LaTeX Cookbook

Over 100 hands-on recipes to quickly prepare LaTeX documents of various kinds to solve challenging tasks

About This Book

• Work with modern document classes, such as KOMA-Script classes
• Explore the latest LaTeX packages, including TikZ, pgfplots, and biblatex
• An example-driven approach to creating stunning graphics directly within LaTeX

In Detail

LaTeX is both a word processor and a markup language. It's pretty simple really, which is why its unsurprising that its so popular within the research community - whether you're a scientist or statistician, with LaTeX, you'll find it easy to present and communicate your work - it gives you full control of the documents you create, no matter how complex they might be. With a huge range of customizable templates and supporting packages available, there's plenty to explore - so you can make LaTeX work for you. LaTeX Cookbook shows you how to get the most from LaTeX - so you can focus on what's important.

Inside, you'll find everything from different templates and document types, samples for fine-tuning text design, guidance through embedding images, as well as drawing tables in LaTeX. With essential components to the modern research document included, such as creating a bibliography, glossary, and index, you can be confident that your document is clean and clear.

You will also learn how to create graphics within LaTeX, and find vital tips to help you build diagrams with minimum fuss. If that isn't enough, the book also shows you how to use new engines XeTeX and LuaTeX which give LaTeX further functionality so you can handle any complexity with ease and elegance. If you're worried about presenting or communicating ideas and research for maximum impact, look no further than this book - it's sure to increase your productivity.

What You Will Learn

• Choose the right document class for your project to customize its features
• Utilize fonts globally and locally
• Frame, shape, arrange, and annotate images
• Add a bibliography, a glossary, and an index
• Create colorful graphics including diagrams, flow charts, bar charts, trees, plots in 2d and 3d, time lines, and mindmaps
• Solve typical tasks for various sciences including math, physics, chemistry, electrotechnics, and computer science
• Optimize PDF output and enrich it with meta data, annotations, popups, animations, and fill-in fields
• Explore the outstanding capabilities of the newest engines and formats such as XeLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, and LaTeX3

Stefan Kottwitz studied mathematics in Jena and Hamburg. He worked as an IT administrator and communication officer onboard cruise ships for AIDA Cruises and for Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. Following 10 years of sailing around the world, he worked for the next few years specializing in network infrastructure and IT security. In 2014, he became a consultant for Lufthansa Systems. Currently, he works for Lufthansa Industry Solutions and designs and implements networks for new cruise ships. In between contracts, he worked as a freelance programmer and typography designer. For many years, he has been providing LaTeX support on online forums. He maintains the web forums LaTeX-Community.org and goLaTeX.de, the TeX gallery site TeXample.net, the Q&A sites TeXwelt.de and TeXnique.fr, the TeXdoc.net service and the server for the UK TeX FAQ. He is a moderator of the TeX Stack Exchange site and on matheplanet.com. He publishes ideas and news from the TeX world on his personal blog at TeXblog.net. Before this book, he authored LaTeX Beginner's Guide, by Packt Publishing in 2011.