Re: [OT] LaTeX

["Douglas A. Tutty" <dtutty@porchlight.ca>]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2007 at 11:12:38AM -0500, Michael Pobega wrote:
> Hello DU
> 
> I'd like to begin writing my coursework for college in LaTeX, but I've
> no clue where to start. I began by installing the vim-latexsuite
> package, but that didn't seem to really work too well (The help pages
> are both missing), and I have no clue where to start to learn LaTeX.
> 
> Any point in the right direction would really help!
> 
> Also, for the Debian related question; What package would people out
> there recommend for compiling and viewing LaTeX?
> 

LaTex is a superset of Tex and as such is installed in the TexLive
packages.  You'll want the texdoc and texdoctk programs.  Texdoctk is
the easiest to use.  It gives you a GUI-based menu of all the
documentation.  Click on a piece of documentation and it starts up the
correct viewer for it (i.e. depending on if the file is pdf, dvi, ps,
text, html, whatever).  

The first document to read would be the "not so short introduction to
latex".  Basically, spend a day reading all the docs that are general
(not esoteric to a use you don't need).  Then try to write something.

As for "compiling and viewing LaTex", I write it in vim, compile it
with latex on the command line and view it in xdvi, gv, kpdf, lynx, or
konqueror (depending on the format I've made).  I get help in vim with:
:help latex


As an example LaTex document, here's my letterhead template:


\documentclass[letterpaper,12pt]{article}
%preamble here
\begin{document}
% no page number on this first page
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{flushleft}
Douglas A. Tutty\\
160 McQuay St, RR. 3\\
Yarker, ON K0K 3N0\\
Ph: (613) 358--5861\\
Email:  dtutty@porchlight.ca\\
\end{flushleft}

\noindent \today

\bigskip

\noindent Dear: 

\bigskip


\begin{flushleft}
Yours truly,

\vspace{2cm}

Douglas A. Tutty.
\end{flushleft}

\end{document}


---

As an alternative or suppliment, you could install lyx.  Its a qt-based
wysiwyg editor that produces tex and can export latex.  It has gread
documentation that gives you a head-start on tex concepts.  I used it
for about 2 days before I went to vim and straight latex.

Doug.