TeX & Co

A local guide for the Faculteit der Letteren

This document describes the collection of TeX, LaTeX, and related programs and packages, as it is available to staff members at the Faculteit der Letteren, on Linux.

Maintainer

Any question not answered in the documents found here, concerning the use of the local TeX installation, should be addressed to the local maintainer: p.c.j.kleiweg@rug.nl

New users

People who have never used LaTeX before may want to consult Beginner's LaTeX.

Overview

As of 30 August 2006, the distribution in use at the Faculteit der Letteren is teTeX version 3.0, with several updates and additions.

• Changes — Things you should know if you worked with teTeX 1.0
• Local package list — Available packages that were not included in teTeX
• Guide to teTeX — A guided tour around the TeX and LaTeX documentation which is distributed with teTeX
• The TeX System — Documentation and examples for packages that come with teTeX 3.0
• Manual pages
• Info pages — Several larger manuals

Language support

Using LaTeX for other than English texts involves two things:

1. Running a version of latex (or any variant, such as pdflatex) that loads the appropriate hyphenation patterns. See Hyphenation patterns
2. Activate the hyphenation patterns (and other language specific modifications) from within your LaTeX document. This is done with the Babel package.

Here is an example of how you could use Babel:

    \documentclass{article}
    \usepackage[dutch,english]{babel}
    \begin{document}
    Nederlandse tekst
    \selectlanguage{english}
    English text
    \selectlanguage{dutch}
    Terug naar Nederlands
    \end{document}

For more information, read the Babel user guide.

PostScript and PDF

You want your documents in PostScript, but also in PDF with its menu and hyperlinks? You only need to make a few small changes in your LaTeX document. Read more...

More packages

If you need packages not currently installed, please ask the maintainer.

If you want to, you can add packages yourself. You have to take care where you install the various parts of any package. First thing you have to do is run the following command:

    kpsepath

This will list a number of pathtypes. You run the command again with one of these pathtypes to see where certain files should be located. For instance, if you install a new BibTeX style, run:

    kpsepath bst

This will give you a list of directories separated by a colon. The following command gives a more readable output:

    kpsepath bst | perl -p -e 's/:/\n/g'

One of these directories should have your home directory as part of its name. That is the directory where you should install the new files. Do NOT use a directory that is listed with an exclamation mark:

    !!/storage/smith/.texmf-config/bibtex/bst//    % don't use it
    !!/storage/smith/.texmf-var/bibtex/bst//       % don't use it

    /storage/smith/texmf/bibtex/bst//              % use this one

The double slash at the end of the path means you can put your file in one of its (sub)subdirectories as well.

After you have installed your new BibTeX style, find out if it can be found. For example, run:

  
    kpsewhich nifty.bst

Result if things are OK, for example:

    /storage/smith/texmf/bibtex/bst/nifty/nifty.bst

External links

CTAN -- the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network

A Guide to LaTeX for Linguists

Converters between LaTeX and PC Textprocessors