Latex Secretary

Latex Secretary

Enter the terms you wish to search for.

News

Popular

Recent

Converting Files between Microsoft Word and
LaTeX
© 2022 Slashdot Media, LLC. All rights reserved.

Footer Menu Column 2

Masthead

Authors

Contact Us

Footer Menu Column 3

RSS Feeds

About Us

Life is not fair, is it? You learned how
to use Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect, only to find yourself
at a job where your boss says you must use LaTeX. What is this
thing? Can it be used for anything practical, like writing letters,
memos, reports, sending faxes or printing price lists? These are
some of the first questions that come to mind when you start using
it. Fortunately, with LaTeX, it is just as easy to typeset a
1,000-page book filled with mathematical formulae as it is to
prepare a short letter or a price list. These kinds of real-world
office applications are what we are going to discuss below.

Probably the most common misconception about LaTeX is
thinking of it as some kind of text editor or word processor. It is
neither of those tools. Let me explain. When you start Word or
WordPerfect in Microsoft Windows or on a Macintosh, it opens a
window, displaying buttons, menus and a white space where what you
type shows up immediately on-screen and can be edited at will. To
display or print documents, word processors use an “engine” of
some sort that changes simple keystrokes into nice-looking type
according to your choice of font and style. LaTeX can be thought of
as such an engine, reading plaintext files on one end and changing
them into professional-looking documents and saving in its own
format called DVI on the other end.
Although LaTeX is only a pure
typesetting system (it is not a visual DTP package like Microsoft
Publisher, Adobe PageMaker or QuarkXPress) and the documents you
process must be created using a plaintext editor, the quality of
the documents generated in LaTeX are often much superior to Word's
own efforts. However, learning to typeset documents in the former
might be harder at first than doing it in the latter because of the
need to manually add control commands to the text, which some
people find confusing. You might think of it as an unnecessary
burden, but you should remember that in reality, all word
processors and text editors add control commands to the text you
type—they just don't make them visible to us.
The best way to learn LaTeX is by example, so log in to your
system (in case you do not know what logging
in means, try some beginner Linux books) and type the
following command:
File extensions are optional and could be just about anything
you like, although using .latex or .tex is good practice, as it
makes documents easier to find.

