LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[David Masterson]

Anyone have a recommendation for a LaTeX tutorial that would
(especially) help me understand the LaTeX exported by Org and how to
enhance what is exported (new document classes, etc.).  I don't want to
bore you all with a lot of questions, so I'm looking for a good book.
-- 
David Masterson

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[Thomas S. Dye]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> Anyone have a recommendation for a LaTeX tutorial that would
> (especially) help me understand the LaTeX exported by Org and 
> how to
> enhance what is exported (new document classes, etc.).  I don't 
> want to
> bore you all with a lot of questions, so I'm looking for a good 
> book.

Org's latex exporter is exceptionally capable.  AFAICT, it doesn't 
have practical limits on the LaTeX it produces, at least for my 
academic use case.  I'm able to use all of the LaTeX packages I've 
ever wanted to use.

With the world of LaTeX at your feet, I recommend The LaTeX 
Companion by Mittelbach and Goosens.  My well-worn copy is almost 
20 years old, and I use it as often now as when I did all of my 
writing in LaTeX.  Of course, there are many new LaTeX packages in 
the last 20 years, but LaTeX was very capable at the turn of the 
millennium and the few new packages I use were easy to discover by 
browsing.

hth,
Tom

-- 
Thomas S. Dye
https://tsdye.online/tsdye

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2022-12-31, at 02:18, Thomas S. Dye <tsd@tsdye.online> wrote:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Anyone have a recommendation for a LaTeX tutorial that would
>> (especially) help me understand the LaTeX exported by Org and how to
>> enhance what is exported (new document classes, etc.).  I don't want
>> to
>> bore you all with a lot of questions, so I'm looking for a good
>> book.
>
> Org's latex exporter is exceptionally capable.  AFAICT, it doesn't
> have practical limits on the LaTeX it produces, at least for my
> academic use case.  I'm able to use all of the LaTeX packages I've
> ever wanted to use.
>
> With the world of LaTeX at your feet, I recommend The LaTeX Companion
> by Mittelbach and Goosens.  My well-worn copy is almost 20 years old,
> and I use it as often now as when I did all of my writing in LaTeX.
> Of course, there are many new LaTeX packages in the last 20 years, but
> LaTeX was very capable at the turn of the millennium and the few new
> packages I use were easy to discover by browsing.

The "Not so short introduction to LaTeX" is also a pretty nice resource.

Also, I'm the coauthor of a (free as in beer, a bit less free as in
speech - CC-BY-NC) textbook on LaTeX, but it will probably be of no use
for you, since it's in Polish;-).

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[David Masterson]

"Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.online> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Anyone have a recommendation for a LaTeX tutorial that would
>> (especially) help me understand the LaTeX exported by Org and how to
>> enhance what is exported (new document classes, etc.).  I don't want
>> to
>> bore you all with a lot of questions, so I'm looking for a good
>> book.
>
> Org's latex exporter is exceptionally capable.  AFAICT, it doesn't
> have practical limits on the LaTeX it produces, at least for my 
> academic use case.  I'm able to use all of the LaTeX packages I've
> ever wanted to use.
>
> With the world of LaTeX at your feet, I recommend The LaTeX Companion
> by Mittelbach and Goosens.  My well-worn copy is almost 20 years old,
> and I use it as often now as when I did all of my writing in LaTeX.
> Of course, there are many new LaTeX packages in the last 20 years, but
> LaTeX was very capable at the turn of the millennium and the few new
> packages I use were easy to discover by browsing.

Hmmm.  I'll look into it.  Thanks.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[William Denton]

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On 30 December 2022, Thomas S. Dye wrote:

> Org's latex exporter is exceptionally capable.  AFAICT, it doesn't have 
> practical limits on the LaTeX it produces, at least for my academic use case. 
> I'm able to use all of the LaTeX packages I've ever wanted to use.

Me too, and the more I use Org with LaTeX, the more I'm seeing how I can use Org 
as a way to organize a large publishing project: use literate programming and 
export the LaTeX piece by piece, documenting what I'm doing; use source blocks 
to run necessary code to prepare images or files before inclusion; and so on.

Using Org (simple markup plus some +latex_header lines) and exporting to LaTeX 
is straightforward enough ... managing a project, with the LaTeX as code to be 
generated, can get a lot more complicated, but on the other hand, Org makes that 
kind of thing simpler.  (Of course, anything involving LaTeX is bound to get 
complicated pretty soon.)

