Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[Peter Davis]

Hi

I'm trying to get a single .org file I can use to general PDF, HTML or 
even (gasp!) Word format versions of my resume. The problem I'm having 
now is that the PDF is 7 pages, compared with the 4 pages I get from my 
directly editing LaTeX file. One big difference is that individual jobs, 
titles, etc. are in a separate left column in the LaTeX version, while 
they're just subheaders and subsubheaders in the org version. I think 
this will be easier for on-line resume upload systems to parse correctly.

Beyond that, though, the org output has lots of white space. While it 
looks beautiful, I'd like to squeeze together:
  1) the headers, subheaders, etc.
  2) The items in a bullet list
  3) Lists and surrounding paragraphs.

Is there a way to do this in org?

Thank you!
-pd

-- 
----
Peter Davis
The Tech Curmudgeon
www.techcurmudgeon.com

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[John Hendy]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 12:28 PM, Peter Davis <pfd@pfdstudio.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> I'm trying to get a single .org file I can use to general PDF, HTML or even
> (gasp!) Word format versions of my resume. The problem I'm having now is
> that the PDF is 7 pages, compared with the 4 pages I get from my directly
> editing LaTeX file. One big difference is that individual jobs, titles, etc.
> are in a separate left column in the LaTeX version, while they're just
> subheaders and subsubheaders in the org version. I think this will be easier
> for on-line resume upload systems to parse correctly.
>
> Beyond that, though, the org output has lots of white space. While it looks
> beautiful, I'd like to squeeze together:
>  1) the headers, subheaders, etc.
>  2) The items in a bullet list
>  3) Lists and surrounding paragraphs.
>

Everything you'll do in Org will simply involve passing the right
parameters to LaTeX via Org. In other words, you should start by
finding out how to do what you want to do in LaTeX; for example google
"how to change line spacing latex" and peruse the top result:
- http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Paragraph_Formatting

Then pick something that does one of the above, and add it to Org.
Most likely these options will be passed using:

#+latex: \command{foo} %%% this is just in-lining some latex command
somewhere in the document

#+latex_header: \usepackage[foo]{bar} %%% this is loading some
package, e.g. enumitem, and passing options

#+attr_latex: :foo bar %%% this would go above a table or picture to
set attributes for that particular element

Sorry to not be more specific... Org is just a middle-man to tell
LaTeX what to do, so there's really not "Org-specific" syntax for
changing your spacing. It's LaTeX syntax that can be inserted via
methods like the above, which will then get interpreted when you
compile/export.

That said, this is the setupfile I use for all my LaTeX exports. I'll
tweak individual files here and there to adjust various things, but
for the most part I've been happy with how this looks for reports, and
think it removes some of the white space issue.

#+OPTIONS: *:t TeX:t LaTeX:t H:5 creator:nil toc:nil num:nil
#+latex_header: \usepackage[hmargin=2.5cm,vmargin=2.5cm]{geometry}
#+latex_header: \usepackage{mathpazo} \usepackage{paralist}
#+latex_header: \usepackage{enumitem}
#+latex_header: \usepackage{amsmath}
#+latex_header: \setlength{\parskip}{0.5cm} \setlength{\parindent}{0cm}
#+latex_header: \usepackage{lscape}
#+latex_header: \usepackage{booktabs}
#+latex_header: \hypersetup{colorlinks=true,linkcolor=blue,urlcolor=blue}

Definitely look at paralist and enumitem for tweaking spacing as a
starting point.


Hope that helps.
John


> Is there a way to do this in org?
>
> Thank you!
> -pd
>
> --
> ----
> Peter Davis
> The Tech Curmudgeon
> www.techcurmudgeon.com
>
>

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[Peter Davis]

On 4/17/15 2:13 PM, John Hendy wrote:
> Definitely look at paralist and enumitem for tweaking spacing as a 
> starting point. Hope that helps. John 
Thanks, John. This

#+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage{enumitem}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \setlist{nolistsep}

produced nice tight lists, though there is still a lot of white space 
before/after the headings. I'll dig around.

Also, is there a way to get orgmode to stop output the author and date 
lines in maketitle?

Thanks,
-pd

-- 
----
Peter Davis
The Tech Curmudgeon
www.techcurmudgeon.com

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[John Hendy]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 2:13 PM, Peter Davis <pfd@pfdstudio.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/17/15 2:13 PM, John Hendy wrote:
>>
>> Definitely look at paralist and enumitem for tweaking spacing as a
>> starting point. Hope that helps. John
>
> Thanks, John. This
>
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage{enumitem}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlist{nolistsep}
>
> produced nice tight lists, though there is still a lot of white space
> before/after the headings. I'll dig around.

