LaTeX-Old-Version/C2/Report-Writing/English-timed
From Script | Spoken-Tutorial
Time | Narration |
00:00 | Welcome to this spoken tutorial on Report Writing using LaTeX. |
00:06 | Notice three windows in the screen: source file is in the editor. I am using Emacs editor. |
00:14 | In the terminal, I compile the source file and create a pdf file. I view this pdf file in the pdf reader. |
00:23 | I am using a pdf reader called “skim” on Mac OS X. This reader loads the latest version of the pdf file. |
00:33 | When you create your documents using Latex, you need not arrange these windows in such a non-overlapping fashion. |
00:41 | You may also use a different editor and a different pdf reader. |
00:48 | The procedure to use latex is identical in all Unix systems including Linux. |
00:53 | It could be a little bit different on Windows. Nevertheless, the source file is identical in all operating systems. |
01:01 | As a result, your working LaTeX source file on windows, for example, will work without any change on Unix systems as well. |
01:11 | The first spoken tutorial in this series is on compiling. Which gives a brief introduction to Latex. |
01:19 | You may want to go through it in case you have not done that already. |
01:23 | I am using 12pt as the text size and article class. |
01:30 | I have defined titles of section, sub-section and sub-sub -section. |
01:36 | The argument of each of these appears in the output at appropriate places. |
01:44 | Observe the distinctive feature of these section titles. |
01:49 | Irrespective of blank lines in the source file, the output remains the same. |
01:55 | Let me add some blank lines here. |
02:00 | Save. Compile. No difference. |
02:08 | Put the source file back to the original state. Compile. |
02:20 | The sizes of the titles are created proportionately and automatically. For example, the section title is the largest and the sub-sub-section title is the smallest. |
02:32 | These features remain the same even if I change the font size. |
02:36 | Let’s change it to 11pt. Save. Compile. |
02:46 | Although the overall size decreases, the above mentioned qualities of the titles do not change. |
02:52 | Let me change the font back to 12pt. |
03:03 | A more important feature of the titles is the automatic generation of section numbers. For example, if I insert another section here, |
03:25 | save. Compile. |
03:30 | I will create a new section in the output called ‘Inserted section’. It appears here with appropriate number. |
03:39 | In summary, the spacing, size, and distinctiveness, that is, the titles appear in bold etc. are automatically taken care of by Latex. |
03:50 | I will now explain how to create table of contents. First of all, note that there is no file called 'Report.toc'. |
04:05 | Here it says that there is ‘no such file or directory’. Observe that 'report.tec' is the source file. |
04:12 | Let me add this command, 'table of contents', one word, here. Save. Compile. |
04:31 | As I compile it, the word ‘Contents’ appears in the output but nothing else. |
04:44 | We now have a file called 'Report.toc'. |
04:54 | The section titles are written into this 'toc' file. Let’s see this. |
05:05 | Okay, let me recompile it. |
05:12 | Okay. All the titles are now present in the contents page along with page numbers. |
05:18 | Page number here is 1; it appears in the table of contents. This document has only one page. |
05:23 | This two time compilation procedure is applicable also to changes in titles. |
05:33 | Let us insert a new title here. Let me call it ‘Modified section’. |
05:45 | Let me compile it. You can see that it has changed here but it is yet to change in contents. |
05:54 | Let me re-compile it second time and solve this problem. We can also change the location of the table of contents. |
06:02 | Let me shift it to the end of the document. Compile it. |
06:18 | Now we can see that it has come to the end of the document. Let us bring the document back by shifting this to the top. |
06:38 | We will now create a title for this document. |
06:44 | Let me do it here, just after the document class. 'Author'. |
07:03 | I can include new lines here. |
07:11 | Date, today’s date. And then, ‘First created on 13th July 2007’. We compile it. |
07:29 | There are no changes. The reason is that I have not told latex what to do with this information. |
07:35 | So, I add the ‘make title’ command here, just after the document. |
07:45 | One word at the place where I want the title to appear |
07:50 | which is at the beginning of the document. On compiling, the title appears in the output. |
07:58 | We will now change the class of this document from 'article' to 'report'. So let's do that here. Let me compile it. |
