LaTeX Tips: Basic tips

Books

G. Gratzer, Math into LaTeX. A must-have for anyone using LaTeX for mathematical typing, this is the only book describing, in detail, the AMS enhancements to LaTeX ("ams-latex") that greatly facilitate the typesetting of mathematical material. It is suitable for beginners, but is also an indispensable reference for experienced TeX users.
H. Kopka and P.W. Daly, A guide to LaTeX. The best general LaTeX book. For intermediate users.
M. Goossens and F. Mittelbach, The LaTeX Companion; M. Goossens, S. Raatz, and F. Mittelbach, The LaTeX Graphics Companion. This pair of books covers many of the "packages" and add-ons that are available for LaTeX. For intermediate to advanced users, these books complement Gratzer and Kopka/Daly.

General

Avoid manual formatting commands. Of all the mistakes people make when typesetting LaTeX, attempting to format text manually instead of using predefined LaTeX macros for this purpose, is probably the most common. and the most frustrating for a publisher. Manual formatting includes inserting vertical or horizontal spacing with \bigskip, \vskip, \vfill, etc., setting explicit line breaks (\\, \newline), preventing paragraph indentation with \noindent's, setting theorems via explicit font instructions ({\bf Theorem:}), coding section headings manually (\centerline{\bf Introduction}), etc. Avoid such commands, and use instead proper LaTeX constructs such as \section{...}, or \begin{theorem}... \end{theorem}. Leave the formatting up to LaTeX, which does a very good job at that. The output obtained by letting TeX decide on the amount of spacing looks almost always better than what an author could achieve by inserting spacing commands; if you want a different "look", change to a different documentclass (e.g., use article instead of amsart, or vice versa), or change parameters globally (e.g., setting \parskip=8pt adds a bit of vertical space between paragraphs). The latter, however, should be used only sparingly, if at all.
There are situations where manual formatting commands are appropriate; for example, the "bibitems" in the "thebibliography" environment must be formatted manually. However, those situations are very rare.
Avoid using nonstandard documentclasses; use article or amsart (or, for book-size documents, book) as documentclass. The "article" and "amsart" documentclasses are all-purpose documentclasses that are part of the standard TeX distribution and which can be used for almost everything, not just "articles." The two classes format articles differently (e.g., section headings are set in different font sizes), so pick whichever you like best. You might want to pick one class and then stick with it, rather than switching back and forth. One reason for this is that the syntax for the topmatter material (author, title, etc.) is slightly different in the two classes, so if you want to switch from one class to the other, you will need to edit that part of the document. Some publishers have their own customized documentclasses and ask authors to submit papers written in those classes. Papers written with such nonstandard documentclasses are not "portable", since the documentclasses are not part of the standard TeX distribution, and others will not be able to compile the tex file (at least not without going through the trouble of having to download the customized documentclass from the publisher's website). For this reason, I would suggest to write your paper in one of the standard documentclasses (article or amsart), and use that version for posting on websites or submitting to preprint servers, or for circulating by email. I would only convert the paper to the publisher's documentclass (a process that is usually straightforward, in contrast to the a conversion in the other direction - from a customized documentclass to one of the standard classes), when the paper is in final form, accepted, and the publisher or editor is asking for the tex file of the paper.
If you use the article class, be sure to load the ams packages with \usepackage{amsmath, amsthm}. Adding this line after \documentclass makes the standard ams latex enhancements (such as align and theorem/proof environments) available. (With the amsart documentclass these packages are loaded automatically, so this isn't necessary.) For most purposes you won't need any of the additional ams packages; an exception is the "amssymb" package which you may need to load if you require special symbols.
To enlarge or scale a LaTeX document, increase the font size by adding the option "[12pt]" or "[11pt]" to the documentclass. The plain TeX \magnification command does not work with LaTeX.

