Glossary

UK List of TeX Frequently Asked Questions. http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq.

End of line.

A character, or sequence of characters, signifying a line break (in the source code not in the resulting PDF) created by pressing the enter or return ⏎ key. The underlying character code is dependent on the operating system. For example, on Unix the EOL is indicated by the line feed (\n or 0x0A) symbol (LF) whereas on Microsoft Windows the EOL is indicated by a combination of the carriage return (\r or 0x0D) symbol (CR) and the LF symbol. The catcode for an EOL is 5, but usually TeX treats an EOL the same as the space symbol, unless it's immediately followed by another EOL, in which case a paragraph break created.

TUG

TeX User Group. http://tug.org/.

CTAN

The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. http://mirror.ctan.org/.

SQL

Structured query language.

GUI

Graphical user interface.

ICO

Information Commissioner's Office. http://ico.org.uk/.

CV

Curriculum vitæ (plural: curricula vitæ).

GOW

GNU On Windows. https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow.

arara

A Java application that automates the process of building a LaTeX document. See also Volume 2 URL: http://ctan.org/pkg/arara

Basic Latin Character

One of the letters a, …, z, A, …, Z. (Part of the 7-bit ASCII set.) See also extended Latin character.

Boolean Key

A key in a key=value list where the value may be either true or false. The value part may be omitted if it's true. For example, noheader=true and noheader both switch on the noheader setting.

Category Code

The code assigned to a character that identifies its category. For example, the character “a” has the category code 11, which means it's a letter and can be used to form control words (see Volume 1). The character “$” has the category code 3, which means it's the math-shift character. It's possible to change the category code of a character. For example, in .cls (class) or .sty (package) files, the “@” character has the category code 11 (“letter”) so it can be used in control words (such as \@for) but outside of those files the “@” character has the catgory code 12 (“other”), so it can be used in the control symbol \@ but not in any control words. For more details, see The TeXbook [46].

Comma-Separated List

A list where each item is separated by a comma. Leading or trailing spaces on either side of individual items in the list may or may not be ignored, depending on the context. If in doubt, err on the side of caution and remove spaces or suppress EOL terminators with the % comment character.

datatooltk

A Java application that can be used to edit datatool databases. It can also be used to import data from CSV files, Excel spreadsheets, SQL databases and TeX files that can be loaded using probsoln's \loadallproblems command. This application can either be run in batch or GUI mode. Remember to add the datatooltk/bin directory to your system path if you want to invoke it from a command prompt. The way to do this varies according to your operating system. If you don't know how to do it, try doing a web search for “set path environment” URL: http://www.dickimaw-books.com/software/datatooltk/

datatooltk-gui

A script that invokes datatooltk in GUI mode.

Extended Character

A character that's outside of the 7-bit ASCII set. For example, an extended Latin character or any character from a non-Latin alphabet. Note that the numerical code representing a non-Latin character varies according to the file's input encoding. See also extended Latin character.

Extended Latin Character

A character that's created by combining basic Latin characters to form ligatures (e.g. æ) or by applying diacritical marks to a basic Latin character or characters (e.g. á or ø). (See also extended character.) Note that the numerical code representing an extended Latin character varies according to the file's input encoding. For example, ï has codepoint 0x00EF in the Unicode table, but has code 139 (0x8B) in the ASCII table.

flowframtk

A Java application that can be used to construct frames for the flowfram package URL: http://www.dickimaw-books.com/software/flowframtk/

Internal Command

A command that contains an at character (@) in its name (such as \@for). These commands are intended for internal use in class or package files. You should avoid using them within your document, but if you really need to, you must first change the category code of the @ symbol to “letter” (via \makeatletter) and, after you've used the internal command, change the category code back to “other” (via \makeatother).

Key=Value List

A comma-separated list of ⟨key⟩=⟨value⟩ entries. Spaces on either side of the ⟨key⟩ and ⟨value⟩ are usually ignored. If ⟨value⟩ contains a comma (for example, the value is a list), the value must be enclosed in braces and unwanted spaces should be removed. (Recall from Volume 1 that unwanted space caused by the EOL character can be ignored using the % comment character.)

kpsewhich

[Which tree to use] An application used for Kpathsea lookup and expansion. URL: http://tug.org/texinfohtml/kpathsea.html

make

An application for automating the building of software or documents by specifying dependencies

Primitive

A core command that isn't defined in terms of other commands. The TeXbook [46] describes primitives as low-level atomic operations that can't be decomposed into simpler functions. There are around 300 primitives provided by TeX. Other TeX formats, such as PDFTeX or XeTeX provide additional primitives.

Shell Escape

[Spawning programs from (La)TeX: \write18] The ability to spawn processes during the document build. Since this is a security risk, it's usually disabled by default or a restricted version may be enabled that only allows a pre-set list of commands to be run.

Special Character

A character that has a special meaning to TeX. The common special characters are: \ (the escape character, category code 0) { (group beginning, category code 1) } (group ending, category code 2) $ (math-shift, category code 3) & (alignment tab, category code 4) # (parameter, category code 6) ^ (superscript, category code 7) _ (subscript, category code 8) % (comment, category code 9) and ~ (an active character). In some cases, the whitespace characters EOL (category code 5) and ␣ (category code 10) may also be considered special.

texdef

A Perl script that displays the definition of (La)TeX commands URL: http://ctan.org/pkg/texdef

Token

Either a character (including special characters) or a control sequence.

UTF-8

Unicode Transformation Format — 8-bit.

This is an encoding that can represent every character in the Unicode character set (see also extended character and extended Latin character). If your source code contains Unicode characters, such as é (codepoint 0x00E9) or ø (codepoint 0x00F8), you must set both your editor to UTF-8 and use the inputenc package with the utf8 option in your document: \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}. (Note that it's recommended that you also load fontenc if you use inputenc. See Volume 1.) XeLaTeX users should just load fontspec instead of inputenc and fontenc.

If you are using TeXworks, the status bar at the bottom of the window should show the encoding. You can change the editor encoding in TeXworks via the Edit→Preferences menu and select the “Editor” tab.

Whitespace

A whitespace character is an invisible character that represents horizontal or vertical space in typography. TeX treats characters with a category code of 10 as a space. By default this includes the normal space character ␣ and the tab character ↹. The term “whitespace” may also include the EOL character.

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This book is also available as A4 PDF or 12.8cm x 9.6cm PDF or paperback (ISBN 978-1-909440-07-4).