LaTeX Resources

TeX is an excellent typesetting engine created by renowned mathematician and computer scientist Professor Donald Knuth. LaTeX is Leslie Lamport’s TeX format, enabling you to access the TeX engine in a structured manner, separating content from style. LaTeX was developed by Lamport in 1985 but has since been developed and maintained by the LaTeX3 Project. If you find (La)TeX useful, please consider joining TUG or a local TeX User Group.

This page was previously at http://theoval.cmp.uea.ac.uk/~nlct/latex/. Please update any links or bookmarks.

On-Site LaTeX Resources

LaTeX Articles Written or Co-Authered by Me

TUGboat Articles
LaTeX.net Articles (articles formerly on the LaTeX Community’s “Know How” area have been moved here).
Nicola L. C. Talbot.
Teaching LaTeX for a staff development course.
The PracTeX Journal, (4) 2007.
Peter Flom, Hans Hagen, Joe Hogg, Nicola Talbot, Philip Taylor, Christina Thiele, and David Walden.
What is TeX?
The PracTeX Journal, (3) 2005.

Useful Resources

Here is a list of resources you might find useful. Please note I’m not responsible for the contents of external sites.

General information

Official

Introductions, Overviews or Advocacy

Other Useful Sites

Learn LaTeX (learnlatex.org)
TeXblog - Typography with TeX and LaTeX
texdev.net: Some TeX Developments (a TeX blog by Joseph Wright)
LaTeX.net: The LaTeX Network
TeXample.net (examples and aggregate blog feeds from TeX communities)
LaTeX for Humans (using LaTeX in the humanities)
Obsolete classes and packages
What are other good resources on-line for information about TeX, LaTeX and friends?
docsurvey – A survey of LaTeX documentation (or texdoc docsurvey)

You can search for TeX/LaTeX packages or browse for topics on the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN). If you know the name of the package, you can obtain information from the address http://ctan.org/pkg/package-name where package-name is the name of the package. For example, to find information on the glossaries package, go to http://ctan.org/pkg/glossaries.

In the past, UK-TUG had LaTeX training days. The training day materials are available on GitHub. The learnlatex.org site is an off-shoot of the training material.

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LaTeX Books

See also the Books about TeX, typography, and friends (TUG) and AMS TeX-related Publications page.

Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly. A Guide to LaTeX. Addison-Wesley.
Michel Goossens, Frank Mittelbach and Alexander Samarin. The LaTeX Companion. Addison-Wesley.
Leslie Lamport. LaTeX: a Document Preparation System. Addison-Wesley.
Michel Goossens, Sebastian Rahtz and Frank Mittelbach. The LaTeX Graphics Companion: Illustrating Documents with TeX and PostScript. Addison-Wesley.
Michel Goossens and Sebastian Rahtz with Eitan Gurari, Ross Moore and Robert Sutor. The LaTeX Web Companion: Integrating TeX, HTML and XML. Addison-Wesley.
Stefan Kottwitz. LaTeX Beginner’s Guide. Packt Publishing, 2011.
Marc van Dongen. LaTeX and Friends. Springer, 2012.

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Installation guides

The easiest way of installing TeX is to install it from the TeX Live DVD which is distributed to members of TUG. However, TeX distributions can also be downloaded from the internet.

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Using LaTeX with other applications

Automation

There are some useful tools to help automate the process of building a document. These include:

Format conversions

TeX4ht Converts LaTeX and TeX to HTML (as well as other formats.)
TtH Translates either plain TeX or LaTeX documents to HTML.
LaTeX2HTML Converts LaTeX documents to HTML (Perl script.)
Hevea Converts LaTeX to HTML (written in Objective Caml.)
lwarp
LaTeX2rtf Converts (limited) LaTeX to RTF.
pdftohtml Converts PDF to HTML.