Glad those helped. Try googline "reduce whitespace latex" for more.

> Also, is there a way to get orgmode to stop output the author and date lines
> in maketitle?

http://orgmode.org/manual/Export-settings.html

:)

>
> Thanks,
> -pd
>
> --
> ----
> Peter Davis
> The Tech Curmudgeon
> www.techcurmudgeon.com
>

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-04-17, at 20:13, John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> wrote:

> Everything you'll do in Org will simply involve passing the right
> parameters to LaTeX via Org. In other words, you should start by

Personally, I prefer configuring on the LaTeX side, but this is because
I find it much easier.

> finding out how to do what you want to do in LaTeX; for example google
> "how to change line spacing latex" and peruse the top result:
> - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Paragraph_Formatting

Be cautious, though: the LaTeX wikibook has some parts which are very
outdated (at least this was the situation when I looked at it some time
ago).  I'd rather recommend searching CTAN and searching/asking at
TeX.StackExchange.

> Definitely look at paralist and enumitem for tweaking spacing as a
> starting point.

Also, check out the titlesec package (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/titlesec)
and/or memoir and/or koma-script.

> Hope that helps.
> John

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[Peter Davis]

Thanks. I've had some success with these headers:

#+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\parsep}{6pt}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\headsep}{0pt}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\topskip}{0pt}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\topmargin}{0pt}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\topsep}{-10pt}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\partopsep}{0pt}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \linespread{0.75}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage{enumitem}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \setlist{nolistsep}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage[compact]{titlesec}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \titlespacing{\section}{0pt}{1ex}{1ex}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \titlespacing{\subsection}{0pt}{1ex}{1ex}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \titlespacing{\subsubsection}{0pt}{1ex}{1ex}

In fact, the spacing's a little too tight now. I'll have to play with 
the settings some more. Right now, the paragraph spacing between bullet 
items is tighter than the spacing between lines within a paragraph.

-- 
----
Peter Davis
The Tech Curmudgeon
www.techcurmudgeon.com

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-04-18, at 04:20, Peter Davis <pfd@pfdstudio.com> wrote:

> Thanks. I've had some success with these headers:
>
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\parsep}{6pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\headsep}{0pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\topskip}{0pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\topmargin}{0pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\topsep}{-10pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\partopsep}{0pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \linespread{0.75}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage{enumitem}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlist{nolistsep}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage[compact]{titlesec}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \titlespacing{\section}{0pt}{1ex}{1ex}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \titlespacing{\subsection}{0pt}{1ex}{1ex}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \titlespacing{\subsubsection}{0pt}{1ex}{1ex}

Notice that you set up some low-level TeX dimensions, which is probably
not a very good idea.  I would advise not to set manually any dimension
unless you know exactly what you're doing.  For instance, setting
\topskip to 0pt is seldom a good idea.  (You will butcher the
consistency of spacing - more precisely, the top margin will be "wobbly"
then - for no gain in "less spacing".)  For manipulating page-related
dimensions, the "canonical" way nowadays is to use the geometry package.
Also, negative \topsep looks strange, though I'm not knowledgable enough
about LaTeX inner workings to understand everything you do here.

> In fact, the spacing's a little too tight now. I'll have to play with 
> the settings some more. Right now, the paragraph spacing between bullet 
> items is tighter than the spacing between lines within a paragraph.

No idea why.  You might ask on TeX.SE, or just start with deleting evry
setting you are not sure what it does and see what happens.

Hth,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday, 17 Apr 2015 at 22:20, Peter Davis wrote:
> Thanks. I've had some success with these headers:

[...]

> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\headsep}{0pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\topskip}{0pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\topmargin}{0pt}
> #+LATEX_HEADER: \setlength{\topsep}{-10pt}

[...]

You may wish to consider using the geometry package to set up the page
instead of settings lengths directly.
-- 
: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 24.4.1, Org release_8.3beta-820-gd92ef9

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[John Hendy]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 7:18 PM, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:
>
> On 2015-04-17, at 20:13, John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Everything you'll do in Org will simply involve passing the right
>> parameters to LaTeX via Org. In other words, you should start by
>
> Personally, I prefer configuring on the LaTeX side, but this is because
> I find it much easier.