After pressing the ENTER (or
RETURN ) key, you should see Emacs in all its
glory—two toolbars and an empty space waiting to be filled with
text. The \ character marks the beginning of LaTeX commands, so
remember to put it in as well, and do not get confused by a
\ showing up from time to time in the rightmost
column of the Emacs window—it's there to show you that a
particular line of text is longer than the width of the window and
has been wrapped. Let's type in the lines shown in Listing
1.
To save what you have just typed in, press the
CTRL-X and S keys. You should
see a message at the bottom of the window saying
Wrote .../businessletter.latex to inform
you that your document has just been saved. If you accidentally
press the wrong keys and Emacs starts complaining and beeping at
you, pressing CTRL-G will almost always get you
out of trouble.
As you can see, the example letter is sprinkled with many
strange commands and curly brackets. Besides making a document less
readable, they tell LaTeX how to format it. Unfortunately, you will
need to learn at least a few of them. While you read the following
paragraphs, refer to Listing 1 to see how each command is used in
practice.
First comes the obligatory
\documentclass[...]{...} command, which is not
as scary as it looks and is just an obscure way of telling LaTeX
what kind of document you are trying to print. It could be one of
the following: article , book ,
letter , report and
slides . Whatever you choose, put the appropriate
word between curly braces.
The square brackets surround more specific options used to
set the size of paper (available sizes include
a4paper , a5paper ,
b5paper , letterpaper ,
legalpaper and
executivepaper ).
Additional information that can go there includes page
orientation ( landscape , useful for printing
presentation slides, or portrait ), main font
size (e.g., 10pt , 12pt , etc.)
and many others.
The \frenchspacing command solves some of
the typesetting problems related to setting the amount of space
between a full stop and the next word after abbreviations like
Ms. or at the end of a sentence. I suggest you
always put it somewhere at the beginning of a file, perhaps just
after the \documentclass[...]{...} command.
Purists will surely complain about this advice, but using
\frenchspacing will automatically make documents
look better without causing you to worry how it happened. However,
if you want to be “politically correct”, always put a
~ between an abbreviated word ending with a full
stop and the next letter, number or word, e.g.,
Ms.~Green instead of just typing Ms.
Green .
After setting those options, you will need to specify the
sender's address with the \address{...} command;
every line should be separated by \\ --this
method is used in many other commands as well. If you are using
official company letterhead, you may leave this out.
LaTeX automatically puts the current date into a letter, but
you can use the \date{...} command to specify a
different one.
The signature text should go into the
\signature{...} command.
To let the program know where your letter begins, use the
\begin{document} and
\begin{letter} commands. Just after the latter,
insert the recipient's address in curly brackets. Then, begin the
greeting with the \opening{...} command and
start writing your letter. Write as much or as little as you need,
separating each paragraph with a blank line (you will need to press
the ENTER key twice).
At the end of your letter, use the
\closing{...} command and, if needed, add the
\cc{...} for “copies to:”,
\encl{...} for “enclosed items:” and
\ps{...} for PostScript.
You should end a letter file with the following commands:
\end{letter} and
\end{document} . That's it. You can save it as
described above.
There is one trick which you can use to save yourself a bit
of work when you need to type several letters. It is possible to
begin another letter in the same file, just put the
\begin{letter}{...} and the other commands
mentioned above between the \end{letter} and the
\end{document} commands. LaTeX will
automatically use the signature, date and sender's address you
specified at the beginning of a file (that's why you had to put
your signature text at the top of the file).
To start LaTeX, type this at the prompt:
After you press the ENTER key, LaTeX will
print some cryptic messages, two of which are most important:
Output written on businessletter.dvi... and
Transcript written on businessletter.log. Your
letter is output into a DVI (device independent) file, a universal
format, which you can turn into fax, PostScript or printer files.

If there are problems, LaTeX will sometimes stop in the
middle of its work and ask you for help. When that happens, make a
note of the line number at which the error has been found, then
keep tapping the ENTER key until you see the
“Transcript written on” message or the command prompt. Then run
xdvi , and after visually finding
the place where the error occurred, go back to Emacs and correct
your mistake. Usually it will be a missing bracket or a misspelled
command.
The best way to find errors and check the document's look
before you print it is to use the xdvi previewer. It works only in
the X Window System. To start it, you either choose it from a menu
or type xdvi businessletter.dvi &
on a command line in a terminal window and press the
ENTER key.
Using xdvi is easy. The buttons on the right-hand side of a
window are fairly self-explanatory, and you can press the
PAGEUP / PAGEDOWN keys to flip
pages back and forth or use the arrow-up/arrow-down keys to scroll
the page you are looking at up and down (the scroll bars work just
like in MS Windows, although with a two-button mouse, you will have
to press both buttons to use them). Pressing the
Q key exits xdvi.
The most common errors that can be found just by looking at a
page in xdvi are the overfull boxes and sudden
changes in font and style. These errors usually happen when you
forget to obey some of the following rules of typesetting in
LaTeX:
Each paragraph must by separated from another by a
blank line (just tap the ENTER key twice at the
end of a paragraph).
No matter how many spaces you put between words,
LaTeX will treat them as one space and will format it according to
its own typesetting rules. (You might change this behaviour, as
described in the section “Overriding LaTeX Rules” below.)
Quotation marks are made using `
and ' or “ and
” instead of " , so to
typeset ''funny'' , you'll need to type
''Funny'' instead of
"funny" .
Ellipsis (...) is printed with the
\ldots command; consequently, to typeset
bye... , you ought to type
bye\ldots and not
bye... .
LaTeX commands should be separated from the actual
text. We achieve that in one of the following ways:
bye, bye\ldots my love (note: the
\ character starts a command and therefore does
not need to be separated with a space, also see the list of special
characters below).
LaTeX interprets some characters as special, and to
print them literally, we need to use a special command instead. See
list in “Special LaTeX Characters”.
Commands can be nested, i.e., you can put one or
more commands within curly brackets of another, e.g.,
extsf{life is \emph{wonderful}!} .
LaTeX is very good at documenting its work and puts a lot of
information, including error messages, into a log file. For
businessletter.latex, it will be called businessletter.log. Every
error is described there as best as LaTeX can, together with a line
number, which helps to quickly find the right place in a
file.
Although the visual method of finding errors with the help of
xdvi is probably best for a beginner, there is one category of bugs
that requires a different approach—the famous Overfull
box . LaTeX produces that message when it cannot properly
break a line of text or hyphenate a word, which happens quite often
when trying to print a long web page address.
The quickest way of finding those messages is by using
grep :
After issuing the above command in an Xterm window, you will
see either an empty window (a good thing) or a list of lines where
LaTeX has put the ominous word. Go back to Emacs, find the
offending lines, then use xdvi to judge how to best fix your
document.

