It is not possible to make a proof environment which automatically
includes an `end-of-proof' symbol. Some proofs end in displayed maths;
others do not. If the input file contains ...\] \end{proof} then
LaTeX finishes off the displayed maths and gets ready for a new
line before it reads any instructions connected with ending the proof.
But traditionally the end-of-proof sign goes in the display, not on a
new line. So you just have to put it in by hand in every proof.
It is a good idea to have commands such as \R for the real numbers and
other standard number sets. Traditionally these were typeset in bold.
Because mathematicians usually do not have access to bold chalk, they
invented the special symbols that are now often used for \R, \C,
etc. These symbols are known as ``blackboard bold''. Before
insisting on using them, consider whether going back to the old system
of ordinary bold might not be acceptable (it is certainly simpler).
A set of blackboard bold capitals is available in the AMS fonts
``msam'' (e.g., ``msam10'' for 10pt) and ``msbm''. The fonts
have a large number of mathematical symbols to supplement the ones in
the standard TeX distribution. The fonts are available in
fonts/ams/amsfonts/sources/symbols
Two files which load the fonts and define the symbols are provided,
and both work with either TeX or LaTeX. Questions or
suggestions regarding these fonts should be directed to
tech-support@math.ams.org.
Another complete set of blackboard bold fonts, the bbold family, is
available in METAFONT (in fonts/bbold). This set has the interesting
property of offering blackboard bold forms of lower-case letters,
something rather rarely seen on actual blackboards.
The ``lazy person's'' blackboard bold macros:
\newcommand{\R}{{\sf R\hspace*{-0.9ex}%
\rule{0.15ex}{1.5ex}\hspace*{0.9ex}}}
\newcommand{\N}{{\sf N\hspace*{-1.0ex}%
\rule{0.15ex}{1.3ex}\hspace*{1.0ex}}}
\newcommand{\Q}{{\sf Q\hspace*{-1.1ex}%
\rule{0.15ex}{1.5ex}\hspace*{1.1ex}}}
\newcommand{\C}{{\sf C\hspace*{-0.9ex}%
\rule{0.15ex}{1.3ex}\hspace*{0.9ex}}}
work well at normal size if the surrounding text is cmr10. However,
they are not part of a proper maths font, and so do not work in sub- and
superscripts. Moreover, the size and position of the vertical bar is
affected by the font of the surrounding text.
If you want to take advantage of the powerful \newtheorem command
without the constraint that the contents of the theorem is in a sloped
font (for example, to use it to create remarks, examples, proofs,
...) then you can use the style file theorem.sty (part of
macros/latex/required/tools). Alternatively, the following sets up an
environment remark whose content is in roman.
\newtheorem{preremark}{Remark}
\newenvironment{remark}%
{\begin{preremark}\rm}{\end{preremark}}
This will not work if you are using the prototype NFSS outside of
LaTeX2e,
because the command \rm behaves differently there.
Suppose you want your top-level enumerates to be labelled `I/', `II/',
..., then give these commands:
\renewcommand{\theenumi}{\Roman{enumi}}
\renewcommand{\labelenumi}{\theenumi/}
The possible styles of numbering are given in Section 6.3 of Lamport's
book (see TeX-related books). Both
\theenumi and \labelenumi must be changed, since
\theenumi is used in cross-references to the list.
For lower level enumerates, replace enumi by enumii, enumiii
or enumiv, according to the level. If your label is much larger
than the default, you should also change \leftmargini,
\leftmarginii, etc.
If you're running LaTeX2e, the package enumerate.sty (part of
macros/latex/required/tools) offers similar facilities. With
enumerate.sty, the example above would
be achieved simply by starting the enumeration
\begin{enumerate}[I/].
The easiest way to get headings of funny `sections' such as
prefaces in the table of contents is to use the
counter secnumdepth described in Appendix C of the LaTeX
manual. For example:
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{-1}
\chapter{Preface}
Of course, you have to set secnumdepth back to its usual value
(which is 2 in the standard styles) before you do
any `section' which you want to be numbered.
