LaTeX is a typesetting program that produces excellently typeset

documents. Typesetting is placing text onto a page with all the style

formatting defined, so that content looks as intended. It is

extensively used for producing high quality scientific and

mathematical documents. It is also used for producing other kinds of

documents, ranging from simple one page articles or letters to

books. LaTeX is based on the TeX typesetting language.

In this course, we shall use the sample document, ``sample.pdf``, as a

tool to learn various commands of LaTeX. By the end of the sessions on

LaTeX, we will have produced a copy of that document, starting from

scratch.

A Look at the Sample Document

-----------------------------

Let's first look at the basic structure of the sample document.

Slides with screen shots of

  * Title, Author, Date

  * Abstract

  * Sections

  * Subsections

  * Appendix

  * References/Bibliography

  * Tables

  * Figures

  * Math

Writing the source & compiling it

---------------------------------

Let's begin with a simple hello world, to see how to write a LaTeX

document and compile it.  Write the following code into the file

``draft.tex``.  ::

  \documentclass{article}

  \begin{document}

  SciPy is open-source software for mathematics, science, and engineering.   

  \end{document}

To compile the document, do the following in your terminal::

  $ pdfLaTeX draft.tex

This produces the output file ``draft.pdf``

Note: The ``LaTeX`` command is often used, instead of ``pdfLaTeX`` to

get the ``dvi`` output. But, throughout this course, we shall use

pdfLaTeX to compile our documents.

``\documentclass``

------------------

The documentclass command, defines the structure and formatting of our

document. LaTeX typsets the document, based on the documentclass.

LaTeX is a document based markup language. 

First of all, a markup language is a system of annotating text or

adding in extra information to the text that specifies it's structure

or presentation.

LaTeX is a document based markup and not an element based one. You

generally don't have to worry about typesetting each of the elements

of your document. Choosing an appropriate documentclass, gives you a

suitable typesetting. You as an author can worry about the content of

the document, rather than the appearance or presentation of the

document.

  * It produces documents with excellent visual quality.

  * It does the typesetting for you, leaving you - the author - to

    focus on writing the content.

  * It's renowned for it's stability and a virtually bug free code

    base.

  * It is light on your resources as compared to most of the word

    processors available today.

  * It uses plain text files as input and can give output in a variety

    of formats including PDFs and html making it platform independent.

``\begin`` and ``\end`` commands define environments. In our document,

we have the document environment, which defines the beginning and end

of the content of the document. We place all the content of the

document within this environment.

Also, as you may have noticed, all the commands in LaTeX begin with a

``\``. Note that they are case sensitive. Command names in LaTeX

usually have only alpha characters. Any characters other than alpha

characters, terminate the command name. Parameters to commands are

passed in ``{ }``.

----------

Let us begin with adding the Title, Author's name and the date to the

document.

  \documentclass{article}

  \title{A Glimpse at Scipy}

  \author{FOSSEE}

  \date{June 2010}

  \begin{document}

  \maketitle

  SciPy is open-source software for mathematics, science, and engineering.   

  \end{document}

We add the title, the author and the date to the document before the

``\begin{document}`` directive. We compile the document to see if the

details appear in the document, but they donot. These details do not

appear in the document until we use the ``\maketitle`` command with

the document environment to instruct LaTeX to place the top matter

information into the document. Now the document has these details, on

compiling again.

If no date is specified, LaTeX automatically inserts the current date.

Abstract

--------

Next we shall add an abstract to our document. LaTeX provides an

environment, for adding an abstract to the document.  ::

  \documentclass{article}

  \title{A Glimpse at Scipy}

  \author{FOSSEE}

  \date{June 2010}

  \begin{document}

  \maketitle

  \begin{abstract}

  This document shows a glimpse of the features of Scipy that will be explored during this course.

  \end{abstract}

  SciPy is open-source software for mathematics, science, and engineering.   

  \end{document}

The abstract environment is placed at the location where we wish it to

appear in the document.

Sections

--------

Now let's look at how to add (chapters,) sections and sub-sections to

our document. Let's add the section headings and sub headings present

in our sample document to the working copy of our document.

``\section``, ``\subsection``, ``\subsubsection``

On compiling, we can see that the headings of the sections and the

sub-sections appear in the document.

You may have noticed that LaTeX automatically numbers the sections. To

prevent a section from getting numbered, an asterix is appended to the

corresponding sectioning command.

If the document was a longer document, we could have used a report or

a book class. (Note: Books donot have the abstract environment.) Let's

look at what happens to the document, when we change it to the report

class.