LaTeX is very good at typesetting, but it still needs our
help from time to time, especially in the case of the
Overfull box error. Helping LaTeX usually
means manually breaking a particular line of text. Don't worry, it
will not hurt; just follow the rules given below:
To correct bad hyphenation, put
\- inside a word, at a place where you think it
should be hyphenated, e.g., lab\-yrinth or
laby\-rinth .
To break a line after or before a word, without
inserting a hyphen, use the \linebreak[4]
command. (Try it on a line from the earlier example to see how it
works for yourself.) The text before the command will be set to
fill the whole width of the paragraph.
To break a line without filling the width of a
paragraph, use \\ .
To end a page and start a new one, use
\pagebreak[4] or
\newpage .
To keep a part of text together (such as a phone
number), use the \mbox{...} command; e.g.,
\mbox{+0 (11) 123 456 789} will be moved to a
new line if it does not fit on the current one, but it will not be
broken in half.
After you insert one of these commands into the text, save
it, run LaTeX, see how it looks in xdvi and use grep to find out
whether any problems remain. Repeat until you get rid of all
Overfull boxes .

So far, you have read about formatting letters, but you can
typeset all sorts of documents with LaTeX. For example, using
\documentclass[...]{report} will put LaTeX into
a nice report formatting mode. Brochures can be typeset with
\documentclass[...]{book} ; memos with a
\documentclass[...]{article} and presentation
slides with \documentclass[...]{slides} .
To make those documents look truly professional, there are a
few additional commands like \author{...} ,
itle{...} , and if necessary,
\date{...} . To generate a title header or a
title page, use \maketitle after the last one.
You should place those commands before
\begin{document} .
In all cases of documents other than a letter, we do not need
the \address{...} ,
\signature{...} ,
\begin{letter} ,
\opening{...} , \closing{...} ,
\cc{...} , \encl{...} ,
\ps{...} or \end{letter}
commands.
To divide long text into parts, sections and chapters, use
the \part{...} , \section{...}
and \chapter{...} commands.
There are two kinds of lists you can typeset with LaTeX:
bulleted (see Listing 2) and numbered (see Listing 3). Numbered
lists are especially handy for all sorts of agreements, contracts,
instructions, etc.
Here is a list of additional useful commands for formatting
text:
italics : enclose the text you
want printed in italics with the \emph{...}
command, e.g., I wish to \emph{emphasize}
this!
alignment of text—left:right:center:
\begin{center}...\end{center} ;
font sizes: main document font size
\normalsize{...} , and (in order of decreasing
size) \small{...} ,
\footnotesize{...} ,
\scriptsize{...} , iny{...} ,
or (in order of increasing size) \large{...} ,
\Large{...} , \LARGE{...} ,
\huge{...} ,
\Huge{...} .
Any LaTeX file can be turned into a template with the
following command:
These permissions will ensure that no one (including you) can
overwrite the file you created. Anyone can open it, but to save the
changes, it must be given a different name. In Emacs, you can do
that with CTRL-X and W . It is
also a good idea to place all templates in a separate directory.

