Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with latex

Latex filter, no, the other kind of latex

jonesor — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:36:51 -0800

Latex filter (not that sort). I'm using Latex (with TexShop and Bibdesk) and I need to format a bibliography in a particular way. Please help! I need to format the bibliography so that each reference simply follows on from the one before, without a carriage return.

i.e. like this:

1. Bloggs, F. 2000 Working can be fun. Journal of Work Science 10:30-45. 2. Doe, J. 1999 Camels for beginners. Camel Racing Press 34:56-76. 3. Giles, F. 1987 Sheep are woolly. Farmers Weekly. 4:67-90.

Rather than this:

1. Bloggs, F. 2000 Working can be fun. Journal of Work Science 10:30-45.

2. Doe, J. 1999 Camels for beginners. Camel Racing Press 34:56-76.

3. Giles, F. 1987 Sheep are woolly. Farmers Weekly. 4:67-90.

Are there any style files out there that accomplish this? Or ones that can be easily edited to do it?

I'm a total beginner at this...

Picture a Venn diagram with 3 circles: LaTeX, Emacs, Mac. I'd like to live in the intersection.

gleuschk — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:08:47 -0800

Mac users who write LaTeX documents in Emacs (with or without AucTeX), please tell me about your workflow. My wife and I both recently switched (back) to Macs from Windows machines. We're mathematicians, and we both live -- or used to live -- pretty much completely inside an Emacs buffer, writing LaTeX. We've had a terrible time approximating our Windows setups on the new Macs. What Emacs version do you people use? (I've tried Aquamacs and Carbon Emacs.) What PDF previewer? (Skim, Preview, something else?) Most importantly: how is everything tied together, in your .emacs or elsewhere?

Finally, please help me understand what the point of AucTeX is. Both the emacs versions I've tried come with it pre-installed. So far, all I can see is that it adds unnecesary keystrokes when I want to typeset something, and destroys all my useful muscle-memory. Do you use it? Does it make your life better/easier?

Is dirty latex safe?

pokeedog — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:30:57 -0800

Compost & painted wood walls, is it a good mix? I have a number of narrow louvered doors from a remodel, that I think would be great to use as walls for a compost pile. I would configure it myself, such as something similar to this. The doors I would like to use are covered in latex paint. I'm positive there is no lead paint on them. Do you think the latex paint covered doors would contaminate my compost pile? I would imagine in a few months the paint would start to flake.

Fixing sticky latex paint

Foam Pants — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:59:49 -0800

A latex-painted dresser's drawers are sticking closed. Is there any hope? I received an old dresser and I wanted to paint its ratty face red. Under advice from a local paint retailer, and against my better judgement, I painted it with latex paint. Now the gummy surfaces of the drawers and frame are sticking together so violently that pieces of wood are actually coming off! The drawer-faces are made to sit inside of the frame so it is doubly bad. Taking all of the paint off is not an option. The frame is in such bad shape that, without the paint, it looks like hell. I have no designated workspace, so any really nasty chemicals are out. Is there anything that I can do to salvage this dresser?

Seeking great examples of book design in LaTeX

tomwheeler — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:24:56 -0800

I am teaching myself typesetting with LaTeX. I learn best by example and so I'm looking for some great examples to follow — especially if they're based on the Memoir class. Ideally, I'd love to find some (public domain) classic literature that stands out as a great study in syntax, style and design. What do you recommend?

UnWord Me

tmcw — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:53:32 -0800

Escaping M$ Word, but getting the same formatting... So, I'll need to type a few papers this semester. I'm using a Mac. I have Office installed, actually, but I hate it: I would rather write in LaTeX, Bean, etc. But my professors will definitely be looking for 12px Times New Roman double spaced, standard margins, etc. Are there any LaTeX templates for this, or is the typesetting engine way too different. And OpenOffice seems to be one of the least native apps I've used on my mac (even Inkscape is a lot better), so I'd rather not go that route.