Similar settings are made automatically in the LaTeX book class by
the \frontmatter and \backmatter commands.
This is why it works.
\chapter without the star does
.toc file;
secnumdepth counter is greater than or equal to zero,
increase the counter for the chapter and write it out.
\footnote command doesn't work in tables; the table
traps the footnotes and they can't escape to the bottom of the page.
If your table is floating, your best bet is (unfortunately) to put the
table in a minipage environment and to put the notes
underneath the table, or to use Donald Arseneau's package
macros/latex/contrib/other/misc/threeparttable.sty
Otherwise, if your table is not floating (it's just a
`tabular' in the middle of some text), there are several
things you can do to fix the problem.
\footnotemark to position the little marker
appropriately, and then put in \footnotetext commands to fill in
the text once you've closed the tabular environment. This is
described in Lamport's book, but it gets messy if there's more than
one footnote.
minipage anyway. This provides
all the ugliness of footnotes in a minipage with no extra effort.
macros/latex/contrib/other/misc/threeparttable.sty anyway;
the package is intended for floating tables, and the result might
look odd if the table is not floating, but it will be reasonable.
tabularx or longtable from the LaTeX tools
distribution (macros/latex/required/tools); they're noticeably less
efficient than the standard tabular environment, but they
do allow footnotes.
footnote.sty from CTAN, lurking in
macros/latex/contrib/supported/mdwtools
Then put your tabular environment inside a savenotes
environment. Alternatively, say \makesavenoteenv{tabular} in
the preamble of your document, and tables will all handle footnotes
correctly.
mdwtab.sty from the same directory
(macros/latex/contrib/supported/mdwtools).
This will handle footnotes properly, and has other facilities to increase the beauty of your tables. It may also cause other table-related packages (not the standard `tools' ones, though) to become very unhappy and stop working.
Suppose that the editor of your favourite journal has specified that section headings must be centred, in small capitals, and subsection headings ragged right in italic, but that you don't want to get involved in the sort of programming described in The LaTeX Companion (see TeX-related books; the programming itself is discussed under `@'). The following hack will probably satisfy your editor. Define yourself new commands
\newcommand{\ssection}[1]{%
\section[#1]{\centering\sc #1}}
\newcommand{\ssubsection}[1]{%
\subsection[#1]{\raggedright\it #1}}
and then use \ssection and \ssubsection in place of
\section and \subsection. This isn't perfect: section numbers
remain in bold, and starred forms need a separate redefinition. Also,
this will not work if you are using the prototype NFSS with
LaTeX 2.09, because the font-changing commands behave differently
there.
The macros/latex/contrib/supported/sectsty package provides an easy-to-use set of tools to
do this job, while the macros/latex/contrib/supported/titlesec package permits more
advanced usage as well. (titlesec comes with a second package,
titletoc, which is used to adjust the format of table of contents
entries.)
The headings of \chapter and \part commands are produced by a
different mechanism; sectsty deals with both, but titlesec deals
only with \chapter. The macros/latex/contrib/supported/fncychap package provides a
nice collection of customised chapter heading designs.
LaTeX implements a style that doesn't indent the first paragraph
after a section heading. There are coherent reasons for this, but not
everyone likes it.
The package indentfirst.sty (part of macros/latex/required/tools)
suppresses the mechanism, so that the first paragraph is
indented.
The \footnote command is fragile, so that simply placing the
command in \section's arguments isn't satisfactory. Using
\protect\footnote isn't a good idea either: the arguments of a
section command are used in the table of contents and (more
dangerously) potentially also in page headings. Unfortunately,
there's no mechanism to suppress the footnote in the heading while
allowing it in the table of contents, though having footnotes in the
table of contents is probably unsatisfactory anyway.