Math

Use align instead of eqnarray for multiline displayed equations. Align is part of the ams-latex package and is available whenever the amsmath package has been loaded (see above). There rarely is a need for using anything else (other than the variant align* which works just like align, except that it does not generate equation numbers). In particular, align supersedes the eqnarray environment, it is easier to use, and it does a much better job in displaying mathematics than eqnarray. For example, one annoying problem with eqnarray is that in displays with long lines equation numbers may get partially overwritten. Align is much smarter in handling this situation: if there is not enough room for an equation number, the equation number automatically gets moved up or down.
Other ams-latex display environments. Ams-latex provides several other environments for multiline displays, such as gather, multline, aligned, split, etc. The variety of options may be confusing, but none of these is particularly important, and you can get by with just using align or align*.
Align multiline displays right before equal signs or their equivalents (e.g., a "less than" symbol). If that's not possible and you have to break up an expression in the middle, move the continuation line a bit to the right by placing a \qquad right after the alignment symbol.
Use \quad or \qquad for spacing in displayed math material. Usually it's best to leave the spacing up to TeX. However, if explicit horizontal spacing is needed (for example, to set an expression like "(n \to \infty)" apart from the rest of the display, or to separate two equations on the same line), \quad (or, occasionally, \qquad which equals two \quad's) in most cases generates the right amount of space. Don't try to create spacing with a bunch of explicit spaces ("\ "); the spacing generated in this way is usually not optimal, and the explict spaces will likely have to be removed (and possibly replaced by \quad) when the paper is typeset at the publisher's end.
Avoid blank lines before or after a display, unless you really want to start a new paragraph. It is tempting to surround displayed math material by blank lines in the source file, to make them stand out and easier to locate. However, this is usually wrong, since blank lines are interpreted as paragraph breaks, may generate some additional vertical spacing and cause the next line of text to be indented - something you usually don't want. If you want to set off displays in your source file, do so by inserting a line with comment symbols, such as "%%%%% equation 3.1 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%" before and/or after the display.
Use the bracket pair \[ and \] instead of double dollar signs ($$). In TeX and amstex the double dollar symbol is used to delimit displayed math material. This still works in LaTeX (and a lot of people, including myself, still use it since old habits are hard to get rid of), but its use is discouraged, and it is possible that in future versions it may no longer work.
Use "\tag" for manually set equation numbers. Parentheses are generated automatically, so to get "(4a)", you'd use \tag{4a}.
Use "\eqref" instead of "\ref" for references to (labelled) equations. This ams-latex command works just like \ref, but it automatically creates parentheses, which makes it easier to use.
Use \substack{...} for multiline subscripts on sums or integrals. \substack is provided by the ams-latex package and works much like the \sb ... \endsb pair in amstex. It is much easier to use, and produces better looking output, than an array environment or a construct using \atop (derived from plain tex).
Declare theorems with \newtheorem or \newtheorem*. If you don't want to use the automatic numbering mechanism, just add one \newtheorem* declaration for each theorem, lemma, etc. to the preamble, using some simple labeling scheme. (Use the asterisk version, \newtheorem*, to prevent theorem numbers from being generated.) E.g., \newtheorem*{theoremA1}{Theorem A1}, \newtheorem*{theoremA2}{Theorem A2}, etc. Note that theorem declarations can contain numbers and punctuation symbols, in contrast to ordinary macros; thus you can give "Theorem A.2" the label "theoremA.2".
Use the \begin{proof} ... \end{proof} environment for proofs. This is part of the ams-latex package and works much like the \demo ... \enddemo pair in amstex. In particular, it adds a bit of space before and after the proof, and a "qed symbol" (a hollow square) at the end of the proof. Placing of qed symbol. An important rule is that you should not leave a blank line before "\end{proof}" since that would indicate a paragraph break and would cause the qed symbol to be placed one line below where you want it. If the proof ends with a displayed equation, then "\end{proof}" would normally place the symbol one line below the display, which looks odd. To place the symbol on the same line as the display, add "\qedhere" at the end of the display. (This is explained in Gratzer's book.)
Use \operatorname{...} or \DeclareMathOperator for "math operators" that are not predefined. Most common functions and operators in mathematics have predefined macros (such as \sin, \arctan, \max, \limsup, \mod) that automatically print the "operator" in an upright (rather than italic) font when used in math mode; this is the desired look. However, if you need an operator that is not predefined, say "rank", it will not look right if you just type $rank(A)$. What you should do is replace "rank" by "\operatorname{rank}"; if you need this more than a few times, it is worth defining a new operator, say \rank, with the \DeclareMathOperator macro (see the Gratzer book for details).
Use \left and \right for delimiters surrounding "large" expressions (like sums or fractions). An expression like $(\sum_{i=1}^na_i)^2$, surrounded by ordinary parentheses, looks very poor when typeset. Preceding the two parentheses by \left and \right causes TeX to automatically size the parentheses. Note that \left and \right must occur in pairs and you cannot break lines, or put an alignment symbol, inside such a pair. A rather common, but hard to diagnose, error arises when this rule is not followed.