The numbering strangely begins from zero, now. This is because,

chapters have an additional sectioning command called

``\chapter``. The chapter is one level above a section and since, our

document does not have a ``\chapter`` command, the sections are

numbered from 0. To change this, we add a chapter command before the

first section. We say::

  \chapter{One}

Now, observe that we now have a chapter title appearing and the

numbering starting from 1.

Also, note that the subsubsections donot get a numbering now. This is

controlled by a variable called the secnumdepth. By default it is set

to 2. We can now, change it to 3 and get numbering for subsubsections

also.  ::

  \setcounter{secnumdepth}{3}

What do you expect to happen if we changed the secnumdepth to 1? What

if it is 0? -1? {Lab excercise}

Appendix

--------

Notice that our document also has an appendix. Let's add an appendix

to our document.

  \section{Plotting using Pylab}

-----------------

Our sample document is not long enough to warrant a table of contents,

but let us learn to add a table of contents to a LaTeX document. If

you ever tried adding a table of contents, to a document in a

wordprocessor, you would know how much of a trouble it is. In LaTeX,

it is a matter of just one command and placing the command at the

location where you would want to have the table of contents. Let's now

add a table of contents to our draft. Now, compile the document and

look at the output document. It does not have the table of contents!

On the first compilation only the "Contents" heading appears in the

document, but the actual table does not appear. You will need to

compile your document once more, for the actual table to appear in

your document. On the first run, LaTeX has gone through your document

and generated a temporary file (``.toc``), with the entries that

should go into the table of contents. These entries are made, when you

compile your document for the second time.

Note that any section/block that has been numbered automatically

appears in the table of contents. It is possible to get un-numbered

sections, for instance a Preface or a Foreword section to appear in

the Table of Contents.

Let's change our Introduction section to be an un-numbered one and try

to make it appear in the table-of-contents.  ::

  \section*{Introduction}

  \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Intro}

We shall talk about adding and managing bibliographies, later in the

course.

Now, that we have the basic structure of the document, let's get into

the content and the details of it.

Let's begin with adding the second paragraph to the introduction

section. Let's place the text of the second para, after the first

line, that we already have. Now, compile the document. 

Notice, that the second para appears in continuation with the previous

line. To start a new paragraph in LaTeX, we need to insert an empty

line. Multiple empty lines are considered as a single empty line. To

start a new line, use the ``\newline`` or ``\\`` command. Notice the

difference (in the output), in starting a new paragraph and starting a

newline. A new paragraph is indented.

