The TEX typesetting system and the LATEX document
preparation system have been in use in UCC since the mid-1980s.
The majority of users are still in the natural sciences,
especially mathematics, physics, and engineering; but the
biggest growth area in recent years has been in the Humanities.
This page identifies some of the most frequently-requested
resources for LATEX users in UCC. There is a large repository
of other downloadables (packages, document classes, and fonts)
at http://www.ctan.org/.
LATEX can automate most of the chores of formatting long, complex, or repetitively formatted documents (eg articles, books, reports, letters, essays, theses, manuals, etc). It can produce publication-quality output in PDF or PostScript, and it has extensions for handling most types of formatting for academic, research, and business documents. These include changes to layout and style; bibliographies, citations, and references; tables and figures; indexes, glossaries, and cross-references; mathematics and other notations; and multilingual and bidirectional typesetting.
LATEX runs on almost any type of computer system from
phones and handheld PDAs to the largest mainframes and
supercomputers, including your desktop PC or Mac, laptop, and
office server. The software is free and can be copied without
restrictions: contact the Academic and Coolaborative
Technologies Unit (3.27 Kane Building, ×2609, or epu@ucc.ie) for the
installation DVD, or use the links at https://www.tug.org/texlive/.
The Unit also provides support within UCC, and there are
local experts in some departments. Commercial versions of
TEX at an academic discount are also available if
commercial levels of support are required. Full installation
details are in chapter 1
of Formatting
Information.
The Computer Training Centre runs 1–day courses for
newcomers to LATEX: contact
them for details of the next available date or check
the timetables
.
The online book, Formatting
Information, is used as a basis for
the course, but can also be used for self-study.
You may also need some of the following, depending on what kind of documents you plan to write:
For any document which contains bibliographic
citations and references, LATEX provides the
biblatex package (the old BIBTEX
system still works, but is being superseded by
biblatex). To manage your references,
you need to have them in BIBTEX format. Programs like
JabRef
are recommended for this, but there are several others
(see the
list maintained by the LYX
community
).
To capture entries from the web, and thus avoid
retyping them, the Firefox
plugin Zotero
is recommended (there is also a standalone version). The
standalone program Mendeley
is similar to the Apple Mac program
Papers and can store the PDFs
of articles as well as handle references. Both of these
programs can cooperate to store
and export your collection of references in
BIBTEX format. If you are already using
ProCite,
EndNote, or
ReferenceManager, you can
export your collection of references in RIS format,
which JabRef can read and
convert to BIBTEX.
If you need to tidy up your photographs, scans, or
screenshots before including them in a document, you
will need a bitmap graphics editor like GIMP,
which will let you colorise, crop, rotate, enlarge,
shrink, and generally manipulate your images. Bitmap
images for pdflatex can be in
PDF, JPG, or PNG format. Bitmap images for original
(DVI) LATEX must be in EPS format only.
If you are including diagrams, you should draw them
using a vector graphics editor like InkScape,
so that your drawings are smoothly scalable and easily
edited and updated. Do not under any
circumstances use bitmap graphics for
diagrams. Vector diagram images for
pdflatex must be in PDF
vector format only. Vector diagram images for original
(DVI) LATEX must be in EPS vector format only.
Simple diagrams can also be drawn directly in LATEX, using the picture environment; more complex diagrams can be drawn using the pstricks/pdftricks packages, and the tikz package provides the PGF drawing language (LATEX also has specialist packages for diagrams in many disciplines). These methods can avoid the need for a separate graphics editor.
You may also be using specialist software in your discipline which can generate its own diagrams. Just ensure they are in one of the suitable formats mentioned above. Be aware that some of these utility graphing programs create very poor quality EPS and PDF files, which you may need to tidy up before using them in your documents.
Software to convert PDF images to EPS images and
vice versa is included
with most TEX distributions: look on your computer
for the programs pdf2ps and
ps2pdf. The GIMP program
can convert between different bitmap formats. If you
need bulk conversion (many images of the same type),
install ImageMagick
and use the convert command
in a Command or Terminal window.
You can convert LATEX documents to other formats
such as RTF (for Word) and
XML (DocBook, HTML) with the
TEX4ht
program or by writing an XSLT
script of
your own. Some post-editing is usually required with any
non-trivial conversion. Be aware that wordprocessors do
not have many of the facilities available in
LATEX, so documents converted to wordprocessor
formats will need extra work to convert back again, and
some features such as change-recording cannot be
preserved. In general, avoid circular conversion.
Converting original wordprocessor documents
(Word,
OpenOffice) to LATEX can
be done with plugins for OpenOffice,
LibreOffice
,
or AbiWord
:
open the document and pick Save As…LATEX.