Any tips on escaping this big M?

help me figure out why my latex isn't working?!

paultopia — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:56:12 -0800

I'm learning latex by trying to write a paper in it... and it's going all awry. I'm getting a bunch of bizarre error messages when I try and add formulas ... help?! I'm following the instructions on this page to enter mathematics mode and enter equations. So a sample few sentences of text looks something like this:

Let the one-round payoff for a cooperating trader be \rho, and let the one-round payoff for defection be \psi. For obvious reasons, $ \psi > \rho $, and let $ \phi = \psi - \rho $. We will assume a community member gets \kappa from a trade in which the trader cooperates, \lambda ($ \lambda < \kappa $) from a trade in which the trader defects. Should the community member refuse to trade with a given trader, I will assume that the community member can randomly draw another trading partner from the community at a cost of \xi.\footnote{That is, \xi represents the loss that a community member must suffer from trading with a different member of the community. Intuitively, this cost can be understood either as a loss of time, or as imperfect substitution between trading partners.} Intuitively, each payoff variable should be constrained to be positive.

When I try to run pdftex on the file, I get error messages like this:

?
[5]
! Missing $ inserted.
< inserted text >

1.70 ...nd payoff for a cooperating trader be \rho
, and let the one-round pa...

I also get error messages like this...

?

Overfull \hbox (56.50252pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 70--81

HELP? What have I done wrong here?

Looking for a lightweight Latex editor

alligatorman — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:19:27 -0800

I'm looking for a lightweight text editor that can easily be configured to work with LaTeX. I don't want an editor that is loaded with features.

I'm essentially looking for a syntax-highlighting Wordpad that would allow me to build and view a LaTeX file by pressing F9 (or something similar).

Does something similar to this exist? Thanks!

Sleep, perchance to sleep cooly, like Sam Cucumber Marlow

oxford blue — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:06:26 -0800

Will an Ikea Sultan Erfjord latex mattress bake me as I sleep? I'm thinking about buying an Ikea Sulant Erfjord latex mattress.

Doing some quick research on the web it seems some people have problems with latex mattresses being too hot during the night. Are latex mattress (a lot) hotter than traditional spring mattresses?

The Ikea website mentions the choice of materials circulates the air, and from what I remember of the in store display there are numerous holes in the latex body of the mattress for (one assumes) air circulation.

By way of context, I tend to be a warm sleeper (I rarely need more than a sheet and a light blanket or two. I recently bought a new doona/duvet and find it's often too warm for me) and when I get hot it takes awhile for me to cool down.

Two additional bed temperature questions; will my choice of mattress pad/mattress protector effect the overall temperature? One I was looking at (the Sultan Timan) has a foam/wool filling; would this make the bed hotter or cooler? Similaraly would a mattress protector (cotton, or a cotton/* blend) make the overall temperature hotter or cooler?

More generally, does anyone have any experience with this bed, latex beds, ikea latex mattresses, or ikea mattresses? As a poor student it's a fairly sizable chunk of change, and having a goodnights sleep is important for me, so I want to make sure this is the right decision.

How can I make my thesis look beautiful?

roofus — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:36:27 -0800

I have a 50,000 word medical thesis to write. I don't want it to end up looking like a big ugly Word document, just printed out on A4 and bound. I would like some graphic design inspiration/tips for making it look more like a real book, which would actually be a pleasure to pick up and read. The bulk of the thesis is made up of existing papers, which I wrote in Word 2004 for Mac, using Sente and Papers as my bibliographic system. At this stage I don't think it is worth the effort to learn to use LaTeX. Unless there are convincing arguments for switching systems, I am mostly looking for suitable design resources online, and tips for making this as painless as possible in Word.

Getting latex paint off a car

dw — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:28:41 -0800

Yesterday I managed to rub my car against a steel pole with about umpteen layers of latex paint on it. It left a streak of latex on my car. How do I get the paint off without wrecking the clear-coat finish of my car? So I'm at the gas station, and I'm backing my car (1996 Contour) up to the pump at about 2-3 MPH, and after I do so I notice I'm too close to the pump. So I slowly back out, move the car over, and then realize what this weird noise I heard twice was.

There are these steel poles filled with concrete that are there to protect the gas pump from, well, people like me hitting them. The poles were covered with about 100 layers of white latex paint. I was too close to the poll, and the top of my wheelwell rubbed against it.

