for the filename as it is.
For example, this
\input{macros}
will cause LaTeX to first look for macros.tex. If it finds that file then it processes its contents as thought they had been copy-pasted in. If there is no file of the name macros.tex then LaTeX tries the name macros, without an extension. (This may vary by distribution.)
To make your document portable across distributions and platforms you should avoid spaces in the file names. The tradition is to instead use dashes or underscores. Nevertheless, for the name ‘amo amas amat’, this works under TeX Live on GNU/Linux:
\input{"amo\space amas\space amat"}
and this works under MiKTeX on Windows:
\input{{"amo amas amat"}}
Next: Letters, Previous: Splitting the input, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
• Table of contents etc.: | Table of contents, list of figures, list of tables. | |
• Indexes: | Generate an index. | |
• Glossaries: | Generate a glossary. |
Next: Indexes, Up: Front/back matter [Contents][Index]
Synopsis, one of:
\tableofcontents \listoffigures \listoftables
Produce a table of contents, or list of figures, or list of tables. Put
the command in the input file where you want the table or list to
go. You do not type the entries; for example, typically the table of
contents entries are automatically generated from the sectioning
commands \chapter
, etc.
This example illustrates the first command, \tableofcontents
.
LaTeX will produce a table of contents on the book’s first page.
\documentclass{book} % \setcounter{tocdepth}{1} \begin{document} \tableofcontents\newpage ... \chapter{...} ... \section{...} ... \subsection{...} ... \end{document}
Uncommenting the second line would cause that table to contain chapter
and section listings but not subsection listings, because the
\section
command has level 1. See Sectioning for level
numbers of the sectioning units. For more on the tocdepth
see Sectioning/tocdepth.
Another example of the use of \tableofcontents
is in Larger book template.
If you want a page break after the table of contents, write a
\newpage
command after the \tableofcontents
command, as
above.
To make the table of contents LaTeX stores the information in an auxiliary file named root-file.toc (see Splitting the input). For example, this LaTeX file test.tex
\documentclass{article} \begin{document} \tableofcontents\newpage \section{First section} \subsection{First subsection} ...
writes the following line to test.toc.
\contentsline {section}{\numberline {1}First section}{2} \contentsline {subsection}{\numberline {1.1}First subsection}{2}
The section
or subsection
is the sectioning unit. The
hook \numberline
lets you to change how the information appears
in the table of contents. Of its two arguments, 1
or 1.1
is the sectioning unit number and First section
or First
subsection
is the title. Finally, 2
is the page number on which
the sectioning units start.
One consequence of this auxiliary file storage strategy is that to get the contents page correct you must run LaTeX twice, once to store the information and once to get it. In particular, the first time that you run LaTeX on a new document, the table of contents page will be empty except for its ‘Contents’ header. Just run it again.
The commands \listoffigures
and \listoftables
produce a
list of figures and a list of tables. They work the same way as the
contents commands; for instance, these work with information stored in
.lof and .lot files.
To change the header for the table of contents page do something like the first line here.
\renewcommand{\contentsname}{Table of contents} \renewcommand{\listfigurename}{Plots} \renewcommand{\listtablename}{Tables}
Similarly, the other two lines will do the other two. Internationalization packages such as babel or polyglossia will change the headers depending on the chosen base language.
CTAN has many packages for the table of contents and lists of figures and tables. One convenient one for adjusting some aspects of the default, such as spacing, is tocloft. And, tocbibbind will automatically add the bibliography, index, etc. to the table of contents.
• \addcontentsline: | Add an entry to table of contents, etc. | |
• \addtocontents: | Add text directly to table of contents file, etc. | |
• \nofiles: | Prevent writing to auxiliary files. |
Next: \addtocontents, Up: Table of contents etc. [Contents][Index]
\addcontentsline
Synopsis:
\addcontentsline{ext}{unit}{text}
Add an entry to the file specified by ext. Usually ext is
one of toc
for the table of contents, lof
for the list of
figures, or lot
for the list of tables.
The following will result in an ‘Appendices’ line in the table of contents.
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{\protect\textbf{Appendices}}
It will appear at the same indentation level as the sections, will be in boldface, and will be assigned the page number associated with the point where it appears in the input file.
The \addcontentsline
command writes information to the file
root-name.ext. It writes that information as the
text of the command
\contentsline{unit}{text}{num}
, where
num
is the current value of counter unit
. The
most common case is the table of contents and there num is the
page number of the first page of unit.
This command is invoked by the sectioning commands \chapter
,
etc., and also by \caption
inside a float environment. But it is
also used by authors. For example, in a book to have the preface
unnumbered, you may use the starred \chapter*
. But that does not
put in table of contents information, so you can enter it manually, as
here.
\chapter*{Preface} \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\protect\numberline{}Preface}
In the .toc file LaTeX will put the line \contentsline
{chapter}{\numberline {}Preface}{3}
; note the page number
‘3’.
All of the arguments for \addcontentsline
are required.
Typically one of the strings toc
for the table of contents,
lof
for the list of figures, or lot
for the list of
tables. The filename extension of the information file.
A string that depends on the value of the ext argument:
toc
For the table of contents, this is the name of a sectional unit:
part
, chapter
, section
, subsection
, etc.
lof
For the list of figures: figure
.
lot
For the list of tables: table
.
The text of the entry. You must \protect
any commands that are
fragile (see \protect).