For Word and
OpenOffice documents (both of
which are XML), you can also write an XSLT
script of
your own (see this
rudimentary example
). Some post-editing is
usually required with any non-trivial conversion.
Questions, comments, requests:
Please first check to see if your question is answered
in the TEX
FAQ
Ask colleagues on the UCC TEX Users
mailing list (if you're not already a member,
join
now
)
Check the comp.text.tex Usenet newsgroup (use Google
Groups if you have no newsreader or news-capable
email program installed)
Search the lists of questions and answers at StackExchange.
This takes a little navigation to get used to, but the answers are
ranked by usefulness.
Contact ACTS on ×2609 or email epu@ucc.ie
TEX Live and the TEX Collection DVD is issued annually by the TEX Users Group. This contains complete installations for Unix and GNU/Linux, Apple Macintosh OS X, and Microsoft Windows; plus a complete snapshot of the entire CTAN repository. A copy is available from the Academic and Collaborative Technologies Unit.
TEX Live (on Unix and GNU/Linux) and MiKTEX on Microsoft Windows are both capable of updating themselves over the network, and in certain circumstances of updating and adding new packages automatically or on demand.
If this is not enabled, or if it is not available, you MUST NOT attempt to update the installed packages by overwriting files in the installation directories. If you need to download and manually install packages, fonts, etc from CTAN or elsewhere, you MUST do so in your personal TEX directory (see section 1.6.2 below). This ensures that your updates don't get wiped out if you install a whole new version of TEX the next year.
Check that your TEX installation really doesn't have the package you want, before downloading and installing it.
This is a directory (folder) on single-user systems like desktops and laptops where you put all your local manual modifications, updates, and additions such as classes, packages, and fonts. The name and location are fixed:
Apple Mac OS X | ~/Library/texmf |
Unix and GNU/Linux | ~/texmf |
MS-Windows 95/XP | C:\texmf |
MS-Windows 2007 and above | Computer\System\yourname\texmf |
Create that folder if it does not already exist. If you are on a shared computer (eg in a lab or terminal room) where you cannot create folders, ask the systems administrator to do it for you. Show them this document and explain that the files are all plain text, not programs or other infectable objects.
When you create the folder, you MUST add it to MiKTEX's list of supported folders. Run the MiKTEX Maintenance/Settings program, select the Roots tab, and add the folder. You only have to do this once.
Each time you add or remove software in your personal TEX folder, you MUST also click on the Update FNDB button in the General tab.
On Unix-like syatems (Macs and GNU/Linux), users do not need to (indeed, SHOULD NOT) run their filename database indexer (mktexlsr or texhash) for files put into a personal TEX directory, because LATEX will automatically search your personal TEX directory by itself.
Most packages and classes are distributed in one of the following forms:
A .tds.zip file (easiest);
A .dtx and .ins pair of files;
A .dtx file alone;
A few come as .sty or .cls files on their own.
A plain .zip file (hardest);
Download the file[s] into a temporary directory (eg /tmp, C:\temp, etc). DO NOT download them into your personal TEX directory.
Unzip into your personal TEX directory. That's it, except for MiKTEX users, who must run the FNDB update as described in the warning panel ‘If you are a Windows user running MiKTEX’ above.
Run LATEX on the .ins file. This will extract the relevant .sty or .cls files.
Run LATEX on the .dtx file twice. This will create the documentation, which tells you what new commands and facilities are available.
Put these files into the correct subdirectory of your personal TEX directory as described in section 1.6.4 below.
Run LATEX on the .dtx file. This will extract the relevant .sty or .cls files.
Put these files into the correct subdirectory of your personal TEX directory as described in section 1.6.4 below.
Put these files into the correct subdirectory of your personal TEX directory as described in section 1.6.4 below.
Unzip the file into the temporary directory where you downloaded it.
Put the files into the correct subdirectory of your personal TEX directory as described in section 1.6.4 below.
The ‘correct subdirectory’ of your personal TEX directory depends on the type of file. The subdirectory is always named after the name of the class or package (symbolised as /name/ in the table below). Create it if it does not already exist.
