3.2.2.3 LaTeX, Susanne Dobratz
Scientists within the natural and engineering sciences
have special needs for mathematics and algorithmic graphics. The text formatting
system LaTeX has been used for decades to mark up scientific documents. Even
today, there is no viewable alternative to print texts containing a lot of
mathematics without using LaTeX. This system uses a kind of semantic or
typographic markup for rendering formulas, graphs, and so on. Within some
disciplines LaTeX is nearly exclusively used to render complex documents.
(words taken from
Anthony Atkins latex-page)
TeX is a document formatting language (and the program
that processes it) written by Donald Knuth for the professional preparation of
complex publications. It excels particularly at formatting mathematical
equations and for managing two-dimensional presentations of data (tabular and
otherwise). LaTeX is a set of macros written by Leslie Lamport as a
"front-end" to TeX that makes articles, reports, theses,
dissertations, and books easy to create and manage.
LaTeX is free to download from any CTAN archive (http://www.ctan.org ), and works
on Macintosh, MS-DOS, Unix, and Windows 3.1/95/NT (though some commands may
vary on some architectures). To convert your electronic thesis or dissertation to
LaTeX, you must first
type your document completely into the ASCII editor using the
LaTeX macros appropriately, then use a certain chain of commands that produce a
layout and printable version of the document.
To create LaTeX files all you need is an ASCII-based
editor, like Emacs, Vi. Writing a dissertation just
means typing the contents and the LaTeX-commands directly in an ASCII-based
file and save this as *.tex.
To compile a LaTeX file and produce a printable version of
the document, you have to follow these steps:
While writing your thesis in LaTeX, please keep the
following rules in mind:
As document style we advise to choose report or
book, because both start with chapter as the highest order for section
structuring. The preamble of the latex file could look like in the following example:
\documentclass[12pt,a4,titlepage]{book}
\usepackage{babel}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage[dvips]{epsfig}
With usepackage we import additional styles that are
needed, e.g. for tables, mathematics, figures, etc. In order to get archivable
form of the latex dissertations we advise not to use or to program complex
macros. Simple \newcommand or \renewcommand may be used, e.g.
\newcommand{\begin{itemize}}{bi}
Headings can be separated using the following commands:
|
Document Structure |
Level |
|
\part{Heading Part I } |
-1 |
|
\chapter{Heading Chapter 1} |
0 |
|
\section{Heading Subchapter 1.1} |
1 |
|
\subsection{Heading Section 1.1.1} |
2 |
|
\subsubsection{...} |
3 |
|
\paragraph{...} |
4 |
|
\subparagraph{...} |
5 |
Levels -1 to 2 appear in the table of contents. Part is
used to split the whole document into several parts. The chapters numbering are
constantly growing. Within the document a single page is displayed, that
contains: Part I Introduction or Part II Method and so on.
Chapters are numbered without taking the parts into
account. The numbering is standardized:
Chapter 1 Mathematics.
Sections are subunits of chapters and numbered: Basic Algorithms.
Sections are numbered as follows: 1.1.1 Decision Tree Algorithm A.
For those parts like acknowledgements, dedication, and
curriculum vita where authors usually don't want to use numbering, the
following style can be used:
\chapter*{Thank You} .
The asterisk prevents the numbering.
Appendices are included using the \appendix command.
Please use commands as in the following example if your appendix consists of
several chapters:
\appendix or
\appendix* not numbered headings of the appendices
\chapter{Program Source}
\chapter*{Curriculum Vita}
Using graphics: Figures and pictures should be included in
LaTeX documents using the eps (encapsulated postscript) format. Before
including them, one has to use a certain style package in the preamble:
\usepackage[dvips]{epsfig}
The parameter [h] positions the figure at the current
position.
Keep in mind, always to use a caption-environment to put
the figure captions below the picture:
\begin{figure}[h]
\begin{center}
\epsffile{didi.eps}
\end{center}
\caption[short description for the table of figures]{Long
description for the text}
\end{figure}
The title page is the most complicated part. Most
universities supply own templates for the title page and the whole
dissertation. There is no best practice available. In order to separate the
several items on a title page in order to be able to reuse those information
pieces e.g. if the whole dissertation is converted to HTML or SGML/XML, we
advise to use \newcommands as simplest method to apply a pseudo structure to a
LaTeX title page. Usually LaTeX provides the following standards item for a
title page:
\date{}
\author{}
\title{}
But as this is not enough for a thesis, most universities
provide their own style sheets or templates.