The \addcontentsline
command has an interaction with
\include
(see \include & \includeonly). If you use them at
the same level, as with
\addcontentsline{...}{...}{...}\include{...}
then lines
in the table of contents can come out in the wrong order. The solution
is to move \addcontentsline
into the file being included.
If you use a unit that LaTeX does not recognize, as here
\addcontentsline{toc}{setcion}{\protect\textbf{Appendices}}
then you don’t get an error but the formatting in the table of contents will not make sense.
Next: \nofiles, Previous: \addcontentsline, Up: Table of contents etc. [Contents][Index]
\addtocontents
Synopsis:
\addtocontents{ext}{text}
Add text, which may be text or formatting commands, directly to the auxiliary file with extension ext. This is most commonly used for the table of contents so that is the discussion here, but this also applies to the list of figures and list of tables.
This will put some vertical space in the table of contents after the ‘Contents’ header.
\tableofcontents\newpage \addtocontents{toc}{\protect\vspace*{3ex}}
The \addtocontents
command has two arguments. Both are
required.
Typically one of: toc for the table of contents, lof for the list of figures, or lot for the list of tables. The extension of the file holding the information.
The text, and possibly commands, to be written.
The sectioning commands such as \chapter
use the
\addcontentsline
command to store information. This command
creates lines in the .toc auxiliary file containing the
\contentsline
command (see \addcontentsline). In contrast,
the command \addtocontents
puts material directly in that file.
The \addtocontents
command has an interaction with
\include
(see \include & \includeonly). If you use them at
the same level, as with
\addtocontents{...}{...}\include{...}
then lines in the
table of contents can come out in the wrong order. The solution is to
move \addtocontents
into the file being included.
Previous: \addtocontents, Up: Table of contents etc. [Contents][Index]
\nofiles
Synopsis:
\nofiles
Prevent LaTeX from writing any auxiliary files. The only output will be the .log and .pdf (or .dvi) files. This command must go in the preamble.
Because of the \nofiles
command this example will not produce a
.toc file.
\documentclass{book} \nofiles \begin{document} \tableofcontents\newpage \chapter{...} ...
LaTeX will not erase any existing auxiliary files, so if you insert
the \nofiles
command after you have run the file and gotten
a .toc then the table of contents page will continue to show
the old information.
Next: Glossaries, Previous: Table of contents etc., Up: Front/back matter [Contents][Index]
This document has an index.
\documentclass{article} \usepackage{makeidx} \makeindex ... \begin{document} ... Recall Wilson's Theorem: \index{Wilson's Theorem} a number \( n>1 \) is prime if and only if the factorial of \( n-1 \) is congruent to \( -1 \) modulo~\( n \). ... \printindex ...
The \usepackage{makeidx}
and \makeindex
in the preamble
bring in the relevant commands.
Producing an index is a three stage process. First, in the document
body you declare index entries with the \index
command
(see \index). When you run LaTeX, the \index
writes its
information to an auxiliary file root-name.idx. Next, to
alphabetize and to do other manipulations you run an external command,
typically makeindex
or xindy
(see makeindex).
These output a file root-name.ind. Finally, you bring the
information back into your document and typeset it with the
\printindex
command (see \printindex).
There are many packages that apply to indexing commands. The
showidx
package causes each index entries to be shown in the
margin on the page where the entry appears. This can help in preparing
the index. The multind
package supports multiple indexes. See
also the TeX FAQ entry on this topic,
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=multind.
• \index: | Declare an index entry. | |
• makeindex: | Alphabetize index entries. | |
• \printindex: | Put the index here. |
\index
Synopsis:
\index{index-entry-string}
Declare an entry in the index. This command is fragile (see \protect).
For example, as described in Indexes, one way to get an index from
what’s below is to compile the document with pdflatex test
, then
process the index entries with makeindex test
, and then compile
again with pdflatex test
.
W~Ackermann (1896--1962).\index{Ackermann} ... Ackermann function\index{Ackermann!function} ... rate of growth\index{Ackermann!function!growth rate}
All three index entries will get a page number, such as ‘Ackermann,
22’. LaTeX will format the second as a subitem of the first, on the
line below it and indented, and the third as a subitem of the second.
Three levels deep is as far as you can nest subentries. (If you add
\index{Ackermann!function!growth rate!comparison}
then
makeindex
says ‘Scanning input file test.idx....done (4
entries accepted, 1 rejected)’ and nothing appears in the index).
If you enter a second \index
with the same
index-entry-string then you will get a single index entry with two
page numbers (unless they happen to fall on the same page). Thus,
adding as for Ackermann.\index{Ackermann}
later in the same
document as above will give an index entry like ‘Ackermann, 22,
151’. Also, you can enter the index entries in any order, so for
instance \index{Ackermann!function}
could come before
\index{Ackermann}
.
Get a page range in the output, like ‘Hilbert, 23--27’, as here.
W~Ackermann (1896--1962).\index{Ackermann} ... D~Hilbert (1862--1943)\index{Ackermann!Hilbert\(} ... disapproved of his marriage.\index{Ackermann!Hilbert\)}
If the beginning and ending of the page range are equal then the system just gives a single page entry, not a range.
If you index subentries but not a main entry, as with
\index{Jones!program}
and \index{Jones!results}
, then
the output is the item ‘Jones’ with no comma or page number,
followed by two subitems, like ‘program, 50’ and ‘results,
51’.
Generate a index entry that says ‘See’ by using a vertical bar
character: \index{Ackermann!function|see{P\'eter's
function}}
. You can instead get ‘See also’ with seealso
.