File | Type | Directory |
---|---|---|
Class and package files | ||
.sty | Style package | texmf/tex/latex/name/ |
.cls | Document class | texmf/tex/latex/name/ |
Documentation | texmf/doc/latex/name/ | |
.tex | Example document | texmf/doc/latex/name/ |
.bst | BIBTEX style program | texmf/bibtex/bst/name/ |
.bib | BIBTEX example | texmf/bibtex/bib/name/ |
.cfg or .cnf | Configuration file | texmf/tex/latex/name/ |
Font files | ||
.mf | METAFONT (Type 3) font outline | texmf/tex/latex/mfnfss/name/ |
.pk | METAFONT (Type 3) font bitmaps | Obsolete: DO NOT copy. These will get generated afresh for you when you use the font. |
.tfm | TEX font metric | texmf/fonts/afm/name/ |
.vf | Virtual font | texmf/fonts/vf/name/ |
.pfb or .pfa | Postscript (Type 1) font outline | texmf/fonts/type1/name/ |
.afm | Adobe font metric | texmf/fonts/afm/name/ |
.fd | Font description | texmf/tex/latex/name/ |
.map | Font map | texmf/fonts/map/dvips/name/ |
For font installations, after moving the files to the right place, you MUST run the command:
updmap --enable Map=name.map
substituting the name of the map file. The font will not be usable until you do this.
Please contact the Academic and Collabotaive Technologies Unit on ×2609 or email epu@ucc.ie if you have any problems installing or using packages. Be aware that some packages are restricted to UCC and will not appear if you access these pages from outside the UCC network.
Formatting Information, a
beginner's introduction to LATEX (HTML,
PDF
)
The very short guide to typesetting with
LATEX (PDF)
LATEX and Friends, a
LATEX tutorial (PDF)
See the LATEX Project's book
list
Recent addition: LATEX
appliqué aux sciences humaines (LATEX for the
Humanities; in French)
Everyone ends up with their own preference: one of the nice things about TEX is that you are not tied to any particular editor for your typing.
A large and powerful general-purpose plain-text editor for all platforms, with robust LATEX and BIBTEX modes, and keyclick access to WYSIWYG displays. Steep learning curve, but extensible to many applications.
The editor that comes built into the MacTEX distribution. Simple and effective, but without the extensibility of other editors.
If you want an unrestricted (Open Source) editor for
MikTEX or TEXLive, you should look at TEXnicCenter
instead. This is the default editor installed with
ProTEXt from the annual TEXLive DVD, available
from the Electronic Publishing Unit.
The WinEdt editor is a popular shareware editor for LATEX documents. It has been licensed for a limited number of users in UCC, so the UCC licence page is restricted to access by UCC computers only.
LATEX's default typeface is Computer Modern (a variant
of Monotype Series 8) because originally it was the only
one with a comprehensive set of mathematical symbols. Nowadays
the choice for mathematicians is a little wider (see the
packages mathptmx (Times) and
mathpazo (Palatino), and the list
of free math fonts).
There are many typefaces supplied free with all full
TEX distributions (see the section
‘Using
fonts’ for a list), including the
ubitquitous Adobe ‘35’ (Avant Garde, Bookman,
Courier, Helvetica, New Century Schoolbook, Palatino, Symbol,
and Times New Roman). The online LATEX Font
Catalog
lists many more which can be downloaded and
installed.
LATEX does not use your existing system fonts by default, although it is possible to make it use Postscript Type 1 and TrueType fonts with a little extra work. The new XETEX processor overcomes this by making all your existing installed system fonts available, but this is not yet the default.
The new UCC branding uses Bodoni and Gotham. These are commercial typefaces and have been bought by UCC for official use in the Office for Media and Communications and the Electronic Publishing Unit. The license is expensive and does not extend to other offices. For drafts, use the default Computer Modern typefaces.
There are document classes (templates) under development in several areas.
This is version 1.19, revised 30 May 2014 (see documentation for details of changes).
Documentation
(Read this first!)
This contains everything: download it and unzip it
directly into your personal TEX folder — if you don't
know what or where that is, read the documentation PDF
linked above, section 1, starting on page 14; or
look at the README
file.
Example
thesis (dummy thesis)
Latest
Update v2.3.1 (Added comment and example for
changing BIBTEX format).
There is an experimental and
undocumented version of the Beamer slides layout for
UCC. This package requires the
uccbranding package (below). Please report any errors or problems.
The new UCC layout mandates a specific set of
colours. We now have a Branding package
which implements these. It is required for the Beamer slides package.
The old Letter class is being updated to use the new campus typefaces in the logo, and to follow the redesigned Letter layout. The planned release is November 2012.
UCC is an institutional member of the TEX Users Group, which
entitles staff and students to discounts on attendance at the
annual
conferences
, books
, fonts
, and software
; access to the
current year's TUGboat
,
the quarterly journal (email us
for access to copies);
installation DVDs of the TEX
Collection (email us
for those too); and reciprocal
membership arrangements with many other user groups around the
world
.