08:14 | On compiling, the title appears on a whole page. The 'Contents' starts on a new page, with page 1. This is numbered as page 1. |
08:33 | In other words, the title page has no number. We also see the section title has a zero in its number. |
08:44 | The report class requires chapters. As we have not defined any chapters, the default value of zero is used. |
08:52 | The sub-sub section, no longer has a number associated with it. |
09:01 | The contents information is not correct, they still carry the old numbers. |
09:07 | We solve this problem by recompilation. Now we have the new numbers. |
09:13 | Let us start a chapter now. |
09:25 | ‘First chapter’ we call it. Let us compile it twice. The contents did not change but the other things are missing. |
09:40 | The reason is that the 'chapter' command starts a new page. |
09:48 | Let us go to the next page and confirm it. |
09:52 | See also the explicit appearance of the word ‘chapter’ on the new page. |
09:58 | See it here. Let me come back here. |
10:04 | Let me compile it. Once more you can see that the new chapter information comes in the contents. |
10:14 | If you want to add appendixes, insert the command ‘appendix’. |
10:23 | 'Appendix' and let me start a chapter in the appendix. |
10:37 | ‘First chapter in the appendix’. Let me compile it twice. |
10:47 | You can see that the first chapter has come here. |
10:51 | Let’s go and see what it looks like. |
11:00 | Appendix A has moved to a new page. |
11:05 | And you can see the number of pages as gone to 4. |
11:10 | And you also have this word ‘appendix’ appearing here. Let us add one more chapter. Let me compile it. |
11:27 | You can see the page number has become 5. It is on a new page. Let us go the beginning of this. |
11:38 | If I compile it second time, the contents become correct. |
11:49 | What happens if we want to change the 'report' class back to 'article'? |
11:53 | We go here. Let's compile it. |
12:09 | On compiling, the latex complains that there is something wrong. |
12:19 | Okay, there are two ways to handle when latex stops like this. |
12:24 | The first way is to exit by typing ‘X’. |
12:32 | The pdf file will normally have all the previous pages. In this particular case it says that there are no pages of output. |
12:40 | One can immediately go to the source file, modify the problems and proceed. |
12:48 | It is easy to locate the errors if the beginner compiles frequently; |
12:56 | any mistake will be caught immediately. Sometimes when latex pauses because of mistakes, I end the document then and there. |
13:06 | Of course, also close all the open environments and try to locate and fix the mistake. |
13:12 | As latex does not worry about the material that comes after the 'end document' command, no need to change that part. |
13:20 | Once the error is corrected, the intermediate ‘end document’ command under close environment commands can be removed. |
13:28 | When latex pauses sighting an error, we can also ask it to ignore and to proceed. |
13:44 | This is done by pressing the Return or Enter key |
13:48 | as I did just now. Now what happens is, we have two pages. |
13:59 | Go to the first page, we have all messed up information. |
14:07 | What we can do to correct this mistake is – the mistake is that it is having the chapter here. |
14:16 | Let us remove this. |
14:22 | Let’s compile it. Okay, let’s do it again. Let’s compile it second time. |
14:33 | It complains, keeps complaining but there is something called chapter and it is in the table of contents and in the appendix. |
14:47 | So, let us get rid of this also. Let's compile it. |
14:56 | Okay. Now it goes through without any problem and the entire document has come in one page. |
15:05 | And the content information also is correct. |
15:15 | Feel free to change the source file, for example- you may want to add new sections, new sub-sections in the main text and also in the appendix, also in the report style. |
15:26 | Try out the commands explained in this tutorial; until you become confident, keep trying. |
15:34 | Ensure that your recent changes are acceptable by immediate compilation after every change. |
15:40 | Most beginners who forget this rule, get into a lot of difficulties. |
15:45 | Please note that the way the source file appears in Emacs – color, size of titles etc. are immaterial as far as the latex engine is concerned. |
15:57 | What Latex wants is that the source file be correct and not how it is created. |
16:04 | This brings us to the end of this tutorial. Thanks for joining. This is Kannan Moudgalya from CDEEP, IIT Bombay, signing off. Good bye. |
Contributors and Content Editors
Minal, Nancyvarkey, PoojaMoolya, Pratik kamble, Sandhya.np14