Tables should be used as follows: Authors are advised to
use the table-environment because it provides the possibility to include table
captions in a structured way.
\begin{table}
\caption{Tabellenbeispiel}
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{ccc}
x & 1 & 2 \\ \hline
1 & 1 & 2 \\
2 & 2 & 4 \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{table}
Citations can be used as their own structured items as
follows:
1. Using the citation-environment. This is used for inline
citations.
\begin{citation}{label1}
Contents
\end{citation}
2. Using the quotation-environment. This is used to
structure whole paragraphs as citations. Those citations use an indent like
usual paragraphs.
\begin{quotation}
contents
\end{quotation}
3. Another method is the use of the quote-environment.
This environment is used for whole paragraph citations, but those paragraphs
don't have an indent.
\begin{quote}
content
\end{quote}
Numbered lists are typeset using the
enumerate-environment. By integration new enumerate-environment in existing one
a hierarchically nested sublist is built.
\begin{enumerate}
\item {Testitem1}
\begin{enumerate}
\item {Ebene 2 Testitem1}
\item {Ebene 2
Testitem2}
\end{enumerate}
\item Testitem2
\end{enumerate}
Bulleted lists are typeset using the itemize-environment. A hierarchical nesting is also possible here.
\begin{itemize}
\item Testitem1
\begin{itemize}
\item Ebene 2 Testitem1
\item Ebene 2 Testitem2
\end{itemize}
\item Testitem2
\end{itemize}
Definition lists contain a definition term and a definition
text.
\begin{description}
\item[Definition term] Explanation of the definition term
\item[Element2] Explanation
2
\end{description}
If an author wants to include source code this is best
done using the \verbatim-environment.
\begin{verbatim}
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
#+-----------------------------------+
#| this script has
been written 1998 by
#+-----------------------------------+
\end{verbatim}
Anchors, references and cross-references are typeset using
the \label command, which links a key to the specified item of a document.
\begin{verbatim}
\label{keyword}
\end{verbatim}
References to these parts have to use the command \ref or
\pageref in order to produce a reference to the object or to the page.
ref{keyword}
pageref{keyword}
A very important part of a dissertation is the
bibliography. We advise all authors to use the bibtex-system and graphical
front ends, e.g. bibview under LINUX or UNIX systems to manage bibliographic
records and entries. References to bibliographic entries that are held in a
bibtex-database are written as in the example:
\cite{schluessel}
The bibtex-database can be included into the LaTeX file by
the following command, where a predefined style like alpha, plain, apalike can
be used to layout the entries:
\bibliography{file name without .bib}
\bibliographystyle{style, e.g. alpha, plain, apalike, etc.}
Within the BibTeX-system database entries can be done
using a plain ASCII editor. like emacs. There are several types of literature
predefined:
Article in Conference Proceedings
Article in a Journal
Article in a Collection
Chapter or pages in a book
Conference Proceedings
Book
Booklet, but no Publisher, Institution
PHD Thesis
Masters Thesis
Technical Report
Technical Manual
Unpublished
The following example shows how a BiBTeX-entry has to be
written:
% Article in a Journal
@Article{shortkey2,
author = {Name, Firstname},
title = {Title No. 2},
journal = {Journal for ETDs},
year = {1999},
OPTkey = {},
OPTvolume = {},
OPTnumber = {},
OPTpages = {},
OPTmonth = {},
OPTnote = {},
OPTannote = {}
The following table shows those items have to be used for
certain bibliographic entry types:
|
Category |
Author |
Title |
Book title |
Journal |
Publisher |
Year |
Chapter |
School |
Institution |
|
In Proceedings |
X |
X |
X |
|
|
X |
|
|
|
|
Article |
X |
X |
|
X |
|
X |
|
|
|
|
In Collection |
X |
X |
X |
|
X |
X |
|
|
|
|
In Book |
X |
X |
|
|
X |
X |
X |
|
|
|
Proceedings |
|
X |
|
|
|
X |
|
|
|
|
Book |
X |
X |
|
|
X |
X |
|
|
|
|
Booklet |
|
X |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PhD Thesis |
X |
X |
|
|
|
X |
|
X |
|
|
Master Thesis |
X |
X |
|
|
|
X |
|
X |
|
|
Tec Report |
X |
X |
|
|
|
X |
|
|
X |
|
Manual |
|
X |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Unpublished |