Introduction To Cryptography, Fall 2003:

A brief introduction to LaTex

LaTeX (pronounced la-te-k) is a "document preparation system"; The LaTeX compiler takes files with specific structure (i.e., LaTeX files) and produces output graphic files with typeset text and figures. It is relatively easy to add mathematical equations and figures to LaTeX documents; LaTeX also has extcellent page formatting and styling.

LaTeX files have the suffix ".tex", and are plain text files that can be edited with any text editor.
Emacs (http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html) and XEmacs (www.xemacs.org) have LaTeX-modes for editing LaTeX files more easily.
For beginners, it is easier to use a LaTeX-specific editor, such as WinEdt for windows (it is a shareware and has a free trial period).

Required tools

• LaTeX compiler
You can check if you already have latex installed by running "latex" from a shell (in windows or unix) you should get something like :

[arielbaz@razor ~]$latex This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2C 7.3.1) ** Note: LaTeX is already installed on cluster-pc.cs.columbia.edu • Text editor. You might want to consider Emacs/XEmacs, or WinEdt. However, there are many other text editors, some with support for LaTeX. (For first timers to Emacs/XEmacs: this is not your usual text editor. Spend half an hour to read the tutorial, available by pressing CTRL+H and then T, to learn how to use this powerful editor). Note: If you decide to use WinEdt, you might have smoother installation by first installing the LaTeX environment, and only afterwards installing WinEdt. WinEdt has preset configurations for different LaTeX compilers, so if the compiler is installed before WinEdt, you can spare some of the configuring time. • To view PS (postscript) files, you need GhostView. Example files • sample1.tex is a simple latex file with the following content \documentclass{article} \begin{document} hello, world \end{document} compiling the file gives the following output$ latex sample1.tex
This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (MiKTeX 2.2)
(sample1.tex
LaTeX2e <2001/06/01>
Babel <v3.7h> and hyphenation patterns for english, french, german, ngerman, du
(C:\Program Files\texmf\tex\latex\base\article.cls
Document Class: article 2001/04/21 v1.4e Standard LaTeX document class
(C:\Program Files\texmf\tex\latex\base\size10.clo)) (sample1.aux) [1]
(sample1.aux) )
Output written on sample1.dvi (1 page, 232 bytes).
Transcript written on sample1.log.

with the file sample1.dvi created.
calling dvips sample1.dvi would create a postscript file sample1.ps
The file can be compiled to a pdf document by calling pdflatex sample1.tex, and we get sample1.pdf

Writing LaTeX files

There are many resources that can help you write LaTeX files easily.
Some LaTeX editors will save you alot of time (again, WinEdt is a great example).
There are several good tutorials and introductions. You can use the following links:

The LaTeX project home: http://www.latex-project.org

Once you can compile the example documents, and want to learn more on writing LaTeX, you can read The not so short introduction to LaTeX which also contains tables of LaTeX symbols (pages 58-64).
Other symbols tables can be found at http://omega.albany.edu:8008/Symbols.html, and at
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/symbols/comprehensive/symbols-a4.pdf

More tips on LaTeX: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/LaTeXPrimer