I've learned a lot from several regulars on this mailing list, including Juan 
Manuel Macías, who does remarkable work on dictionaries and translations. 
Here's an example:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2021-06/msg00348.html

Along with all the other recommendations, it's worth looking at the user guide 
for the memoir class, which is great for books:

https://www.ctan.org/pkg/memoir

It'll be somewhere on your system as memman.pdf.  I learned a lot about page 
design and LaTeX from it.


Cheers,

Bill

--
William Denton
https://www.miskatonic.org/
Librarian, artist and licensed private investigator.
Toronto, Canada

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[David Masterson]

William Denton <wtd@pobox.com> writes:

> On 30 December 2022, Thomas S. Dye wrote:
>
>> Org's latex exporter is exceptionally capable.  AFAICT, it doesn't
>> have practical limits on the LaTeX it produces, at least for my
>> academic use case. I'm able to use all of the LaTeX packages I've
>> ever wanted to use.
>
> Me too, and the more I use Org with LaTeX, the more I'm seeing how I
> can use Org as a way to organize a large publishing project: use
> literate programming and export the LaTeX piece by piece, documenting
> what I'm doing; use source blocks to run necessary code to prepare
> images or files before inclusion; and so on.
>
> Using Org (simple markup plus some +latex_header lines) and exporting
> to LaTeX is straightforward enough ... managing a project, with the
> LaTeX as code to be generated, can get a lot more complicated, but on
> the other hand, Org makes that kind of thing simpler.  (Of course,
> anything involving LaTeX is bound to get complicated pretty soon.)
>
> I've learned a lot from several regulars on this mailing list,
> including Juan Manuel Macías, who does remarkable work on dictionaries
> and translations. Here's an example:
>
> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2021-06/msg00348.html
>
> Along with all the other recommendations, it's worth looking at the
> user guide for the memoir class, which is great for books:
>
> https://www.ctan.org/pkg/memoir
>
> It'll be somewhere on your system as memman.pdf.  I learned a lot
> about page design and LaTeX from it.

I'll have to make time for this.  Thanks.

-- 
David Masterson

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[Fraga, Eric]

A couple of documents I have used in the past might be useful:

- https://archive.org/details/lshort
- https://texdoc.org/serve/visualFAQ.pdf/0

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, with org release_9.6-124-g036cc0 in Emacs 30.0.50

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[David Masterson]

"Fraga, Eric" <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> A couple of documents I have used in the past might be useful:
>
> - https://archive.org/details/lshort

This one sounds interesting and it's online.

> - https://texdoc.org/serve/visualFAQ.pdf/0

I'm not sure what language this one is in.

Thanks.
-- 
David Masterson

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[Ihor Radchenko]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> "Fraga, Eric" <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>
>> A couple of documents I have used in the past might be useful:
>>
>> - https://archive.org/details/lshort
>
> This one sounds interesting and it's online.

There is also LaTeX Tutorials. A primer
https://www.tug.org/twg/mactex/tutorials/ltxprimer-1.0.pdf

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[Fraga, Eric]

On Saturday, 31 Dec 2022 at 23:12, David Masterson wrote:
> I'm not sure what language this one is in.

The second link was to a PDF document that you should be able to view in
the browser or download.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, with org release_9.6-124-g036cc0 in Emacs 30.0.50

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[Ihor Radchenko]

"Fraga, Eric" <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> On Saturday, 31 Dec 2022 at 23:12, David Masterson wrote:
>> I'm not sure what language this one is in.
>
> The second link was to a PDF document that you should be able to view in
> the browser or download.

I think that it is not very clear how to use it.
Abstract says that it is self-explaining, but it appears that not every
pdf viewer supports showing the explanations.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[Fraga, Eric]

On Sunday,  1 Jan 2023 at 13:43, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
> I think that it is not very clear how to use it.
> Abstract says that it is self-explaining, but it appears that not every
> pdf viewer supports showing the explanations.

Yes, that's true.  The PDF viewer has to support popups.  I normally use
zathura to view PDF documents but that's one example of a viewer that
doesn't work with this document.  In cases like this, I switch to evince
(others also work).