Could you clarify "on the LaTeX side" (as in, post-Org, or LaTeX
altogether)? Or what you find easier? I think I'm probably on the same
page, but just wanted to hear your take. For me it comes down more to
the command/"micro-formatting" side. As in, for my resume, I went raw
LaTeX as it would have been ridiculous to try and do what I wanted
from Org (aka, I'd have just had #+begin/end_latex everywhere and thus
Org would literally just be a middle man). But if I'm using Org at
all, I prefer to figure out how to do the LaTeX stuff from Org;
otherwise when I inevitably miss something (typo, syntax, format
tweak) I have to re-export, then re-apply all my custom LaTeX tweaks
to the resultant .tex file.

For most reports and such, I don't adjust things that finely, and so
~5-10 #+latex_header lines seems completely worth it to have access to
markup vs. writing all that raw LaTeX. Plus it just looks nicer :)

>
>> finding out how to do what you want to do in LaTeX; for example google
>> "how to change line spacing latex" and peruse the top result:
>> - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Paragraph_Formatting
>
> Be cautious, though: the LaTeX wikibook has some parts which are very
> outdated (at least this was the situation when I looked at it some time
> ago).  I'd rather recommend searching CTAN and searching/asking at
> TeX.StackExchange.
>

Good to know! I wasn't aware of that and tend to just go for the first
google hit, which can sometimes be wikibook, but absolutely is often a
tex.SE Q/A.

>> Definitely look at paralist and enumitem for tweaking spacing as a
>> starting point.
>
> Also, check out the titlesec package (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/titlesec)
> and/or memoir and/or koma-script.
>
>> Hope that helps.
>> John
>
> Best,

Thanks for the input!
John

>
> --
> Marcin Borkowski
> http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
> Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
> Adam Mickiewicz University
>

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[Peter Davis]

On 4/18/15 1:27 PM, John Hendy wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 7:18 PM, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:
>> On 2015-04-17, at 20:13, John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Everything you'll do in Org will simply involve passing the right
>>> parameters to LaTeX via Org. In other words, you should start by
>> Personally, I prefer configuring on the LaTeX side, but this is because
>> I find it much easier.
> Could you clarify "on the LaTeX side" (as in, post-Org, or LaTeX
> altogether)? Or what you find easier? I think I'm probably on the same
> page, but just wanted to hear your take. For me it comes down more to
> the command/"micro-formatting" side. As in, for my resume, I went raw
> LaTeX as it would have been ridiculous to try and do what I wanted
> from Org (aka, I'd have just had #+begin/end_latex everywhere and thus
> Org would literally just be a middle man). But if I'm using Org at
> all, I prefer to figure out how to do the LaTeX stuff from Org;
> otherwise when I inevitably miss something (typo, syntax, format
> tweak) I have to re-export, then re-apply all my custom LaTeX tweaks
> to the resultant .tex file.
This is absolutely my view. I want to keep the "source" in org format, 
and just be able to generate HTML, LaTeX/PDF or text automatically and 
without manual tweaking. I'm actually somewhat more familiar with LaTeX 
than with org-mode, which is why I asked in the first place.

I've been able to get a nice clean PDF from a hand-editing LaTeX file, 
but that's not what I needed here. Another problem is that many of the 
sites that allow you to upload a resume expect a simple hierarchical 
structure, and don't seem to do a good job with tables and other layout 
controls.

Another difficulty with using some of the LaTeX packages with org is 
that they define new commands and environments, but then you have to 
invoke these commands and/or environments each time you want to use 
them, and I don't know a way (if there is one) of getting org to do that 
without getting into the situation John describes of using org as a thin 
wrapper around LaTeX.

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. I'm pretty close now, but 
just need to fine tune the parameters a bit, which is pretty typical 
when dealing with LaTeX.

-pd


> For most reports and such, I don't adjust things that finely, and so
> ~5-10 #+latex_header lines seems completely worth it to have access to
> markup vs. writing all that raw LaTeX. Plus it just looks nicer :)
>
>>> finding out how to do what you want to do in LaTeX; for example google
>>> "how to change line spacing latex" and peruse the top result:
>>> - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Paragraph_Formatting
>> Be cautious, though: the LaTeX wikibook has some parts which are very
>> outdated (at least this was the situation when I looked at it some time
>> ago).  I'd rather recommend searching CTAN and searching/asking at
>> TeX.StackExchange.
>>
> Good to know! I wasn't aware of that and tend to just go for the first
> google hit, which can sometimes be wikibook, but absolutely is often a
> tex.SE Q/A.
>
>>> Definitely look at paralist and enumitem for tweaking spacing as a
>>> starting point.
>> Also, check out the titlesec package (http://www.ctan.org/pkg/titlesec)
>> and/or memoir and/or koma-script.
>>
>>> Hope that helps.
>>> John
>> Best,
> Thanks for the input!
> John
>
>> --
>> Marcin Borkowski
>> http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
>> Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
>> Adam Mickiewicz University
>>