To suppress the footnote in headings and table of contents:
\section[title]{title\footnote{title ftnt}}
macros/latex/contrib/supported/footmisc package, with package option
stable -this modifies footnotes so that they softly and silently
vanish away if used in a moving argument.
Don't do it. Learn some LaTeX, produce some documents, and then ask again.
You can never change the margins of a document by software,
because they depend on the actual size of the paper. What you can change
are the distances from the apparent top and left edges of the paper,
and the width and height of the text. Changing the last two requires
more skill than you might expect. The height should bear a certain
relationship to \baselineskip. And the width should not be more
than 75 characters. Lamport's warning in his section on
`Customizing the Style' really must be taken seriously. One-inch
margins on A4 paper are fine for 10- or 12-pitch typewriters, but not
for 10pt type (or even 11pt or 12pt) because so many
characters per line will irritate the reader. However...
Perhaps the easiest way to get more out of a page in LaTeX is to
get macros/latex209/contrib/misc/fullpage.sty, which sets the margins of the page identical
to those of plain TeX, i.e., 1-inch margins at all four
sides of the
paper. It also contains an adjustment for A4 paper.
Somewhat more flexible is macros/latex/contrib/other/misc/vmargin.sty, which has a canned set of
paper sizes (a superset of that provided in LaTeX2e), provision for
custom paper, margin adjustments and provision for two-sided printing.
For details of LaTeX's page
parameters, see section C.5.3 of the
LaTeX manual (pp. 181-182).
The origin in DVI coordinates is one inch
from the top of the paper and one inch from the left side; positive
horizontal measurements extend
right across the page, and positive vertical measurements extend down
the page. Thus, for margins closer to the left and top edges of the
page than 1 inch, the corresponding parameters, i.e.,
\evensidemargin, \oddsidemargin, \topmargin, can be set to
negative values.
You cannot simply change the margins of part of a document within the
document by
modifying the parameters shown in Lamport's figure C.3. They
should only be changed in the preamble of the document, i.e., before
the \begin{document} statement. To adjust the margins within a
document we define an environment:
\newenvironment{changemargin}[2]{%
\begin{list}{}{%
\setlength{\topsep}{0pt}%
\setlength{\leftmargin}{#1}%
\setlength{\rightmargin}{#2}%
\setlength{\listparindent}{\parindent}%
\setlength{\itemindent}{\parindent}%
\setlength{\parsep}{\parskip}%
}%
\item[]}{\end{list}}
This environment takes two arguments, and will indent the left
and right margins by their values, respectively. Negative values
will cause the margins to be narrowed, so
\begin{changemargin}{-1cm}{-1cm} narrows the left and right margins
by 1cm.
Put the word in a box, and measure the width of the box. For example,
\newdimen\stringwidth
\setbox0=\hbox{hi}
\stringwidth=\wd0
Note that if the quantity in the \hbox is a phrase, the actual
measurement only approximates the width that the phrase will occupy in
running text, since the inter-word glue can be adjusted in paragraph
mode.
The same sort of thing is expressed in LaTeX by:
\newlength{\gnat}
\settowidth{\gnat}{\textbf{small}}
This sets the value of the length command \gnat to the width of ``small''
in bold-face text.
A common technique in advertising copy (and other text whose actual content need not actually be read) is to alter the space between the letters (otherwise known as the tracking). As a general rule, this is a very bad idea: it detracts from legibility, which is contrary to the principles of typesetting (any respectable font you might be using should already have optimum tracking built into it).
The great type designer, Eric Gill, is (possibly apocryphally) credited with saying ``he who would letterspace lower-case text, would steal sheep'' (stealing sheep was, before Gill's time, a capital offence in Britain). As the remark suggests, though, letterspacing of upper-case text is less awful a crime; the technique used also to be used for emphasis of text set in gothic (or similar) fonts.