The physical damage doesn't appear to be much -- a tiny dent that looks like it was hit by a hail stone. But it did deposit this white line of latex paint on the car. There was no green paint on the pole, and a little bit of picking at the white paint revealed the green clearcoat is still there, so that gives me hope I can get the white paint off and that'll be good enough. (I'm about to sell this car in a couple months, anyway.)

So, how do I get it off without wrecking the paint underneath? Buff it off? Goo Gone? Any ideas?

Screenshots into b&w LaTeX Figures

Alterscape — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:30:09 -0800

How do I best prepare color .png screenshots for publication as figures in a LaTeX document that will be printed in b&w conference proceedings? My paper includes several color screenshots from an application I'm building. I've captured the screenshots using OS X's Grab feature (cmd+shift+4) and converted them to EPS3 using ImageMagick's convert commandline tool (convert figure.png eps3:figure.eps) and successfully inserted the figures into my LaTeX document, which renders legibly using pdflatex.

Concerns: I'm fairly certain that the conference proceedings will be printed in b&w; my screenshots are color. I presume I'm going to have to convert them to halftone (probably in Photoshop, since I imagine I'll have to rescale them anyway). Is it safe to assume 300dpi?

Rendering halftones implies that the images will have to be printed actual size; what's the best way to ensure this when marking up an \includefigure{} in LaTeX? I know specifying no height or width will render the image in its native height and width, but is that height and width in pixels or inches? How do I prevent rescaling that will mess up the halftones for the printer?

Right now I'm using the subfigure package and printing two figures side by side on the page with \includefigure[height=.45\textwidth]. How can I cause LaTeX to output this width, so I can manually resize the screenshots before converting them to b&w?

What's the best way to preview this output? I have access to a color laser printer; will it render the halftoned images approximately as they will appear in print or should I try something else?

Arial or Times New Roman? Single spaced? Bold?

billtron — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:08:07 -0800

Who wants to share their favorite MS Word 2003 Style themes for writing academic papers? I am a terrible typesetter. All my writing looks ugly and I don't have time to learn LaTeX before May.

LaTeX font hell

about_time — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:57:09 -0800

Help! I don't know what I did, but I somehow destroyed my Mac's (10.5) ability to render fonts in my LaTex document correctly. I was using darwin ports to upgrade teTex. I found a couple directories that were confusing compilations like "X11R6 1" --- must have been created by apple during the upgrade of xtools or something --- but after I fixed this, the fonts were already messed up. I tried uninstalling and rebuilding teTex, but this did not help. Many of my equations don't even display. What can I do? I'm desperate as I'm about to take a trip and need latex working. Thanks for your help!

How do I make LaTeX PDF presentations that don't look like cheap PowerPoint?

Anything — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:00:19 -0800

How do I make LaTeX PDF presentations that don't look like cheap PowerPoint? I have just begun studying the basics of LaTeX. There seem to be many good docs and packages for creating nice no-nonsense layouts for papers, but I would also like to use LaTeX for on-screen presentations. The problem is that all the presentation packages I've looked at (beamer, prosper, pdfscreen) seem to be founded on the idea that presentations need to have these fancy colorful blocks and bubbles that serve no functional purpose. What I want is a presentation that looks just as simple as any academic paper, but with a layout that's designed for a big screen in front of an audience. How do I do this?

How do you know if you're allergic to latex?

tamitang — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:32:56 -0800

Other than dying first, how do you know if you have a latex allergy? So other than anaphylactic shock, how do you know for sure that you have a latex allergy? My daughter had a baby about six weeks ago and was catheterized during the delivery. Ever since then it burns when she pees but the OB/GYN says there's no infection. Last week she had minor surgery with general anesthesia (for something else) and it seems like her uvula is HUGELY swollen and her throat is really, really sore.

The reason we are wondering if these two problems could be due to a latex allergy is because when she was about three years old she had stitches on a large cut with those little steri-strips thingies. When it was time for the strips to come off, they peeled away big chunks of skin and we were told then that she was allergic to the strips. She is also allergic to penicillin if there could be any connection there. Her siblings have various allergies too. Her sister gets hives from exposure to cold (yes, it's true!) and her brother has asthma, so a new allergy in the family wouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Yes, she is going to the urologist as soon as she can get an appointment but we're also wondering if a trip to an allergist is in order.

