path: root/script2col.rst

.. Objectives
.. ----------

.. At the end of this tutorial, you will 

.. 1. Get acquainted to LaTeX.
.. #. Know why we prefer LaTeX?
.. #. Know the advantages and disadvantages of typesetting documents  
..    using the LaTeX approach.
.. #. Have a description, of a typical work flow; which uses LaTeX to typeset 
..    documents.
.. #. Recognise and differenciate between LaTeX commands, LaTeX comments and
..    special characters, spacing and actual document content.
.. #. Create and compile a very simple LaTeX document.

.. Prerequisites
.. -------------

.. 1. Installing LaTeX 

     
.. Author              : Harish Badrinath < harish [at] fossee [dot] in > 
   Internal Reviewer   : Kiran Isukapatla < kiran [at] fossee [dot] in >
   External Reviewer   :
   Langauge Reviewer   : 
   Checklist OK?       : 25-Feb-2012

Script
------



+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the  first slide containing title, name of the production               | Hello Friends and welcome to the tutorial on 'Introduction to LaTeX'.            |
| team along with the logo of MHRD }}}                                             |                                                                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Objectives" slide }}}                                              | At the end of this tutorial, you will                                            |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | 1. Get acquainted to LaTeX.                                                      |
|                                                                                  | #. Know why we prefer LaTeX?                                                     |
|                                                                                  | #. Know the advantages and disadvantages of typesetting documents                |
|                                                                                  |    using the LaTeX approach.                                                     |
|                                                                                  | #. Get a brief idea on typical work flow; which uses LaTeX to typeset            |
|                                                                                  |    documents.                                                                    |
|                                                                                  | #. Know LaTeX commands, LaTeX comments and                                       |
|                                                                                  |    special characters, spacing and actual document content.                      |
|                                                                                  | #. Be able to create and compile a simple LaTeX document.                        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Pre-requisite" slide }}}                                           | Before beginning this tutorial, we would suggest having a working installation   |
|                                                                                  | of LaTeX on your computer. You can do this by completing the tutorial on         |
|                                                                                  | "LaTeX Installation".                                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Introduction" slide }}}                                            | LaTeX began as TeX, a computer program originally created by                     |
|                                                                                  | Donald E. Knuth. It was designed mainly to aid typesetting                       |
|                                                                                  | of text and mathematical formulae.                                               |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | It is a typesetting program that produces excellently typeset documents.         |
|                                                                                  | Typesetting is placing text onto a page with all the style formatting defined,   |
|                                                                                  | so that the content looks as intended. It is extensively used for producing      |
|                                                                                  | high quality scientific and mathematical documents. It may also be used for      |
|                                                                                  | producing other kinds of documents, ranging from simple one page articles to     |
|                                                                                  | complete books.                                                                  |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | LaTeX is pronounced Lah-tech or Lay-tec.                                         |
|                                                                                  | TeX is pronounced Tech. TeX is also the first syllable in the Greek word for     |
|                                                                                  | technology.                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Why LaTeX?" slide }}}                                              | Why we prefer LaTeX?                                                             |
|                                                                                  | (a) LaTeX offers excellent visual quality.                                       |
|                                                                                  | (b) Handles typesetting and lets you focus on content.                           |
|                                                                                  | (c) Makes writing complex Math equation(S) extremely simple.                     |
|                                                                                  | (d) It is also a standard used widely, especially by the scientific community.   |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Why LaTeX? ..." slide }}}                                          | We can define LaTex as a document based markup language. This sentence is        |
|                                                                                  | deceptively simple, as it reveals a lot about LaTeX. We now break this sentence  |
|                                                                                  | up as follows                                                                    |
|                                                                                  | Mark-up: a system of annotating text, adding extra information to specify        |
|                                                                                  | structure and presentation of text.                                              |
|                                                                                  | Document based markup: you don’t have to worry about each element individually.  |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | This is essentially a fancy way of saying,LaTeX handles typesetting and lets     |
|                                                                                  | you focus on content rather than appearance.                                     |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Advantages of using  LaTeX" slide }}}                              | Some of the advantages of using LaTeX approach to typesetting are                |
|                                                                                  | (1) Easy availability of professionally crafted layouts/templates.               |
|                                                                                  | (2) Typesetting of mathematical formulae is supported in a convenient            |
|                                                                                  | environment.                                                                     |
|                                                                                  | (3) Typesetting for most cases can be done with very little learning curve       |
|                                                                                  | using easy to use/understand commands, that only specify the logical structure   |