Bibliography management

JabRef Java application.
RefDB Light weight portable application which can run on a variety of platforms.
KBibTeX BibTeX editor for KDE.
xbibfile written in C under Linux using the X Window System

Other

latexindent a Perl script to indent LaTeX files. (See also YouTube - latexindent.pl demonstration (using arara))

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Graphics

LaTeX graphics packages

PGF/TikZ (works with LaTeX and PDFLaTeX.)
PSTricks (works with LaTeX, but requires pdftricks package to work with PDFLaTeX.)
PSTricks mailing list
pgfornament

Graphics applications

There are also applications that aren’t specifically drawing applications but have the capability of exporting images either as PDF or (La)TeX code. For example:

Gnuplot
GeoGebra can export drawings to pstricks and tikz formats
Scribus is a desktop publishing application but can be used to create PDFs.

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Accessibility

BrlTex Open source LaTeX to braille translator.
latex-access Realtime translation of a line of LaTeX into braille.
accsupp package (better accessibility support for PDF files).
accessibility package (create tagged and structured PDF files).
axessibility package (access to formulas in PDF files by assistive technologies).
tagpdf package (tagging PDF files with pdfLaTeX and LuaLaTeX).
Blindmath This newsgroup isn’t specifically TeX-related, but there are TeX users on this list who may be able to help with related TeX queries.
Mathematics For Computer Generated Spoken Documents (T.V Raman’s Audio System for Technical Readings)

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Troubleshooting

If you want to post a query to any newsgroup, forum or mailing list, make sure you first read How to ask a question. Remember that you’re more likely to get a prompt response if you provide a minimal example.

TeX Frequently Asked Questions Got a query about TeX/LaTeX? This is the first place to go!
TeX - LaTeX on StackExchange A Q&A site for users of TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and related typesetting systems.
LaTeX Community A forum for LaTeX users covering various topics.
comp.text.tex newsgroup. Note that newsgroups are best viewed using a newsreader that can filter out the spam. If English isn’t your first language, there’s also fr.comp.text.tex, hun.comp.text.tex and de.comp.text.tex.
texhax mailing list.
pdftex mailing list.
There are various other TUG mailing lists in addition to the texhax and pdftex mailing lists.
LaTeX - TeXnique (French)
TeX und LaTeX, Fragen und Antworten (German)
goLaTeX (German)
Comunidade de LaTeX (Brazilian Portuguese)
MacOSX-TeX Mailing List
MiKTeX FAQ

Other non-English resources may be available. Check your local TeX User Group (if one exists) for further information.

Some of the big packages (for example pgf/tikz) also have their own mailing lists or forums. If you look up the package on CTAN, it will provide a link to the package’s home page, if one exists. (However most packages don’t have one.)

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Publishing

LaTeX is great at producing good quality documents, but a well typeset document isn’t a guarantee that you will have instant success in publishing it. If you are thinking of self-publishing or being published, be aware of the pitfalls.

Travels in TeX Land: The post-typesetting phase of producing a book In this article from The PracTeX Journal, Dave Walden provides some useful advice on what to do once you have typeset your book and are thinking about publishing it. See also Dave Walden’s Notes on Self-publishing.
Self Publishing and Independent Publishing Trade Association In particular, read their FAQ.
If you’re trying to submit a manuscript to a publisher or literary agent, remember that most publishers and agents require manuscripts in a certain format. This format usually includes double-spacing, single-sided, single spaces between sentences (\frenchspacing), ragged right and wide margins so you’ll need to convert your nicely typeset document into something that looks like it’s been created on a typewriter. The sffms class file is a good place to start. See also Writer Beware.
If you want to self-publish a novel using LaTeX, have a look at the novel class.

Books:

Renni Browne and Dave King. Self-Editing for Fiction Writes: How to Edit Yourself into Print. Collins 2004.
Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark. How Not To Write a Novel: 200 Mistakes to Avoid at all Costs if You Ever Want to Get Published. Penguin 2009.
Pat Walsh. 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never be Published and 14 Reasons Why it Just Might. Penguin 2005.

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