Should I be using LaTex instead of MS Word?

reenum — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:00:09 -0800

I'm currently writing a novel. Should I use LaTex instead of MS Word? I've been writing a novel this month, and found some stuff online about LaTex and Lyx. I've gotten tired of constantly wrestling with styles and formatting in Word and OpenOffice.

So I have a few questions for the MeFi community:

1. Is it worth it to learn LaTex if I'm doing non-scientific and non-academic writing?

2. What are some good resources to help learn how to get started?

3. What exactly is the difference between LaTex and Lyx?

4. Is there a way to be able to modify my LaTex output in MS Word if needed? This might come in handy if I'm at another person's machine and don't have LaTex/Lyx installed.

5. I've heard about templates in LaTex. Are these strictly for academic use or are there templates for regular documents like letters, resumes, etc.

Thanks for all your help!

Bibdesk exporting?

names are hard — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:25:19 -0800

How do you export or convert BibDesk (or generally Bibtex) bibliographies in a specific format (like MLA, etc.)? I'm having trouble figuring out how to copy it over as something besides Latex format. Is there an (easy) way to do this? I like the program's power, but I don't really use latex. Maybe it isn't worth it?

Also, another random bibdesk question while we're here: Can you really not supply publication location data? Seems like this is standard for books, but I don't see a field.

Where can I hide this LaTeX preamble?

chndrcks — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:18:06 -0800

I found a nice LaTeX .sty file for mla6, but to format the citations properly, it requires a long preamble which I'd rather not copy and paste each time I write a paper. Can I hide it somewhere? I found the style here (this file) But I have to add the following to the preamble of any document I want to format this way:
\jurabibsetup{
authorformat={citationreversed,reducedifibidem,firstnotreversed},
citefull=first,
round,% -- JMC
endnote=false,% -- JMC
annotatorfirstsep=qtd,% -- JMC
% idem=strict,% -- JMC %---->the MLA Handbook says those options should be avoided, if, however, you want to use them, delete the %
% ibidem=strict,% -- JMC %---->the MLA Handbook says those options should be avoided, if, however, you want to use them, delete the %
% pages=ignoreibidem,% -- JMC (new option in latest beta) crossref=long %---->the MLA Handbook says those options should be avoided, if, however, you want to use them, delete the %
crossref=long,
titleformat=commasep,
bibformat=ibidem,
}

\AddTo\bibsenglish{%
\def\edbyname{}
\def\Edbyname{ed.}
\def\inname{\unskip}
\def\editorname{\unskip,\space ed.}
\def\editorsname{\unskip,\space eds.}
\def\etalname{et al\periodn}
\renewcommand*{\trans}{trans.}
\renewcommand*{\ibidemname}{}
\renewcommand*{\ibidemmidname}{}
\renewcommand*{\idemname}{}
\renewcommand*{\idemmidname}{}
\renewcommand*{\firstedname}{1\textsuperscript{st}}
\renewcommand*{\secondedname}{2\textsuperscript{nd}}
\renewcommand*{\thirdedname}{3\textsuperscript{rd}}
\renewcommand*{\fourthedname}{4\textsuperscript{th}}
\renewcommand*{\fifthedname}{5\textsuprescript{th}}
\renewcommand*{\thedname}{\textsuperscript{th}}
\renewcommand*{\editionname}{ed.}
\renewcommand*{\urldatecomment}{\unskip\commas}
\biburlfont{rm}
}
\addto\jbonlyforbib{%
\DeclareRobustCommand{\mla}{. }
\DeclareRobustCommand{\mlaws}{.}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\commas}{ }
\DeclareRobustCommand{\periodn}{}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\nosnoc}{.}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\commanot}{}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\nocolon}{:}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\diss}{Diss}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\perf}{Perf.}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\dir}{Dir.}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\reviewintro}{Rev. of }
\DeclareRobustCommand{\specintro}{Spec. issue of }
\DeclareRobustCommand{\Edbyname}{Ed.}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\editorname}{\unskip,\space ed}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\editorsname}{\unskip,\space eds}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\revedname}{Rev.}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\editionname}{ed}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\trans}{Trans.}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\bibapyldelim}{}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\bibapyrdelim}{}
\renewcommand*{\bibtfont}{\textit}
\renewcommand*{\bibbtfont}{\textit}
\renewcommand*{\bibjtfont}{\textit}
\renewcommand{\bibauthormultiple}{---. }
}

Is there any easier way? Or alternatively, is there a better mla package out there?