Tables, pictures, and graphics

Use the options [h], [!h], etc., to finetune the placement of tables and figures. LaTeX uses sophisticated algorithms to decide where to place tables and figures enclosed in \begin{table} ... \end{table} or \begin{figure} ... \end{figure} environments. Usually, this works just fine, but occasionally (especially with documents that have lots of figures or tables), this results in a poor placement - for example, in the middle of a bibliography. To correct this, first try adding one of the options [h], [t], or [b], to \begin{table} or \begin{figure}; e.g., \begin{table}[h] asks for placement of the table "here" (i.e., at the place where table appears in the document). (Similarly, the options "[t]" and "[b]" ask for placement at the top resp. bottom of the page.) If this does not work, add an exclamation mark to the option (e.g., "[!h]"). As a last resort, you could insert a pagebreak with \clearpage at a place where you want the table to appear, possibly combined with one or more "\suppressfloats" instructions at places where you don't want the table to appear.
Use the "graphicx" package to include graphics produced by external programs. The ideal graphics format for inclusion in a LaTeX document is "encapsulated postscript" or eps. Files in this format usually can be recognized by a filename with a ".eps" extension. Nearly all picture generating programs (including Mathematica, xfig, or Windows/Mac tools like MS Word, Paint, etc.) have the ability to save the graphics as an eps file. Once you have your graphics in eps format, use the "graphicx" package to import these files into your TeX document, by (i) adding \usepackage{graphicx} (note the "x" at the end!) to the preamble to load the graphicx package, and (ii) adding an instruction of the form \includegraphics{file.eps} at the place you want the graphics to appear, for each such file. For (much) more on this, consult the "epslatex" documentation, which you can call up and print out with the command "texdoc epslatex.ps". Other methods of including graphics, such as the "epsf" or "epsfig" packages, are considered obsolete and their use is discouraged (though they may still work).
Commutative diagrams. Simple diagrams can be created with the "CD" environment, provided by the "amscd" package (to load this package, add the line "\usepackage{amscd}" to the preamble). This environment is derived from the \CD ... \endCD environment in amstex, and the syntax is basically the same. For more complex diagrams, there is the "xy-pic" program (to be loaded by the line "\usepackage{xy}"), an amazingly powerful and versatile tool, with which you can draw pretty much every diagram that you might encounter in mathematics. The program is documented in a short guide "xyguide" and a comprehensive reference manual "xyrefer", which you can call up and print out with "texdoc xyguide.ps" and "texdoc xyrefer.ps".
Drawing figures by hand. If you need to draw a picture by hand, use "xfig", which is available on the math department's Unix system. xfig is powerful, yet easy to use and intuitive, and it comes with extensive documentation and help files. Once you have created a picture in xfig, save it in eps format and import it into the LaTeX document as shown above.