---------------

Look at the quotation marks around the text, Sigh Pie. They are not

formatted properly. To place quotation marks in LaTeX, you should use

````` character for the left quote & ``'`` character for the right

quote. For double quotes, they should be used twice.

Fonts

-----

The names of the software tools, Scilab, Matlab, etc. appear in

italics or emphasized as it is called in LaTeX. To emphasize text, the

``\emph`` command is used.

Let's also add the contents of the subsection "Sub-packages of

Scipy". We shall add the table as plain text, until we learn how to

edit tables.

Let's try and form a tabular structure by separating the left and

right columns using spaces. On compiling we find that LaTeX doesn't

add multiple spaces between words. Just like multiple empty lines,

multiple spaces are considered as a single space.

The names of the sub-packages appear in a fixed width font in the

sample document provided to us. The headings of the columns appear in

bold-face. Let's make changes to this effect.

``\textbf`` is used to change text to bold face and ``\texttt`` is

used to change text to fixed width font.

We could also change the separating - (hyphen) to an em-dash (or

en-dash) -- is em-dash and --- is an em-dash, to improve the

appearance of the document.

Lists

-----

The section on Use of Scipy in this course, contains lists. Let's now

add lists to our document. The ``enumerate`` environment adds numbered

lists to our document and the ``itemize`` environment adds un-numbered

lists. ``\item`` command adds a new entry to a list. Note, that LaTeX

can easily handle nested lists. In fact most environments can be

embedded within other environments, without any problems.

LaTeX also has a description list, which shall be looked at, during

the lab sessions.

Footnotes, Labels and References

--------------------------------

Let's now add the footnote to pylab. LaTeX provides a footnote command

to add a footnote.

We added the footnote with Appendix A, as plain text. But, in case we

added another Appendix before the section on using ``pylab``, the

footnote will have to be edited. To avoid this, LaTeX provides a handy

system of labels and referencing.

We first add a label to the section that we want to refer in this

footnote. Then, we change the footnote, and add the reference to this

label instead of the character A. If you look at the output after

compiling the document once, you will see that the footnote has

question marks instead of the section number.  You will have to

compile once again, for the section number to appear in the footnote.

Including code

--------------

In the footnote above, and in the table for the sub-packages list, we

used the ``\texttt`` command to get a fixed width font. But we could

instead use an environment provided by LaTeX to include pre-formatted

text or code. LaTeX by default provides the verbatim environment to

include pre-formatted text. You can try that out during the lab

session. We shall look at using the listings package, specifically

meant for including code in our document.

First of all you need to tell LaTeX, that you want to use the listings

package in your document. We add the directive

``\usepackage{listings}`` to the preamble of our document.

Then we set the language of the code that we are going to embed into

our document. For this we use the lstset command.  ::

  \lstset{language=Python,

          showstringspaces=false,}

The listings package allows you to use color and do a lot of things

with your embedded code, but all that during a lab exercise.

Now, to put a line of code, inline and not as a separate block, we use

the ``\lstinline`` command. We change the name pylab in the footnote

to use lstinline instead of the texttt. To embed a block of code, we

use the lstlisting environment (``\begin{lstlisting}`` and

``\end{lstlisting}``). For example, let's add the code to the Appendix

of our document.

Figures, Tables and Floats

--------------------------

Let's now add the figure, to the appendix.

To include graphics in a LaTeX document, we need to use the graphicx

package. Add the ``\usepackage{graphicx}`` directive to the preamble

of the document.

To add the graphic, use the ``includegraphics`` command. The relative

path of the image that we wish to include is passed as an argument to

includegraphics. It takes an optional argument of scaling the

image. We use a scale of 0.4 to scale our image.

It takes other optional arguments. 

  ``width=x``, ``height=x`` 

    If only the height or width is specified,

    the image is scaled, maintaining the aspect ratio.

  ``keepaspectratio``

    This parameter can either be set to true or false. When set to

    true, the image is scaled according to both width and height,

    without changing the aspect ratio, so that it does not exceed both

    the width and the height dimensions.

  ``angle=x``

    This option can be used to rotate the image by ``x`` degrees,

    counter-clockwise.

Figures (and tables) are treated specially because, they cannot be

broken across pages. They are "floated" across to the next page, if

they donot fit on the current page, filling the current page with

text.

To make our graphic into a float, we should enlose it within a figure

environment. For a table, the table environment should be used. We now

move our graphic into a figure environment. The figure environment

takes an additional parameter for the location of the

float. ``\begin{figure}[hbtp!]``. The specifiers ``htbp`` are

permissions to place the float at various locations. ``t`` for top of

page, ``b`` for bottom of page, ``p`` for a separate page for floats

and ``h`` for here, as in the same place where the command appears in

the source. ``!`` mark overrides a few of LaTeX's internal parameters

for good position of floats.

The figure environment also, allows us to add a caption to the graphic

using the ``\caption`` command.

To place the graphic in the center aligned in the page, we use the

center environment.

To label a figure, we just add a label with in the figure

environment. Note, that the label to a figure should be added after

the caption command. Also, note that tables are auto-numbered.

Let us finish the appendix, by adding the content present at the

beginning of the appendix. The bibliographic citations will be dealt

with later.

Now, let us look at the other kind of floats - Tables. We shall

convert the list of sub-packages in the sub-packages section to a

table.

To begin a table, we use the tabular environment. And to make this a

float, it is enclosed in the table environment. The table environment

also allows us to add captions to the table and Tables are also auto

numbered.

The tabular environment takes as arguments the columns and the

formatting of each column. The possible arguments to the tabular

environment are

It also takes an optional parameter that specifies the position of the

table; ``t`` for top, ``b`` for bottom, or ``c`` for center.

Each column of a table is separated by an ``&`` symbol and each row is

separated by a new line. The ``\hline`` command allows you to draw

horizontal lines between two rows of the table. But it does not allow

you do draw partial lines. ``\cline{a-b}`` draws a horizontal line

from column ``a`` to column ``b``.

We also add a label to the table and refer to it in the first line of

the section.

You could also add a listoftables or listoffigures to the document,

similar to the way we added table of contents.

Now we shall move to typesetting the Math in the sample document given

to us. We shall start with the Matrices subsection.

In general, it is advised to use the AMS-LaTeX bundle to typeset

mathematics in LaTeX. AMS-LaTeX is a collection of packages and

classes for mathematical typesetting.

We load ``amsmath`` by issuing the ``\usepackage{amsmath}`` in the

preamble. Through out this section, it is assumed that the ``amsmath``

package has been loaded.

Let's now typeset the matrix A.

To typeset math, we just have to enclose it within ``\(`` and ``\)``

or a pair of ``$`` signs.

To typeset the matrix A, we use the ``bmatrix`` environment. It works

similar to a tabular environment - ``&`` is used to demarcate columns