Before you send files generated by LaTeX to a printer or a
fax modem, they need to be converted to the right format.
Fortunately, all distributions of Linux come with a set of
conversion utilities that can handle this job without too much
human intervention—you just give them the name of a file and they
do the rest:
dvi2fax : turns DVI
files into fax format, making it possible to send them via a fax
modem.
dvilj : turns DVI
files into Hewlett-Packard LaserJet format. Even if your printer is
not made by HP, it can probably still understand or
emulate LaserJet commands. All you have to do
is switch it into HP LJ emulation mode, which should be described
in the printer's manual. Some printers can switch into that mode
automatically.
dvilj2p : the DVI
to Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 2p format converter (similar to
dvilj).
dvilj4 : the DVI to
Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4 format converter (similar to
dvilj).
dvips : turns DVI
files into PostScript format, allowing them to be printed on an
Adobe PostScript compatible printer.
If you want to print the example letter, type:

Also, on some printers you will need to feed an additional
page at the end—it will come out blank, and you can reuse
it.
So far, converting Microsoft Word files to LaTeX is a bit
difficult. There are several strategies, but none of them will make
you perfectly happy. To convert a Word file to LaTeX, you
can:
Save the MS Word file as a TEXT or an ASCII file.
You will lose all formatting, pictures, drawings, linked and
embedded documents, but you will at least get the text in a format
that can be read by Emacs and LaTeX.
Save the MS Word file as an RTF file and use either
catdoc or
word2x command to turn a DOC file
into a LaTeX file. (Type man catdoc or
man word2x to learn more about their use
and options. If man does not work,
try info .) You will lose some of
the formatting information, but most of it will be preserved,
making your job a little easier.
If you need to convert a LaTeX document into a DOC file, try
the following method:

Use delatex (or
detex ) to convert a LaTeX file
into a plain text (ASCII) file:
Compare the output with the original file, and if
necessary, remove some of the commands and add missing text. These
converters do not yet work as we need them to,
unfortunately.
Open the TXT file in Word; you will then be asked
if you want to convert it from a text format. Click
Yes , apply formatting as it is needed and
choose the Save as... item from the
File menu. In the Save as
dialog, choose the Word document option and
click Save .
That is just about everything you will need to start using
LaTeX in an office. Of course, there is more to learn and I
recommend you use the locate 'lshort2e.dvi'
command to see if you can find the “Not So Short Introduction to
LaTeX2e”. It is a well-written LaTeX manual filled with many
interesting examples.
All examples from this article can be found on the Internet
at the site
www.wszechnica.safenet.pl/archiwum/lfors.htm .
If any of the commands or programs mentioned above aren't
available on your system, ask the administrator to install them and
give you the necessary permissions to use them. All of those tools
should be available for any Linux distribution.

Jacek Artymiak
is a consultant specializing in
helping companies and individuals use Linux as a desktop or
personal system for common, everyday jobs. His other occupations
include being a writer, journalist, web designer, computer graphics
artist and programmer. Readers are welcome to send their comments
via electronic mail to artymiak@safenet.pl or visit
http://www.wszechnica.safenet.pl/ .
Linux Journal, representing 25+ years of publication, is the original magazine of the global Open Source community.

Your browser isn’t supported anymore. Update it to get the best YouTube experience and our latest features. Learn more

Wear Latex
all about latex clothing

2022 is the 30-year anniversary of Batman Returns' global release! Now, what sort of a latex site would this be if we didn't mark the occasion?
Vanessa Hudgens – MTV Movie & TV awards 2022
In one of seven outfits during the night, Vanessa paid homage to Zoë Kravitz's Catwoman.
Early latex clothing and the punk scene
The Danny Boyle series "Pistol" charts the punk movement in Britain during the 1970s. It was a watershed moment for latex fashion.
Balenciaga at the New York Stock Exchange
Loic Prigent's report features backst
Naughty America 1776
Romi Lesbian
Teen Small Masturbate

Latex Secretary

Report Page