(The text ‘See’ is defined by \seename
, and ‘See also’
by \alsoname
. You can redefine these either by using an
internationalization package such as babel or polyglossia,
or directly as with \renewcommand{\alsoname}[1]{Also see
#1}
.)
The ‘See’ feature is part of a more general functionality. After
the vertical bar you can put the name of a one-input command, as in
\index{group|textit}
(note the missing backslash on the
\textit
command) and the system will apply that command to the
page number, here giving something like \textit{7}
. You can
define your own one-input commands, such as
\newcommand{\definedpage}[1]{{\color{blue}#1}}
and then
\index{Ackermann!function|definedpage}
will give a blue page
number (see Color). Another, less practical, example is this,
\newcommand\indexownpage[1]{#1, \thepage} ... Epimenides.\index{self-reference|indexownpage}
which creates an entry citing the page number of its own index listing.
The two functions just described combine, as here
\index{Ackermann!function|(definedpage} ... \index{Ackermann!function|)}
which outputs an index entry like ‘function, 23--27’ where the page number range is in blue.
Consider an index entry such as ‘α-ring’. Entering
it as $\alpha$-ring
will cause it to be alphabetized according to
the dollar sign. You can instead enter it using an at-sign, as
\index{alpha-ring@$\alpha$-ring}
. If you specify an entry
with an at-sign separating two strings, pos@text
,
then pos gives the alphabetical position of the entry while
text produces the text of the entry. Another example is that
\index{Saint Michael's College@SMC}
produces an index entry
‘SMC’ alphabetized into a different location than its spelling
would naturally give it.
To put a !
, or @
, or |
character in an index
entry, preceding it with a double quote, "
. (The double quote
gets deleted before alphabetization.)
A number of packages on CTAN have additional functionality beyond that
provided by makeidx. One is index, which allows for
multiple indices and contains a command
\index*{index-entry-string}
that prints the
index-entry-string as well as indexing it.
The \index
command writes the indexing information to the file
root-name.idx file. Specifically, it writes text of the
command
\indexentry{index-entry-string}{page-num}
,
where page-num is the value of the \thepage
counter. On
occasion, when the \printindex
command is confused, you have to
delete this file to start with a fresh slate.
If you omit the closing brace of an \index
command then you get a
message like this.
Runaway argument? {Ackermann!function ! Paragraph ended before \@wrindex was complete.
Next: \printindex, Previous: \index, Up: Indexes [Contents][Index]
makeindex
Synopsis, one of:
makeindex filename makeindex -s style-file filename makeindex options filename0 ...
Sort, and otherwise process, the index information in the auxiliary file
filename. This is a command line program. It takes one or more
raw index files, filename.idx files, and produces the
actual index file, the filename.ind file that is input by
\printindex
(see \printindex).
The first form of the command suffices for many uses. The second allows you to format the index by using an index style file, a .isty file. The third form is the most general; see the full documentation on CTAN.
This is a simple .isty file.
% book.isty % $ makeindex -s book.isty -p odd book.idx % creates the index as book.ind, starting on an odd page. preamble "\\pagestyle{empty} \\small \\begin{theindex} \\thispagestyle{empty}" postamble "\n \\end{theindex}"
The description here covers only some of the index formatting possibilities in style-file. For a full list see the documentation on CTAN.
A style file consists of a list of pairs: specifier and
attribute. These can appear in the file in any order. All of the
attributes are strings, except where noted. Strings are
surrounded with double quotes, "
, and the maximum length of a
string is 144 characters. The \n
is for a newline and \t
is for a tab. Backslashes are escaped with another backslash,
\\
. If a line begins with a percent sign, %
, then it is a
comment.
preamble
Preamble of the output file. Defines the context in which the index is
formatted. Default: "\\begin{theindex}\n"
.
postamble
Postamble of the output file. Default: "\n\n\\end{theindex}\n"
.
group_skip
Traditionally index items are broken into groups, typically a group for
entries starting with ‘a’, etc. This specifier gives what is
inserted when a new group begins. Default: "\n\n \\indexspace\n"
(\indexspace
is a rubber length with default value 10pt
plus5pt minus3pt
).
lethead_flag
An integer. It governs what is inserted for a new group or letter. If
it is 0 (which is the default) then other than group_skip
nothing
will be inserted before the group. If it is positive then at a new
letter the lethead_prefix
and lethead_suffix
will be
inserted, with that letter in uppercase between them. If it is negative
then what will be inserted is the letter in lowercase. The default
is 0.
lethead_prefix
If a new group begins with a different letter then this is the prefix
inserted before the new letter header. Default: ""
lethead_suffix
If a group begins with a different letter then this is the suffix
inserted after the new letter header. Default: ""
.
item_0
What is put between two level 0 items. Default: "\n \\item
"
.
item_1
Put between two level 1 items. Default: "\n \\subitem "
.
item_2
put between two level 2 items. Default: "\n \\subsubitem "
.
item_01
What is put between a level 0 item and a level 1 item.
Default: "\n \\subitem "
.
item_x1
What is put between a level 0 item and a level 1 item in the
case that the level 0 item doesn’t have any page numbers (as in
\index{aaa|see{bbb}}
). Default: "\n \\subitem "
.
item_12
What is put between a level 1 item and a level 2 item.
