Why LaTeX is such a bloated system?

[Paulus]

once you learn.. latex is amazing!

Nothing beats it for mathematical proofs (apart from written paper).

I wrote my dissertation entirely in latex- 50 pages with diagrams and lots of equations and it looked stunning; soo much better than the word versions my classmates used.

took absolutely ages to learn the code and find the .sty files for wrapping text around images, but it was worth it.

keep at it.

p.s is latex a lost cause on linux? I couldn't find anything matching winedit for latex support.

[rplantz]

I just use gedit. It has syntax coloring and spell checking. The only hassle is that I have to turn on Tools -> Autocheck Spelling every time I start gedit. I wish there were a way to make this the default. (I find it easier to see my spelling errors with autocheck.)

I then wrote a Makefile:

# Makefile for my book

default:
	latex book.tex
	makeindex book.idx
	latex book.tex
	dvips book.dvi

clean:
	rm *.aux
	rm *~

So I open a terminal window, and when I want to view my work, I simply type "make" and wait 1/2 minute.

As you can see, my Makefile creates a postscript file, which I view with evince.

I make changes in the source (in gedit), save, hit the up arrow key in the terminal window to recall my "make" command, and hit return. 1/2 minute later I hit ctrl-r in the evince window.

I don't know how this compares to using winedit since I've never used it.

[josephus]

I still prefer winedt, but on linux i find that Kile is a decent substitute.

[ZuLuuuuuu]

rplantz, I also like using plain text editors to write code. Which libraries should I install via Synaptic to be able to use the latex command? Just to be able to compile my .tex files via terminal is enough for me no need to have an IDE.

[rplantz]

Which libraries should I install via Synaptic to be able to use the latex command? Just to be able to compile my .tex files via terminal is enough for me no need to have an IDE.

I am using tetex-base, which depends on tex-common. It also suggests tetex-extra and recommends tetex-doc. (To see this information, highlight tetex-base in synaptic and click on Properties.) I have some other things installed, but I don't think you need them.

Having said this, you may wish to think about installing texlive. The tetex maintainer has announced that he will no longer do it and recommends that people move to texlive. Ubuntu lists tetex as the supported system, not texlive. I suspect they were waiting for texlive 2006, which never made it. Texlive 2007 has just been released, but the version in the Ubuntu repositories is texlive 2005.

If I were starting from scratch, I would install texlive. I hope the transition from tetex to texlive will be smooth for me. But I have more faith that the transition from texlive 2005 to texlive 2007 will be smooth.

[Zdravko]

You have to use the babel package, which is distributed with texlive and miktex. There is a huge and very detailed user guide (463 page pdf) available. Bulgarian language supports starts on page 293, English page 20.

Can you give me an example how a simple "Hello world" will look like in LaTeX?
The following:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{book}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[dvips]{graphicx}

\author{Monov, Z.}
\title{Introduction to design patterns}
\date{2007-04-29}

\begin{document}

\end{document}

Kile issues the errors:

[LaTeX] intro.tex => intro.dvi (latex)
[LaTeX] finished with exit status 1
/usr/share/texmf-tetex/tex/latex/base/fontenc.sty:100:Font T1/cmr/m/n/12=ecrm1200 at 12.0pt not loadable: Metric (TFM) file not found. \fontencoding\encodingdefault\selectfont
[LaTeX] 1 error, 0 warnings, 0 badboxes

[qix]

You probably also wanna add "\maketitle" between your \begin{document} and \end{document}.

[hod139]

Can you give me an example how a simple "Hello world" will look like in LaTeX?
The following:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{book}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[dvips]{graphicx}

\author{Monov, Z.}
\title{Introduction to design patterns}
\date{2007-04-29}

\begin{document}

\end{document}

Kile issues the errors:

This code works fine for me.

[LaTeX] intro.tex => intro.dvi (latex)
[LaTeX] finished with exit status 1
/usr/share/texmf-tetex/tex/latex/base/fontenc.sty:100:Font T1/cmr/m/n/12=ecrm1200 at 12.0pt not loadable: Metric (TFM) file not found. \fontencoding\encodingdefault\selectfont
[LaTeX] 1 error, 0 warnings, 0 badboxes

This is your problem, you are missing some fonts. It also looks like you are using tetex, not texlive. Using the texlive metapackage, everything just works. With tetex, try installing the package tetex-extra, which will hopefully contain the missing fonts.

[Zdravko]

Yup! This helped!