How do I get Lyx and natbib to cooperate?

pcward — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:36:39 -0800

LyX for Mac madness. How do I get Lyx and natbib to play nice? I'm trying to do citations like "Jones, 2003", so natbib seemed to do what I would like.

However, using \citet{bibRef} only produces numerical references ("[1]"). Ergh. What am I doing wrong? I selected natbib and numerical style under Document Settings->Bibliography.

LaTex Book Templates?

tesseract420 — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:39:06 -0800

Where can I find LaTex book templates? It's relatively easy to find templates for an academic thesis, or a long manuscript. But these are pretty bare-bones. Where can I find a nice template for narrative fiction?

Latex options …

raheel — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 10:32:45 -0800

A Latex question: So I am writing this theoretical CS paper in Latex and need to typeset math-y phrases that I can't seem to typeset just right. Detailed description inside … My phrases include full words constants, so I have "stuff + crap" instead of "a + b" and of course there are lots more math-y symbols I use instead of a simple "+". Now, "stuff" looks yucky inside $$ and much better inside italics. I figured out two options to go about it:

1) Include my whole phrase inside $$ or in an "equation" environment, and then \mathit every word I need to.
2) Italicize my whole phrase in \emph and do a $$ for each math symbol I need in it.

I have a feeling both are quite hacky options. Is there a better option?

As for an example look at the phrases page 5 onward in this paper.

What are good adhesive to bond rubber/latex and cloth to aluminum?

h2 — Thu, 03 May 2007 12:46:44 -0800

What are good adhesives to bond rubber/latex and cloth to aluminum? I'm looking for good clean strong adhesives to bond latex or rubber and cloth to bare aluminum. The rubber/latex and cloth will not need to be bonded to eachother, only to the aluminum. The adhesive will have to endure traffic pulling on the latex/rubber with several pounds of force (~10lbs) over several years. Also, how do I go about finding (and contracting?) a factory or place of assembly to assemble the said materials?

LaTeX

Aloysius Bear — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:09:55 -0800

Help me with lists in LaTeX! And I'd like some general advice about whether LaTeX and LyX are worth the hassle. I'm using LyX on Windows XP. I want to make a list that looks something like this:



A.1) a) i) Text here.

        ii) Text here.

        iii) Text here.

     b) Some text here.



B.3) Some text here.



B.6) Some text here.

Is this possible in LyX? If not, how easy is it to do in LaTeX itself?

More importantly: I get the impression that the answer to this question might not be trivial. I may need to do this kind of non-standard formatting quite often. Given that, is it worth sticking with LaTeX? I know I could hack together a list that looked OK in Word without so much hassle, so I'm wondering if LaTeX/LyX etc are worth the effort.

I'm writing a number of essays and short answers per week (a few of which contain equations and tables of statistics), and later in the year will start my undergraduate dissertation in the social sciences. I'm pretty competent with software in general, but my aim is to find a word-processing setup which lets me get on with writing, rather than one which has maximum geek-points.

How to center vertically in a LaTeX table?

leahwrenn — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:06:01 -0800

How do I center text (or, really, images) up-and-down within a tabular cell in LaTeX? I have a table, created in LaTeX, using the tabular environment. I would like the contents of the cells to be centered within each cell vertically, as well as horizontally. (That is, if the cell is a box, I want there to be white space above and below the text, if there is some other cell with more text.)

(For the purposes of full disclosure, I use the tabular environment within a figure environment to easily make multi-part figures; the issue is I have a big image and a small image side-by-side, and I'd like the small image to appear centered vertically with the big image, aligned with the baseline of the big image! If you can tell me how I really should be doing this, that would be an acceptable answer too.)