Default: "\n \\subsubitem "
.
item_x2
What is put between a level 1 item and a level 2 item, if the
level 1 item doesn’t have page numbers. Default: "\n
\\subsubitem "
.
delim_0
Delimiter put between a level 0 key and its first page
number. Default: a comma followed by a blank, ", "
.
delim_1
Delimiter put between a level 1 key and its first page
number. Default: a comma followed by a blank, ", "
.
delim_2
Delimiter between a level 2 key and its first page number. Default:
a comma followed by a blank, ", "
.
delim_n
Delimiter between two page numbers for the same key (at any
level). Default: a comma followed by a blank, ", "
.
delim_r
What is put between the starting and ending page numbers of a range.
Default: "--"
.
line_max
An integer. Maximum length of an index entry’s line in the output,
beyond which the line wraps. Default: 72
.
indent_space
What is inserted at the start of a wrapped line. Default:
"\t\t"
.
indent_length
A number. The length of the wrapped line indentation. The default
indent_space
is two tabs and each tab is eight spaces so the
default here is 16
.
page_precedence
A document may have pages numbered in different ways. For example, a
book may have front matter pages numbered in lowercase roman while main
matter pages are in arabic. This string specifies the order in which
they will appear in the index. The makeindex
command supports
five different types of numerals: lowercase roman r
, and numeric
or arabic n
, and lowercase alphabetic a
, and uppercase
roman R
, and uppercase alphabetic A
. Default:
"rnaRA"
.
There are a number of other programs that do the job
makeindex
does. One is xindy
, which does
internationalization and can process indexes for documents marked up
using LaTeX and a number of other languages. It is highly
configurable, both in markup terms and in terms of the collating order
of the text, as described in its documentation.
\printindex
Synopsis:
\printindex
Place the index into the output.
To get an index you must first include
\usepackage{makeidx}\makeindex
in the document preamble and
compile the document, then run the system command makeindex
,
and then compile the document again. See Indexes for further
discussion and an example of the use of \printindex
.
Previous: Indexes, Up: Front/back matter [Contents][Index]
Synopsis:
\usepackage{glossaries} \makeglossaries ... \newglossaryentry{label}{settings} ... \gls{label}. ... \printglossaries
The glossaries package allows you to make glossaries, including multiple glossaries, as well as lists of acronyms.
To get the output from this example, compile the document (for instance
with pdflatex filename
), then run the command line command
makeglossaries filename
, and then compile the document again.
\documentclass{...} \usepackage{glossaries} \makeglossaries \newglossaryentry{tm}{% name={Turing machine}, description={A model of a machine that computes. The model is simple but can compute anything any existing device can compute. It is the standard model used in Computer Science.}, } \begin{document} Everything begins with the definition of a \gls{tm}. ... \printglossaries \end{document}
That gives two things. In the main text it outputs ‘... definition of a Turing machine’. In addition, in a separate sectional unit headed ‘Glossary’ there appears a description list. In boldface it says ‘Turing machine’ and the rest of the item says in normal type ‘A model of a machine … Computer Science’.
The command \makeglossary
opens the file that will contain the
entry information, root-file.glo. Put the
\printglossaries
command where you want the glossaries to appear
in your document.
The glossaries package is very powerful. For instance, besides
the commands \newglossaryentry
and \gls
, there are similar
commands for a list of acronyms. See the package documentations on
CTAN.
• \newglossaryentry: | Declare the content of a glossary entry. | |
• \gls: | Give a page reference for a glossary entry. |
Next: \gls, Up: Glossaries [Contents][Index]
\newglossaryentry
Synopsis, one of:
\newglossaryentry{label} { name={name}, description={description}, other options, ... }
or
\longnewglossaryentry{label} { name={name}, other options ..., } {description}
Declare a new entry for a glossary. The label must be unique for
the document. The settings associated with the label are pairs:
key=value
.
This puts the blackboard bold symbol for the real numbers ℝ in the glossary.
\newglossaryentry{R} { name={\ensuremath{\mathbb{R}}}, description={the real numbers}, }
Use the second command form if the description spans more than one paragraph.
For a full list of keys see the package documentation on CTAN but here are a few.
name
(Required.) The word, phrase, or symbol that you are defining.
description
(Required.) The description that will appear in the glossary. If this has more than one paragraph then you must use the second command form given in the synopsis.
plural
The plural form of name. Refer to the plural form using
\glspl
or \Glspl
(see \gls).
sort
How to place this entry in the list of entries that the glossary holds.
symbol
A symbol, such as a mathematical symbol, besides the name.
Previous: \newglossaryentry, Up: Glossaries [Contents][Index]
\gls
Synopsis, one of:
\gls{label} \glspl{label} \Gls{label} \Glspl{label}
Refer to a glossary entry. The entries are declared with
\newglossaryentry
(see \newglossaryentry).
This
\newglossaryentry{N}{% name={the natural numbers}, description={The numbers $0$, $1$, $2$, $\ldots$\@}, symbol={\ensuremath{\mathbb{N}}}, } ... Consider \gls{N}.
gives the output ‘Consider the natural numbers’.
The second command form \glspl{label}
produces the plural
of name (by default it tries adding an ‘s’). The third form
capitalizes the first letter of name, as does the fourth form,
which also takes the plural.
Next: Terminal input/output, Previous: Front/back matter, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Synopsis:
\documentclass{letter} \address{senders address} % return address \signature{sender name} \begin{document} \begin{letter}{recipient address} \opening{salutation} letter body \closing{closing text} \end{letter} ... \end{document}
Produce one or more letters.