But I find this document very useful.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, with org release_9.6-124-g036cc0 in Emacs 30.0.50

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[David Masterson]

"Fraga, Eric" <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> On Sunday,  1 Jan 2023 at 13:43, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
>> I think that it is not very clear how to use it.
>> Abstract says that it is self-explaining, but it appears that not every
>> pdf viewer supports showing the explanations.
>
> Yes, that's true.  The PDF viewer has to support popups.  I normally use
> zathura to view PDF documents but that's one example of a viewer that
> doesn't work with this document.  In cases like this, I switch to evince
> (others also work).
>
> But I find this document very useful.

Um, when I viewed it in my Emacs pdfviewer, it appeared to look fine
*EXCEPT* that it appeared to be in Latin (good Latin, I think, but I
don't read Latin).

-- 
David Masterson

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[Fraga, Eric]

On Monday,  2 Jan 2023 at 19:23, David Masterson wrote:
> Um, when I viewed it in my Emacs pdfviewer, it appeared to look fine
> *EXCEPT* that it appeared to be in Latin (good Latin, I think, but I
> don't read Latin).

it's not the text of the document that matters; it's the popups that
describe how each visual aspect has been implemented!  E.g. footers,
headers, justification, lists, etc.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga, with org release_9.6-190-g82cc6f in Emacs 30.0.50

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[David Masterson]

"Fraga, Eric" <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> On Monday,  2 Jan 2023 at 19:23, David Masterson wrote:
>> Um, when I viewed it in my Emacs pdfviewer, it appeared to look fine
>> *EXCEPT* that it appeared to be in Latin (good Latin, I think, but I
>> don't read Latin).
>
> it's not the text of the document that matters; it's the popups that
> describe how each visual aspect has been implemented!  E.g. footers,
> headers, justification, lists, etc.

Ah!

-- 
David Masterson

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[David Masterson]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> "Fraga, Eric" <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>
>> On Sunday,  1 Jan 2023 at 13:43, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
>>> I think that it is not very clear how to use it.
>>> Abstract says that it is self-explaining, but it appears that not every
>>> pdf viewer supports showing the explanations.
>>
>> Yes, that's true.  The PDF viewer has to support popups.  I normally use
>> zathura to view PDF documents but that's one example of a viewer that
>> doesn't work with this document.  In cases like this, I switch to evince
>> (others also work).
>>
>> But I find this document very useful.
>
> Um, when I viewed it in my Emacs pdfviewer, it appeared to look fine
> *EXCEPT* that it appeared to be in Latin (good Latin, I think, but I
> don't read Latin).

Or maybe I viewed it in Brave...

-- 
David Masterson

Re: Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[Pedro Andres Aranda Gutierrez]

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David Masterson writes:
> "Fraga, Eric" <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>> On Sunday,  1 Jan 2023 at 13:43, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
>>> I think that it is not very clear how to use it.
>>> Abstract says that it is self-explaining, but it appears that not every
>>> pdf viewer supports showing the explanations.
>>
>> Yes, that's true.  The PDF viewer has to support popups.  I normally use
>> zathura to view PDF documents but that's one example of a viewer that
>> doesn't work with this document.  In cases like this, I switch to evince
>> (others also work).
>>
>> But I find this document very useful.
>
>> Um, when I viewed it in my Emacs pdfviewer, it appeared to look fine
>> *EXCEPT* that it appeared to be in Latin (good Latin, I think, but I
>> don't read Latin).

LoL... My kleines Latinum, though not completely fit right now, tells me
that
indeed it is very, very good Latin :-)

Now seriously, I'm using org for my academic activities (producing lecture
presentations and notes and laboratory scripts) and I'm extremely happy with
what I achieve. There's always a slight grief in that I can't forward
search to
or reverse search from a PDF...

But anyhow, if you need a proofreader, happy to help..
-- 
Fragen sind nicht da um beantwortet zu werden,
Fragen sind da um gestellt zu werden
Georg Kreisler

Headaches with a Juju log:
unit-basic-16: 09:17:36 WARNING juju.worker.uniter.operation we should run
a leader-deposed hook here, but we can't yet

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Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[David Masterson]

Pedro Andres Aranda Gutierrez <paaguti@gmail.com> writes:

> David Masterson writes:
>> "Fraga, Eric" <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>>> On Sunday,  1 Jan 2023 at 13:43, Ihor Radchenko wrote:
>>>> I think that it is not very clear how to use it.
>>>> Abstract says that it is self-explaining, but it appears that not every
>>>> pdf viewer supports showing the explanations.
>>>
>>> Yes, that's true.  The PDF viewer has to support popups.  I normally use
>>> zathura to view PDF documents but that's one example of a viewer that
>>> doesn't work with this document.  In cases like this, I switch to evince
>>> (others also work).
>>>
>>> But I find this document very useful.
>> 
>>> Um, when I viewed it in my Emacs pdfviewer, it appeared to look fine
>>> *EXCEPT* that it appeared to be in Latin (good Latin, I think, but I
>>> don't read Latin).
>
> LoL... My kleines Latinum, though not completely fit right now, tells me that
> indeed it is very, very good Latin :-)

:-)

> Now seriously, I'm using org for my academic activities (producing lecture 
> presentations and notes and laboratory scripts) and I'm extremely happy with
> what I achieve. There's always a slight grief in that I can't forward search to
> or reverse search from a PDF...
>
> But anyhow, if you need a proofreader, happy to help..

With the Org files that you create, how many levels of headers do you
use?  I use Org for personal task management mostly, but I'd like to
produce good PDFs to give to my wife (Org is too complicated).  My
problem is that I'll structure my documents with many (5+) header
levels with tasks at the bottom.  The problem is that the 'article' and
'report' document classes used by Org don't look right if you go beyond
3 levels -- if you know what I mean.  (NOTE: LaTeX newbie)

-- 
David Masterson

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[William Denton]

On 5 January 2023, David Masterson wrote:

> With the Org files that you create, how many levels of headers do you
> use?  I use Org for personal task management mostly, but I'd like to
> produce good PDFs to give to my wife (Org is too complicated).  My
> problem is that I'll structure my documents with many (5+) header
> levels with tasks at the bottom.  The problem is that the 'article' and
> 'report' document classes used by Org don't look right if you go beyond
> 3 levels -- if you know what I mean.  (NOTE: LaTeX newbie)

By default the first three levels go to LaTeX headings, and then after that they 
become lists.  You can change that with the H option in a header, as described 
here, to set org-export-headline-levels:

https://orgmode.org/org.html#Export-Settings

So you could say:

#+options: H:5

Level four headings become paragraphs, and level five become subparagraphs.

With that in place, you might like how the titlesec package can give a great 
deal of control over section headings.  I use this for some reports---it wraps 
text around level three headings, which about as far as I usually go for 
documents I export.

#+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage[]{titlesec}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \titleformat{\section} {\centering\Large}{\thesection}{}{}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \titleformat{\subsubsection}[drop]{\itshape}{\thesection}{}{}{}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \titlespacing{\subsubsection}{0.75in}{\baselineskip}{0.5in}


Bill

--
William Denton
https://www.miskatonic.org/
Librarian, artist and licensed private investigator.
Toronto, Canada

Re: LaTeX tutorial (focused on what Org exports) ??

[David Masterson]

William Denton <wtd@pobox.com> writes:

> On 5 January 2023, David Masterson wrote:
>
>> With the Org files that you create, how many levels of headers do you
>> use?  I use Org for personal task management mostly, but I'd like to
>> produce good PDFs to give to my wife (Org is too complicated).  My
>> problem is that I'll structure my documents with many (5+) header
>> levels with tasks at the bottom.  The problem is that the 'article' and
>> 'report' document classes used by Org don't look right if you go beyond
>> 3 levels -- if you know what I mean.  (NOTE: LaTeX newbie)
>
> By default the first three levels go to LaTeX headings, and then after that they 
> become lists.  You can change that with the H option in a header, as described 
> here, to set org-export-headline-levels:
>
> https://orgmode.org/org.html#Export-Settings
>
> So you could say:
>
> #+options: H:5
>
> Level four headings become paragraphs, and level five become subparagraphs.
>
> With that in place, you might like how the titlesec package can give a great 
> deal of control over section headings.  I use this for some reports---it wraps 
> text around level three headings, which about as far as I usually go for 
> documents I export.
>
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage[]{titlesec}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \titleformat{\section} {\centering\Large}{\thesection}{}{}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \titleformat{\subsubsection}[drop]{\itshape}{\thesection}{}{}{}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \titlespacing{\subsubsection}{0.75in}{\baselineskip}{0.5in}

This looks interesting -- now to find some time to dig in.  Thanks.

-- 
David Masterson