Documenting with LaTeX
Recently I happened to learn to use LaTeX to create documents. I was amazed by the cool tool. While reading documents, I always used to wonder how would people create such complex mathematical equations. Thanks to LaTeX that made it so easy. I won’t go on much details about LaTeX. This is simply a type of language that you can use for documentation. It is widely used in universities as a tool for generating assignments. You can read further about it on LaTeX project. For those who haven’t started yet, let’s see how to document with LaTeX.
Where to Start?
Firstly, you need to have LaTeX distribution installed in your computer. You can find resources in LaTeX project. In my case, I downloaded and installed MikTeX, a LaTeX implementation for Windows. from here.
Now that you have LaTeX binaries, let’s start with creating some documents. All you need now is an editor. Download Winshell and install it.
What Next?
Now it is time for the go. Lets create a simple pdf file using LaTeX. Create a new Tex document called First.tex. Copy and paste the following code in the file and save it.
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\section {First pdf document using LaTeX}
\subsection{First subtitle}
Some text in first title
\subsection{Second Subtitle}
Some other text in second title.
\end{document}
Now in the Winshell window, click on Execute –> PDFView and see the pdf document pop out in front of you. Congratulations!!
Using the LaTeX plugin for eclipse
If you are a developer, you might be happy to hear that you can use LaTeX plugin for eclipse. I have used TeXlipse plugin and found it really cool. Here are some steps to configure.
1. Install the TeXclipse plugin in your eclipse. You can get the installation direction here.
2. Once you have installed TeXclipse plugin, all you need to do is configure your eclipse for using LaTeX. You can follow the directions here.
3. Now you are on the move. Create a new document, build and preview it to see how well it works for you. If you have problems running, see the directions here.
Materials and References
Once you have been able to create documents using LaTeX, now you can use this to create several other type of documents including ps (post script) and dvi (device independent file format) formats. Here is a file that contains the symbols and their corresponding LaTeX tags. Hope it will help you well.
Happy documenting. Cheers!!