Each letter is in a separate letter
environment, whose argument
recipient address often contains multiple lines separated with a
double backslash, (\\
). For example, you might have:
\begin{letter}{Ninon de l'Enclos \\ l'h\^otel Sagonne} ... \end{letter}
The start of the letter
environment resets the page number to 1,
and the footnote number to 1 also.
The sender address and sender name are common to all of the
letters, whether there is one or more, so these are best put in the
preamble. As with the recipient address, often sender address
contains multiple lines separated by a double
backslash (\\
). LaTeX will put the sender name
under the closing, after a vertical space for the traditional
hand-written signature.
Each letter
environment body begins with a required
\opening
command such as \opening{Dear Madam or Sir:}
.
The letter body text is ordinary LaTeX so it can contain
everything from enumerated lists to displayed math, except that commands
such as \chapter
that make no sense in a letter are turned off.
Each letter
environment body typically ends with a
\closing
command such as \closing{Yours,}
.
Additional material may come after the \closing
. You can say who
is receiving a copy of the letter with a command like \cc{the
Boss \\ the Boss's Boss}
. There’s a similar \encl
command for
a list of enclosures. And, you can add a postscript with \ps
.
LaTeX’s default is to indent the sender name and the closing above it
by a length of \longindentation
. By default this is
0.5\textwidth
. To make them flush left, put
\setlength{\longindentation}{0em}
in your preamble.
To set a fixed date use something like
\renewcommand{\today}{1958-Oct-12}
. If put in your preamble
then it will apply to all the letters.
This example shows only one letter
environment. The three lines
marked as optional are typically omitted.
\documentclass{letter} \address{Sender's street \\ Sender's town} \signature{Sender's name \\ Sender's title} % optional: \location{Mailbox 13} % optional: \telephone{(102) 555-0101} \begin{document} \begin{letter}{Recipient's name \\ Recipient's address} \opening{Sir:} % optional: \thispagestyle{firstpage} I am not interested in entering a business arrangement with you. \closing{Your most humble, etc.,} \end{letter} \end{document}
These commands are used with the letter
class.
• \address: | Sender’s return address. | |
• \cc: | Carbon copy list. | |
• \closing: | Saying goodbye. | |
• \encl: | List of enclosed material. | |
• \location: | Sender’s organizational location. | |
• \makelabels: | Make address labels. | |
• \name: | Sender’s name, for the return address. | |
• \opening: | Saying hello. | |
• \ps: | Adding a postscript. | |
• \signature: | Sender’s signature. | |
• \telephone: | Sender’s phone number. |
\address
Synopsis:
\address{senders address}
Specify the return address, as it appears on the letter and on the
envelope. Separate multiple lines in senders address with a
double backslash, \\
.
Because it can apply to multiple letters this declaration is often put
in the preamble. However, it can go anywhere, including inside an
individual letter
environment.
This command is optional: if you do not use it then the letter is
formatted with some blank space on top, for copying onto pre-printed
letterhead paper. If you do use the \address
declaration then it
is formatted as a personal letter.
Here is an example.
\address{Stephen Maturin \\ The Grapes of the Savoy}
\cc
Synopsis:
\cc{name0 \\ ... }
Produce a list of names to which copies of the letter were sent. This
command is optional. If it appears then typically it comes after
\closing
. Put the names on different lines by separating them
with a double backslash, \\
, as in:
\cc{President \\ Vice President}
\closing
Synopsis:
\closing{text}
Produce the letter’s closing. This is optional, but usual. It appears at the end of a letter, above a handwritten signature. For example:
\closing{Regards,}
\encl
Synopsis:
\encl{first enclosed object \\ ... }
Produce a list of things included with the letter. This command is
optional; when it is used, it typically is put after \closing
.
Separate multiple lines with a double backslash, \\
.
\encl{License \\ Passport}
Next: \makelabels, Previous: \encl, Up: Letters [Contents][Index]
\location
Synopsis:
\location{text}
The text appears centered at the bottom of the page. It only
appears if the page style is firstpage
.
\makelabels
Synopsis:
\makelabels % in preamble
Optional, for a document that contains letter
environments. If
you just put \makelabels
in the preamble then at the end of the
document you will get a sheet with labels for all the recipients, one
for each letter environment, that you can copy to a sheet of peel-off
address labels.
Customize the labels by redefining the commands \startlabels
,
\mlabel
, and \returnaddress
(and perhaps \name
) in
the preamble. The command \startlabels
sets the width, height,
number of columns, etc., of the page onto which the labels are printed.
The command \mlabel{return address}{recipient
address}
produces the two labels (or one, if you choose to ignore the
return address) for each letter environment. The first argument,
return address, is the value returned by the macro
\returnaddress
. The second argument, recipient address, is
the value passed in the argument to the letter
environment. By
default \mlabel
ignores the first argument, the return
address, causing the default behavior described in the prior paragraph.
This illustrates customization. Its output includes a page with two columns having two labels each.
\documentclass{letter} \renewcommand*{\returnaddress}{Fred McGuilicuddy \\ Oshkosh, Mineola 12305} \newcommand*\originalMlabel{} \let\originalMlabel\mlabel \def\mlabel#1#2{\originalMlabel{}{#1}\originalMlabel{}{#2}} \makelabels ... \begin{document} \begin{letter}{A Einstein \\ 112 Mercer Street \\ Princeton, New Jersey, USA 08540} ... \end{letter} \begin{letter}{K G\"odel \\ 145 Linden Lane \\ Princeton, New Jersey, USA 08540} ... \end{letter} \end{document}
The first column contains the return address twice. The second column contains the address for each recipient.