|                                                                                  | of the document.                                                                 |
|                                                                                  | (4) Presence of lots of add-on packages.                                         |
|                                                                                  | (5) It encourages creation of well structured texts.                             |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Disadvantages of using  LaTeX" slide }}}                           | Some of the disadvantages of using LaTeX approach to typesetting are             |
|                                                                                  | (1) Designing a whole new layout is difficult.                                   |
|                                                                                  | (2) LaTeX is not a word processor, for example, the document author              |
|                                                                                  | is not expected to worry about presentation details like the size of font.       |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "LaTeX input file format" slide }}}                                 | LaTeX input files are simple ASCII text files that are processed by a TeX        |
|                                                                                  | processing engine.                                                               |
|                                                                                  | Next comes the question of compiling LaTeX input files and viewing the output    |
|                                                                                  | typeset document.                                                                |
|                                                                                  | The process is a little different from other markup languages like HTML.         |
|                                                                                  | We compile ASCII text files into typeset files that are normally DVI,            |
|                                                                                  | Postscript or PDF files.                                                         |
|                                                                                  | The latex command converts LaTeX input files into dvi files.                     |
|                                                                                  | We can view DVI files on Gnu/Linux using xdvi.                                   |
|                                                                                  | Further,  DVI files can be converted either to a post script file, using the     |
|                                                                                  | dvips command or to a PDF file using the dvipdfm command.                        |
|                                                                                  | The command pdflatex is used to convert LaTeX input files directly to pdf files. |
|                                                                                  | The resultant PDF files can be viewed using standard applications                |
|                                                                                  | on most platforms                                                                |
|                                                                                  | (Eg: evince on Gnu/Linux). PDF file are also widely supported.                   |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Commands,Comments&Special Characters" slide }}}                    | Like most utilities in Linux, LaTeX is case sensitive. Commands begin            |
|                                                                                  | with a backslash. LaTeX environments have a begin and end marker. The begin and  |
|                                                                                  | end document commands, mark the beginning and the end of the content of the      |
|                                                                                  | LaTeX document. The text in between the begin and end commands is typeset in     |
|                                                                                  | the output document.Any content after <\end{document}> is ignored. The type of   |
|                                                                                  | document that is being currently typeset in LaTex, is identified with the        |
|                                                                                  | documentclass command. LaTeX then, typesets the document accordingly.            |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | All the commands in LaTeX begin with a \\. An environment begins with a begin    |
|                                                                                  | command and ends with an end command.                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Commands,Comments&Special Characters ..." slide }}}                | But, how do we write comments with in the document. % character is used          |
|                                                                                  | to indicate comments. Anything written after a % symbol in a                     |
|                                                                                  | line, is ignored.                                                                |
|                                                                                  | But what if we wanted to insert the % symbol in the document? We can do so by    |
|                                                                                  | escaping it with a \\ (backslash). % is one of the many special characters in    |
|                                                                                  | LaTeX. The others are shown on the screen. All of them, except the \\ itself,    |
|                                                                                  | can be inserted by escaping it with a \\. To insert a \\ in our document,        |
|                                                                                  | we use the command \textbackslash.                                               |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | What would happen if we escape a \\ with a \\?                                   |
|                                                                                  | A double backslash is actually another command. It inserts a new line in the     |
|                                                                                  | typeset document. Normally LaTeX automatically spaces the given input optimally. |
|                                                                                  | But, sometimes we have to insert manual line breaks. The <\\\\>                  |
|                                                                                  | command or <\newline>                                                            |
|                                                                                  | command is used to insert a newline in the output document. A                    |
|                                                                                  | single line break in the input document, doesn't cause any change in the         |
|                                                                                  | output document.                                                                 |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | A single empty line causes a change in paragraphs in the output. Multiple        |
|                                                                                  | empty lines are equivalent to a single empty line. Similarly, multiple spaces    |
|                                                                                  | are treated as a single space.                                                   |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Typesetting a minimal document" slide }}}                          | Now, try to create a simple LaTeX document. Pause the tutorial and type the      |