-- 
----
Peter Davis
The Tech Curmudgeon
www.techcurmudgeon.com

Re: Resume: Squeezing lines tighter in LaTeX output?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-04-18, at 19:27, John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 7:18 PM, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:
>>
>> On 2015-04-17, at 20:13, John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Everything you'll do in Org will simply involve passing the right
>>> parameters to LaTeX via Org. In other words, you should start by
>>
>> Personally, I prefer configuring on the LaTeX side, but this is because
>> I find it much easier.
>
> Could you clarify "on the LaTeX side" (as in, post-Org, or LaTeX
> altogether)? Or what you find easier? I think I'm probably on the same
> page, but just wanted to hear your take. For me it comes down more to
> the command/"micro-formatting" side. As in, for my resume, I went raw
> LaTeX as it would have been ridiculous to try and do what I wanted
> from Org (aka, I'd have just had #+begin/end_latex everywhere and thus
> Org would literally just be a middle man). But if I'm using Org at
> all, I prefer to figure out how to do the LaTeX stuff from Org;
> otherwise when I inevitably miss something (typo, syntax, format
> tweak) I have to re-export, then re-apply all my custom LaTeX tweaks
> to the resultant .tex file.
>
> For most reports and such, I don't adjust things that finely, and so
> ~5-10 #+latex_header lines seems completely worth it to have access to
> markup vs. writing all that raw LaTeX. Plus it just looks nicer :)

1. Instead of lots of #+latex_header lines, I sometimes prefer
a customized, one-shot LaTeX package and one
#+latex_header \usepackage{...}
line.  But this is minor.

2. Sometimes I use Org for the first draft, and then work on the
exported LaTeX file.  And quite often, I don't use Org for authoring at
all, and use LaTeX exclusively.  Also, I hate the Org's long preamble (I
like my preambles to be clean, including /only/ what is /really/ needed
in this particular document).  Also, things like timestamps, todo
keywords etc. look ugly in the default LaTeX export.  (Some day, I'll
try to address some of these concerns with my own LaTeX exporter -
I mentioned the idea on this list several weeks ago.)

That said, I have about two decades of experience using both (low-level)
plain TeX, and then LaTeX, including hacking on classes and packages.
(For some 6 years or so, I'm in charge of a quite large (1500+ lines)
LaTeX class file for a journal, which has some non-trivial parts, too.)
OTOH, I'm a relative newbie with Org-mode: less than 5 years of
experience, and even that more of being a user than hacking.

Also, Org is really constraining sometimes.  Granted, it covers the most
common 95% cases, but...  For instance, there is /no (clean) way/ of
getting Org to typeset some Emacs keybindings (!), like =M-,= (which
won't work w/o dirty tricks like redefining some Org internal variables
or using a zero-width space, which OTOH breaks LaTeX unless you use
XeLaTeX, which I don't).  Also, using tikz in Org is a PITA.

And AUCTeX makes things so smooth, with auto-insertion of environments
and such.  There is no such thing in Org.  (Well, there are the "easy
templates" - but they are far inferior to AUCTeX's C-c C-e (with its C-u
variant, which is great).  Also, AUCTeX's C-c C-f (again, with its C-u
counterpart) speeds things a lot.  (Not to mention that I have some
personal small hacks on top of AUCTeX, too - like having TAB move past
the closing brace or \end{...}, a bit like in YASnippet, see
http://mbork.pl/2013-06-02_Making_TAB_jump_out_of_the_group_%28en%29 -
but this I even don't count).

So for me, Org is a great PIM and outliner, but LaTeX w/AUCTeX is *the*
authoring tool.

>>> finding out how to do what you want to do in LaTeX; for example google
>>> "how to change line spacing latex" and peruse the top result:
>>> - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Paragraph_Formatting
>>
>> Be cautious, though: the LaTeX wikibook has some parts which are very
>> outdated (at least this was the situation when I looked at it some time
>> ago).  I'd rather recommend searching CTAN and searching/asking at
>> TeX.StackExchange.
>>
>
> Good to know! I wasn't aware of that and tend to just go for the first
> google hit, which can sometimes be wikibook, but absolutely is often a
> tex.SE Q/A.

Maybe it has changed, I have no idea.  But TeX.SE is in general a good
place to start searching.  (CTAN, too.)

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University