The package envlab
makes formatting the labels easier, with
standard sizes already provided. The preamble lines
\usepackage[personalenvelope]{envlab}
and \makelabels
are all that you need to print envelopes.
Next: \opening, Previous: \makelabels, Up: Letters [Contents][Index]
\name
Synopsis:
\name{name}
Optional. Sender’s name, used for printing on the envelope together with the return address.
\opening
Synopsis:
\opening{salutation}
Required. Follows the \begin{letter}{...}
. The argument
salutation is mandatory. For instance:
\opening{Dear John:}
Next: \signature, Previous: \opening, Up: Letters [Contents][Index]
\ps
Synopsis:
\ps{text}
Add a postscript. This command is optional and usually is used after
\closing
.
\ps{P.S. After you have read this letter, burn it. Or eat it.}
Next: \telephone, Previous: \ps, Up: Letters [Contents][Index]
\signature
Synopsis:
\signature{first line \\ ... }
The sender’s name. This command is optional, although its inclusion is usual.
The argument text appears at the end of the letter, after the closing.
LaTeX leaves some vertical space for a handwritten
signature. Separate multiple lines with a double
backslash, \\
. For example:
\signature{J Fred Muggs \\ White House}
LaTeX’s default for the vertical space from the \closing
text
down to the \signature
text is 6\medskipamount
, which is
six times \medskipamount
(where \medskipamount
is equal to
a \parskip
, which in turn is defined by default here to
0.7em).
This command is usually in the preamble, to apply to all the letters in
the document. To have it apply to one letter only, put it inside a
letter
environment and before the \closing
.
You can include a graphic in the signature as here.
\signature{\vspace{-6\medskipamount}\includegraphics{sig.png}\\ My name}
For this you must put \usepackage{graphicx}
in the preamble
(see Graphics).
Previous: \signature, Up: Letters [Contents][Index]
\telephone
Synopsis:
\telephone{number}
The sender’s telephone number. This is typically in the preamble, where
it applies to all letters. This only appears if the firstpage
pagestyle is selected. If so, it appears on the lower right of the
page.
Next: Command line, Previous: Letters, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
• \typein: | Read text from the terminal. | |
• \typeout: | Write text to the terminal. |
Next: \typeout, Up: Terminal input/output [Contents][Index]
\typein
Synopsis, one of:
\typein{prompt-msg} \typein[cmd]{prompt-msg}
Print prompt-msg on the terminal and cause LaTeX to stop and wait for you to type a line of input. This line of input ends when you hit the return key.
For example, this
As long as I live I shall never forget \typein{Enter student name:}
coupled with this command line interaction
Enter student name: \@typein=Aphra Behn
gives the output ‘... never forget Aphra Behn’.
The first command version, \typein{prompt-msg}
, causes
the input you typed to be processed as if it had been included in the
input file in place of the \typein
command.
In the second command version the optional argument cmd
argument must be a command name — it must begin with a backslash, \.
This command name is then defined or redefined to be the input that you
typed. For example, this
\typein[\student]{Enter student name:} \typeout{Recommendation for \student .}
gives this output on the command line,
Enter student name: \student=John Dee Recommendation for John Dee.
where the user has entered ‘John Dee.’
Previous: \typein, Up: Terminal input/output [Contents][Index]
\typeout
Synopsis:
\typeout{msg}
Print msg
on the terminal and in the log
file.
This
\newcommand{\student}{John Dee} \typeout{Recommendation for \student .}
outputs ‘Recommendation for John Dee’. Like what happens here with
\student
, commands that are defined with \newcommand
or
\renewcommand
(among others) are replaced by their definitions
before being printed.
LaTeX’s usual rules for treating multiple spaces as a single space
and ignoring spaces after a command name apply to msg
. As above,
use the command \space
to get a single space, independent of
surrounding spaces. Use ^^J
to get a newline. Get a percent
character with \csname @percentchar\endcsname
.
This command can be useful for simple debugging, as here:
\newlength{\jhlength} \setlength{\jhlength}{5pt} \typeout{The length is \the\jhlength.}
produces on the command line ‘The length is 5.0pt’.
Next: Document templates, Previous: Terminal input/output, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Synopsis (from a terminal command line):
pdflatex options argument
Run LaTeX on argument. In place of pdflatex
you can
also use xelatex
, or lualatex
, or dviluatex
, or
latex
.
For example, this will run LaTeX on the file thesis.tex, creating the output thesis.pdf.
pdflatex thesis
Note that .tex is the default file extension.
pdfTeX is a development of the original TeX program, as are
XeTeX and LuaTeX (see TeX engines). They are completely
backward compatible. But the original program had a custom output
format, DVI, while the newer ones can output directly to PDF. This
allows them to take advantage of the extra features in PDF such as
hyperlinks, support for modern image formats such as JPG and PNG, and
ubiquitous viewing programs. In short, if you run pdflatex
or
xelatex
or lualatex
then you will by default get PDF
and have access to all its modern features. If you run latex
,
or dvilualatex
, then you will get DVI. The description here
assumes pdfLaTeX.
See Command line options, for a selection of the most useful command line options. As to argument, the usual case is that it does not begin with a backslash, so the system takes it to be the name of a file and it compiles that file. If argument begins with a backslash then the system will interpret it as a line of LaTeX input, which can be used for special effects (see Command line input).
If you gave no arguments or options then pdflatex
prompts for
input from the terminal. You can escape from this by entering
<control>-D
.