|                                                                                  | content shown on the screen in a text editor. Save the file as temp.tex          |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{continue from paused state}}}                                                 | Now we compile the commands in the LaTeX input file that is, temp.tex into a     |
| {{{ Show the "Compiling to DVI & PDF" slide }}}                                  | typeset file.                                                                    |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | The first alternative is to compile LaTeX input file into a DVI                  |
|                                                                                  | file. We use the latex command for this purpose. For compiling the LaTeX input   |
|                                                                                  | file temp.tex into a DVI file, we use the following command                      |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | <latex temp.tex>                                                                 |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | The output file would be temp.dvi.                                               |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | The other alternative is to create PDF files from LaTeX input files.             |
|                                                                                  | We use the pdflatex command for this purpose. For compiling the LaTeX input      |
|                                                                                  | file temp.tex into a PDF file, we use the following command                      |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | <pdflatex temp.tex>                                                              |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | Please note that, throughout this course we shall be using pdflatex to compile   |
|                                                                                  | our documents.                                                                   |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Summary" slide }}}                                                 | This brings us to the end of this tutorial. In this tutorial, we have learnt     |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | 1. About LaTeX.                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | #. why we prefer LaTeX.                                                          |
|                                                                                  | #. About the advantages and disadvantages of typesetting documents               |
|                                                                                  |    using the LaTeX approach.                                                     |
|                                                                                  | #. A description, of a typical work flow; which uses LaTeX to typeset            |
|                                                                                  |    documents.                                                                    |
|                                                                                  | #. The ability to recognize and differentiate between LaTeX commands, LaTeX      |
|                                                                                  |    comments and special characters, spacing and actual document content.         |
|                                                                                  | #. To Create and compile a simple LaTeX document.                                |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Self assessment questions" slide }}}                               | Here are some self assessment questions for you to solve                         |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  |  1. Convert the temp.dvi created during the course of this tutorial to           |
|                                                                                  |     temp_1.ps using the dvips command. Verify that the two files                 |
|                                                                                  |     indeed look the same.                                                        |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  |  2. Convert the temp.dvi created during the course of this tutorial to           |
|                                                                                  | temp_1.pdf using the dvipdfm command. Verify that the two files indeed look the  |
|                                                                                  | same.                                                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the "Solutions" slide }}}                                               | And the answers,                                                                 |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | 1. dvips -o temp_1.ps temp.dvi                                                   |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | 2. dvipdfm -o temp_1.pdf temp.dvi                                                |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the SDES & FOSSEE slide }}}                                             | Software Development techniques for Engineers and Scientists - SDES, is an       |
|                                                                                  | initiative by FOSSEE. For more information, please visit the given link.         |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | Free and Open-source Software for Science and Engineering Education - FOSSEE, is |
|                                                                                  | based at IIT Bombay which is funded by MHRD as part of National Mission on       |
|                                                                                  | Education through ICT.                                                           |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the ``About the Spoken Tutorial Project'' slide }}}                     | Watch the video available at the following link. It summarises the Spoken        |
|                                                                                  | Tutorial project.If you do not have good bandwidth, you can download and         |
|                                                                                  | watch it.                                                                        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the `` Spoken Tutorial Workshops'' slide }}}                            | The Spoken Tutorial Project Team conducts workshops using spoken tutorials,      |
|                                                                                  | gives certificates to those who pass an online test.                             |
|                                                                                  |                                                                                  |
|                                                                                  | For more details, contact contact@spoken-tutorial.org                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| {{{ Show the Acknowledgements slide }}}                                          | Spoken Tutorial Project is a part of the "Talk to a Teacher" project.            |
|                                                                                  | It is supported by the National Mission on Education through ICT, MHRD,          |
|                                                                                  | Government of India. More information on this mission is available at the        |
|                                                                                  | given link.                                                                      |
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| {{{ Show the Thankyou slide }}}                                                  | Hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and found it useful.                         |
|                                                                                  | Thank you!                                                                       |
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