LaTeX/C2/What-is-Compiling/English
Welcome to this spoken tutorial on how to create a simple document using Latex. I will explain this process in a MacOSX operating system. Similar methods are available in other operating systems such as Linux and Windows. The first thing you have to do is to create a source file using your editor. My favorite editor is Emacs. I have named the file hello.tex. The extension of the file is tex. Although it has the spelling t-e-x, it is pronounced ‘tec’. This is the default for latex.
The first thing to do is the tell latex what document class we are interested in. I will use the article class as follows. Save it. There are several other classes as well. We will encounter some of them in other tutorials. I’m using, 12 point as the font size. Two smaller sizes, namely 11pt. and 10pt. are also popular in Latex.
Let me begin the document. Let me type the text ‘Hello world!’ Let me end the document. Let me Save it. Whatever comes in between the begin and end document commands only will be in the final output. This is called the source file. I have named it hello.tex. Let us compile it using the command pdflatex. We come here and show the command ‘pdf latex hello. Tex’.
We can also use the command ‘pdf latex hello’, without the extension ‘tex’ to compile this. The default extension of tex will be used in this case. The command pdf latex is used to create a pdf file from the latex source file. On execution of this command, latex gives some informative output, also these messages are stored in a file hello.log as we see here. Note the occurrence of hello in all the files that we have created so far. Let us now open the file hello.pdf.
In my Mac system, I do this by issuing the command ‘skim hello.pdf’. ‘skim’ is a free pdf reader available for Mac OSX. On issuing this command, skim opens the file hello.pdf. It has only one line as expected. Let me zoom this file. Skim shows the latest version of the opened pdf file. For example, if I modify it, let me add another ‘hello world’ here. Let me save it first and then compile it. Let me allow this. It has been updated. Let me delete this, save it, compile it, now it has gone back to the original file. Notice that I have always compiled after saving the file. You save first, and then compile it. If you don’t save it, whatever changes you made since the last save will not be included in the compiled form.
I have organized these three windows, for the purpose of creating this spoken tutorial. You do not need to arrange them in this fashion to create documents however, please also note that you can use any other editor and pdf reader of your choice. To use latex, one should go through these phases: creation of source, compilation and viewing the pdf file. I encourage you to go through these phases by modifying the source file. You may wish to add a few more lines of text in between the begin and end document commands. You may also want to browse through the hello.log file.
Let me now continue the tutorial with a presentation. Let me first delete this. I would begin with the benefits of Latex. Latex is an excellent typesetting software. The quality of documents produced by latex is unmatched. Latex is free and open source. It is available on windows and all unix systems, including Mac and linux. Latex has outstanding features, such as, automatic numbering of equations, chapters and sections, figures and tables. Documents with a lot of mathematical equations can also be generated easily in Latex. It is easy to produce bibliographic entries, with changeable format on the fly. With latex taking care of formatting, the writer can concentrate on more important activities, such as, content generation and logical sequencing of ideas.
There are more spoken tutorials on Latex. Visit moudgalya.org for the following spoken tutorials on latex: What is compilation, letter writing, report writing, mathematical typesetting, equations, tables and figures, how to create a bibliography, and Inside story of bibliography. This order of tutorials is recommended for best results. Source files used to create these tutorials are also available at this website. We plan to add a tutorial on installation of Latex in windows OS. There will also be other tutorial in the near future, for example, beamer for slide presentation. This presentation has been made with beamer, using Latex.
Some tips: Go through as many spoken tutorials as possible. Practice them in parallel. Start with a working latex file. Make one change at a time, save, compile and make sure that whatever you have done works, before making further changes. Remember to save the source file before compiling.
There are many books on Latex, we recommend two. The first one is by the original creator of Latex, Leslie Lamport. This book is available in a low cost Indian edition as well. Advanced users may consult the following book, Latex companion. The first book and a web search is usually sufficient for most purposes, however, the main site for all latex related material is ctan.org.
Funding for this work has come from the National Mission on Education through ICT. Launched by MHRD, Government of India. URL for this mission is sakshat.ac.in. Spoken tutorial activity is the initiative of the ‘Talk to a Teacher’ project of the mission, coordinated by CDEEP, IIT Bombay: cdeep.iitb.ac.in.
Use of spoken tutorial to popularize software development and its use will be coordinated through fosse.in. Fossee stands for Free and Open source software in science and engineering education. This project also is supported by the national mission on education. Keep watching these links for more spoken tutorials and their translation in other languages.
This brings us to the end of this tutorial. Thanks for joining. This is Kannan Moudgalya from CDEEP, IIT Bombay signing off. Good bye.