If LaTeX finds an error in your document then by default it stops and asks you about it. See Recovering from errors for an outline of what to do.
• Command line options: | Read text from the terminal. | |
• Command line input: | Write text to the terminal. | |
• Recovering from errors: | When something goes wrong. |
Next: Command line input, Up: Command line [Contents][Index]
These are the command-line options relevant to ordinary document authoring. For a full list, try running ‘latex --help’ from the command line.
With many implementations you can specify command line options by prefixing them with ‘-’ or ‘--’. This is the case for both TeX Live (and MacTeX) and MiKTeX. We will use both conventions interchangeably.
-version
Show the current version, like ‘pdfTeX 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.16 (TeX Live 2015/Debian)’ along with a small amount of additional information, and exit.
-help
Give a brief usage message that is useful as a prompt and exit.
-interaction=mode
TeX compiles a document in one of four interaction modes:
batchmode
, nonstopmode
, scrollmode
,
errorstopmode
. In errorstop mode (the default), TeX
stops at each error and asks for user intervention. In batch
mode it prints nothing on the terminal, errors are scrolled as if the
user hit <return>
at every error, and missing files cause the
job to abort. In nonstop mode, diagnostic message appear on the
terminal but as in batch mode there is no user interaction. In
scroll mode, TeX only stops for missing files or keyboard
input.
For instance, starting LaTeX with this command line
pdflatex -interaction=batchmode filename
eliminates most terminal output.
-jobname=string
Set the value of TeX’s jobname
to the string. The log file
and output file will then be named string.log and
string.pdf.
When you run
, if
argument does not start with a backslash then TeX considers it
the name of a file to input. Otherwise it waits for the first
pdflatex
options argument\input
instruction and the name of the input file will be the job
name. This is used to name the log file the output file. The
jobname
option overrides that process and directly specifies the
name. See Command line input for an example of its use.
-output-directory=directory
Write files in the directory directory. It must already exist.
--shell-escape
--no-shell-escape
--enable-write18
--disable-write18
Enable or disable \write18{shell command}
. The first two
options are for with TeX Live or MacTeX while the second two are
for MiKTeX.
Sometimes you want to run external system commands from inside a
LaTeX file. For instance the package sagetex allows you to
have the mathematics software system Sage do calculations or draw
graphs and then incorporate that output in your document. For this
TeX provides the \write18
command.
But with this functionality enabled, security issues could happen if you
compiled a LaTeX file from the Internet. By default \write18
is disabled. (More precisely, by default TeX Live, MacTeX, and
MiKTeX only allow the execution of a limited number of TeX-related
programs, which they distribute.)
If you invoke LaTeX with the option no-shell-escape
, and in
your document you call \write18{ls -l}
, then you do not get an
error but the log file says ‘runsystem(ls -l)...disabled’.
-halt-on-error
Stop processing at the first error.
-file-line-error
-no-file-line-error
Enable or disable filename:lineno:error
-style
error messages. These are only available with TeX Live or MacTeX.
Next: Recovering from errors, Previous: Command line options, Up: Command line [Contents][Index]
As part of the command line invocation pdflatex options
argument
you can specify arbitrary LaTeX input by starting
argument with a backslash. This allows you to do some special
effects.
For example, this file (which uses the hyperref package for hyperlinks) can produce two kinds of output, one for paper and one for a PDF.
\ifdefined\paperversion % in preamble \newcommand{\urlcolor}{black} \else \newcommand{\urlcolor}{blue} \fi \usepackage[colorlinks=true,urlcolor=\urlcolor]{hyperref} ... \href{https://www.ctan.org}{CTAN} % in body ...
Compiling this document book.tex with the command line
pdflatex book
will give the ‘CTAN’ link in blue. But
compiling it with pdflatex "\def\paperversion{}\input book.tex"
has the link in black. (Note the use of double quotes to prevent
interpretation of the symbols by the command line shell; your system may
do this differently.)
In a similar way, from the single file main.tex you can compile two different versions.
pdflatex -jobname=students "\def\student{}\input{main}" pdflatex -jobname=teachers "\def\teachers{}\input{main}"
The jobname
option is there because otherwise both files would be
called main.pdf and the second would overwrite the first.
A final example. This loads the package graphicx with the option
draft
pdflatex -jobname=aa "\RequirePackage[draft]{graphicx}\input{aa.tex}"
so the graphic files are read for their size information but not
incorporated into the PDF. (The jobname
option is there because
otherwise the output file would be graphicx.pdf, as
\RequirePackage
does an \input
of its own.)
Previous: Command line input, Up: Command line [Contents][Index]
If LaTeX finds an error in your document then it gives you an error
message and prompts you with a question mark, ?
. For instance,
running LaTeX on this file
\newcommand{\NP}{\ensuremath{\textbf{NP}}} The \PN{} problem is a million dollar one.
causes it show this, and wait for input.
! Undefined control sequence. l.5 The \PN {} problem is a million dollar one. ?
The simplest thing is to enter ‘x’ and <return>
and fix the
typo. You could instead enter ‘?’ and <return>
to see other
options.
There are two other error scenarios. The first is that you forgot to
include the \end{document}
or misspelled it. In this case
LaTeX gives you a ‘*’ prompt. You can get back to the command
line by typing \stop
and <return>
.
The last scenario is that you mistyped the file name. For instance,
instead of pdflatex test
you might type pdflatex tste
.