Straightforward macros (usable, in principle, with any TeX macro
package) may be found in macros/generic/letterspacing.tex
A more comprehensive package is macros/latex/contrib/supported/soul (which is optimised for
use with LaTeX, but also works with Plain TeX. Soul also
permits hyphenation of letterspaced text; Gill's view of such an
activity is not (even apocryphally) recorded.
Rainer Schöpf's verbatim.sty provides a comment environment which
excludes everything between \begin{comment} and \end{comment}.
This package is available as part of macros/latex/required/tools
A more general environment for doing the job is Victor Eijkhout's
comment.sty, which lets you define environments for inclusion
or exclusion in a document, thus offering a primitive configuration
structure. It is available from the CTAN sites in
macros/latex209/contrib/misc/comment.sty
The simple solution (\mathbf) doesn't always work, because
lower-case Greek letters behave differently from upper-case Greek
letters (due to Knuth's esoteric font encoding decisions). However,
\mathbf can be used for upper-case Greek letters in
ordinary circumstances, but the AMS-LaTeX package amsmath.sty
disables this font-switching and you must use one of the techniques
outlined below.
The plain TeX solution does work, in a limited way:
{\boldmath$\theta$}
but \boldmath may not be used in maths mode, so this `solution'
requires arcana such as:
$... \mbox{\boldmath$\theta$} ...$
which then causes problems in superscripts, etc.
These problems may be addressed by using a bold mathematics package.
bm.sty, which is part of the LaTeX tools
distribution (macros/latex/required/tools), defines a command \bm which
may be used anywhere in maths mode.
amsbsy.sty, which is part of AMS-LaTeX
(macros/latex/required/amslatex) defines a command \boldsymbol, which
(though slightly less comprehensive than \bm) covers almost all
common cases.
All these solutions cover all mathematical symbols, not merely Greek letters.
Use the \mathop command, as in:
\newcommand{\diag}{\mathop{\rm diag}}
Subscripts and superscripts on \diag will be placed exactly as they
are on \lim. If you want your subscripts and superscripts always
placed to the right, do:
\newcommand{\diag}{\mathop{\rm diag}\nolimits}
This works in LaTeX 2.09 and in LaTeX2e, but not under NFSS alone
(see problems with \rm, etc.).
However, the canonical method for doing this in LaTeX2e is to use
the the \DeclareMathOperator command of amsopn.sty (which is
part of the AMS-LaTeX package: macros/latex/required/amslatex).
(It should be noted that ``log-like'' was reportedly a joke on Lamport's part; it is of course clear what was meant.)
Knuth was making a particular point about the capabilities of TeX when he defined the logo. Unfortunately, many believe, he thereby opened floodgates to give the world a whole range of rather silly `bumpy road' logos such as AMS-TeX, PicTeX, BibTeX, and so on, produced in a flurry of different fonts, sizes, and baselines - indeed, everything one might hope to cause them to obstruct the reading process. In articular, Lamport invented LaTeX (silly enough in itself, with a raised small `A' and a lowered `E') and marketing input from Addison-Wesley led to the even stranger current logo LaTeX2e, which appends a lowered single-stroke greek letter epsilon.
Sensible users don't have to follow this stuff wherever it goes,
but, for those who insist, a large collection of logos is defined in
macros/eplain/texnames.sty (but note that this set of macros isn't entirely
reliable in LaTeX2e).
The METAFONT and MetaPost logos can be set in fonts that LaTeX2e
knows about (so that they scale with the surrounding text) using the
package macros/latex/contrib/supported/mflogo; but be aware that booby-traps surround the
use of the Knuthian font for MetaPost (you might get
something like `META O T').
You needn't despair, however - the author himself uses just `MetaPost'.
For those who don't wish to acquire the `proper' logos, the canonical
thing to do is to say AMS-\TeX{}
for AMS-TeX, Pic\TeX{}
for PicTeX, Bib\TeX{}
for BibTeX, and so on.
While the author of this FAQ list can't quite bring himself to do away with the bumpy-road logos herein, he regularly advises everyone else to\dots