Miscellany

Putting TeX documents on the web. The cleanest, easiest, and quickest way to make a TeX document available on the web is to convert it to pdf format and then post the pdf file. The conversion from LaTeX to pdf is a painless one step process: just say "pdflatex file.tex" to generate a pdf file "file.pdf" directly from a LaTeX file "file.tex". I have been using this method to make class materials available to students, and I have converted hundreds of documents in this way, without encountering a single problem. Other approaches, such as converting TeX files to html files with embedded gif's, are more cumbersome to use, more prone to errors, and the resulting web pages generally look rather poor.
Printing dvi files from within xdvi. Unfortunately, direct printing from the xdvi screen is not possible. You need to exit xdvi and then use dvips to get a printed copy of the program. If the dvi file is one that you have created and which is therefore readily accessible, this is no problem, but you might find yourself in a situation where a program such as netscape or texdoc calls up xdvi to view a file, and you have no idea where the file is located or what the file name is. Here is what you can do in these cases: In netscape, if a postscript or pdf version of the document is provided (this is the case with, for example, MathSciNet or the ArXiv), click on the links corresponding to those versions. If only a dvi version is provided, download the file before clicking on the link with the filename, then use dvips on the downloaded copy of this file to get a printout. With texdoc, try to specify the filename with a ps extension; e.g., "texdoc thesis.ps" instead of "texdoc thesis". If there are both a ps and a dvi version of the document on our system, then specifying the ps extension will force the ps version to be displayed with ghostview or gv, and you can print the file directly from ghostview. If there is a dvi version, but no ps version (as in the case of "fancyhdr"), find the parent directory of the dvi version using the "locate" tool, then use dvips with the full pathname to the dvi file as argument. In the fancyhdr example, you'd say "locate fancyhdr.dvi" to find the location of fancyhdr.dvi (underneath /usr/local/encap/teTeX/), and and then use "dvips /usr/local/encap/teTeX/share/texmf/doc/latex/fancyhdr/fancyhdr.dvi".
Citations. The advice against manual coding applies here as well. Use the built-in cite mechanism of LaTeX: instead of "[3]" or "[Wi96]" use "\cite{3}" or "\cite{Wi96}" to reference bibliography items. This has a number of advantages, the most important of which is that it makes adding or deleting a bibliography item a painless process since LaTeX automatically renumbers references. (When you do this, be sure to run latex on the file (at least) twice, since the renumbering process requires two (or more) passes.) Another advantage of using the \cite mechanism is that it makes it easy to change citation styles: if the bibliography is generated by bibtex, all you need to do is replace one bibliography style by another, e.g. \bibliographystyle{amsplain}" by "\bibliographystyle{amsalpha}". If the bibliography is set with \bibitem's, change the optional argument in \bibitem to whatever you want the label for the corresponding record in the bibliography to show, regardless of the citation key. E.g., \bibitem[Wiles1995]{wi95} produces a record with label "[Wiles1995]" but can be cited with \cite{wi95}.
Arguments in citations. Often one needs to refer to a specific theorem, section, page, etc., in a reference. The standard way to do this is by saying something like "by [5, Theorem 3.5] we have ..."; the proper way to code this using the \cite mechanism is to include the page/theorem/etc. reference in brackets, as an argument to \cite: "by \cite[Theorem 3.5]{5}" we have ..."
Bibliographies set with bibitems. There are two ways to generate bibliographies in LaTeX: either by coding each reference as a "\bibitem", placed inside a \begin{thebibliography} ... \end{thebibliography} environment within the main tex file; or by creating a separate database with bibliography records, and using a program called "bibtex" to process that database. The BibTeX approach is much more complicated and has a steep learning curve (it takes up an entire chapter in Gratzer's book), so I would recommend that beginners stick to the "\bibitem" method. I would also recommend using the "\bibitem" method for documents that have only a few bibliography items; for short bibliographies creating a bibtex database is overkill. There are several commonly accepted ways to format bibliography records with \bibitem's (e.g., putting titles inside \emph{...} and setting journal names in ordinary (Roman) font, or vice versa); look at some examples from Gratzer's book, but whatever style you choose, be sure to be consistent and format all records in the same manner.
Bibliographies set with BibTeX. The alternative method to create a bibliography is to create a separate file containing the bibliography records (and standard extension ".bib"), and read in this file into the main tex file with a "\bibliography{...}" command. The bib file has to be formatted according to rather rigid specifications; learning the proper syntax of the bib records takes some time, and keying in bibliography records in this syntax takes longer than keying the same records as \bibitems. However, the advantage of this approach is that you have to do this only once; if you write another paper that references some of the same records, you can use the same bibliography file. In fact, you can create a bibliographical database of all literature items that are of interest to you and use this database as a master database for your papers. Another significant advantage of using BibTeX is that you can download BibTeX formatted citations from MathSciNet and add these to your bibtex database. This saves you from having to enter the records manually and, more importantly, it ensures that the citations follow the standard conventions for journal abbreviations, punctuation, etc.

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Last modified: Sat 08 Sep 2007 06:43:44 PM CDT A.J. Hildebrand