! I can't find file `tste'. <*> tste (Press Enter to retry, or Control-D to exit) Please type another input file name:
The simplest thing is to enter <Control>
and ‘d’ (holding
them down at the same time), and then retype the correct command line.
Next: Index, Previous: Command line, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
Although not reference material, perhaps these document templates will be useful. Additional template resources are listed at http://tug.org/interest.html#latextemplates.
• beamer template: | ||
• article template: | ||
• book template: | ||
• Larger book template: | ||
• tugboat template: |
Next: article template, Up: Document templates [Contents][Index]
beamer
templateThe beamer
class creates presentation slides. It has a vast
array of features, but here is a basic template:
\documentclass{beamer} \title{Beamer Class template} \author{Alex Author} \date{July 31, 2007} \begin{document} \maketitle % without [fragile], any {verbatim} code gets mysterious errors. \begin{frame}[fragile] \frametitle{First Slide} \begin{verbatim} This is \verbatim! \end{verbatim} \end{frame} \end{document}
One web resource for this: http://robjhyndman.com/hyndsight/beamer/.
Next: book template, Previous: beamer template, Up: Document templates [Contents][Index]
article
template\documentclass{article} \title{Article Class Template} \author{Alex Author} \begin{document} \maketitle \section{First section} Some text. \subsection{First section, first subsection} Additional text. \section{Second section} Some more text. \end{document}
Next: Larger book template, Previous: article template, Up: Document templates [Contents][Index]
book
templateThis is a straightforward template for a book. See See Larger book template for a more elaborate one.
\documentclass{book} \title{Book Class Template} \author{Alex Author} \begin{document} \maketitle \chapter{First} Some text. \chapter{Second} Some other text. \section{A subtopic} The end. \end{document}
Next: tugboat template, Previous: book template, Up: Document templates [Contents][Index]
book
templateThis is a more elaborate template for a book. It has
\frontmatter
, \mainmatter
, and \backmatter
to
control the typography of the three main areas of a book
(see \frontmatter & \mainmatter & \backmatter). The book has a
bibliography and an index.
Notable is that it uses \include
and \includeonly
(see Splitting the input). While you are working on a chapter you
can comment out all the other chapter entries from the argument to
\includeonly
. That will speed up compilation without losing any
information such as cross-references. (Material that does not need to
come on a new page is brought in with \input
instead of
\include
. You don’t get the cross-reference benefit this way.)
\documentclass[titlepage]{book} \usepackage{makeidx}\makeindex \title{Book Class Template} \author{Alex Author} \includeonly{% frontcover, preface, chap1, ... } \begin{document} \frontmatter \include{frontcover} % maybe comment out while drafting: \maketitle \input{dedication} \input{copyright} \tableofcontents \include{preface} \mainmatter \include{chap1} ... \appendix \include{appena} ... \backmatter \bibliographystyle{apalike} \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Bibliography} \bibliography \addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Index} \printindex \include{backcover} \end{document}
Previous: Larger book template, Up: Document templates [Contents][Index]
tugboat
templateTUGboat is the journal of the TeX Users Group, http://tug.org/TUGboat.
\documentclass{ltugboat} \usepackage{graphicx} \usepackage{ifpdf} \ifpdf \usepackage[breaklinks,hidelinks]{hyperref} \else \usepackage{url} \fi %%% Start of metadata %%% \title{Example \TUB\ article} % repeat info for each author. \author{First Last} \address{Street Address \\ Town, Postal \\ Country} \netaddress{user (at) example dot org} \personalURL{http://example.org/~user/} %%% End of metadata %%% \begin{document} \maketitle \begin{abstract} This is an example article for \TUB{}. Please write an abstract. \end{abstract} \section{Introduction} This is an example article for \TUB, linked from \url{http://tug.org/TUGboat/location.html}. We recommend the \texttt{graphicx} package for image inclusions, and the \texttt{hyperref} package if active urls are desired (in the \acro{PDF} output). Nowadays \TUB\ is produced using \acro{PDF} files exclusively. The \texttt{ltugboat} class provides these abbreviations (and many more): % verbatim blocks are often better in \small \begin{verbatim}[\small] \AllTeX \AMS \AmS \AmSLaTeX \AmSTeX \aw \AW \BibTeX \CTAN \DTD \HTML \ISBN \ISSN \LaTeXe \mf \MFB \plain \POBox \PS \SGML \TANGLE \TB \TP \TUB \TUG \tug \UNIX \XeT \WEB \WEAVE \, \bull \Dash \dash \hyph \acro{FRED} -> {\small[er] fred} % please use! \cs{fred} -> \fred \meta{fred} -> <fred> \nth{n} -> 1st, 2nd, ... \sfrac{3/4} -> 3/4 \booktitle{Book of Fred} \end{verbatim} For references to other \TUB\ issue, please use the format \textsl{volno:issno}, e.g., ``\TUB\ 32:1'' for our \nth{100} issue. This file is just a template. The \TUB\ style documentation is the \texttt{ltubguid} document at \url{http://ctan.org/pkg/tugboat}. (For \CTAN\ references, where sensible we recommend that form of url, using \texttt{/pkg/}; or, if you need to refer to a specific file location, \texttt{http://mirror.ctan.org/\textsl{path}}.) Email \verb|tugboat@tug.org| if problems or questions. \bibliographystyle{plain} % we recommend the plain bibliography style \nocite{book-minimal} % just making the bibliography non-empty \bibliography{xampl} % xampl.bib comes with BibTeX \makesignature \end{document}
Previous: Document templates, Up: Top [Contents][Index]
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