Latex

I've updated Baruchs LaTex thesis template. Enjoy.

In Linux, this command will find all .tex files in your home dir, tar and gzip them, then save them to a /backup folder. The name of the file is the current time. Just pop it into cron, and away you go, automatic daily backups

tar -zcf /home/andrew/backup/`date +%s`.tx.tgz `locate ".tex" | grep andrew` >/dev/null 2>&1

I got this error message in Kile 1.9 on ubuntu I(A)Spell could not be started.. The configuration for aspell has moved to kcontrol, so just apt-get install kcontrol and you can setup aspell from there to work with Kile.

To insert non-italic text when using math mode in Latex use \mathrm{my text}. If you use \textrm{my text} you will have problems, the text will remain the standard size, even if its within sub or superscript.

Example:
$U_{i}^{\mathrm{a}}$

Previously I posted about rotating text in Latex tables. I've just spotted a comment by Barbara (b_bukhAThotmail) which I think will be useful.

If you are trying to rotate an entire table (your table is short and wide, too wide for a page) use:

\begin{sidewaystable}
\end{sidewaystable}

instead of the usual
\begin{table}
\end{table}

environment.

It uses the same rotating package so you need to initialize it as before.

I have just checked and you can rotate cells within a rotated table too! Just use Andrew's instruction within a sidewaystable environment.

Finally, most standard dvi viewers are incompatible with rotating. Moreover, some standard pdf converters are incompatible with some features of tables and math.

First create a dvi and then use a converter from dvi to ps or pdf and then use only pdf or ps viewers if you want to view an accurate information and proper interpretation of your comments.

A very nice package to use to create algorithms in your latex document is called algorithm2e. It creates an algorithm block which looks very neat and tidy. Its also very easy to convert existing code into a suitable format. Its structure is very much like C/C++/C#/Java code.

If your using 2 columns in a latex document, you'll usually find that a table or figure is just too big for a single column. All you do is use
\begin{figure*}
\end{figure*}
and that will make the figure span the width of the entire page.

The easiest way to do multirow and multicolumn spanning in latex is to use the package multirow. Just put
\usepackage{multirow} at the top of your latex file.

Heres the code to put multiple figures, side by side, on a page in Latex:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{epsfig}
\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{cc}
\epsfig{file=figure1.eps,width=0.5\linewidth,clip=} &
\epsfig{file=figure2.eps,width=0.5\linewidth,clip=} \\
\epsfig{file=figure3.eps,width=0.5\linewidth,clip=} &
\epsfig{file=figure4.eps,width=0.5\linewidth,clip=}
\end{tabular}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Rather than making the page 2 columns wide, just put the figures into a table, with 1 figure per cell. Here is an example page in pdf format. Thanks to Jonathan Lambert for this tip.

I've been asked a few times how to include a figure in EPS format in a Latex document so here is an example.

\documentclass[letterpaper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{epsfig}
\begin{document}

\begin{figure}[tbp]
\centering
\epsfig{file=nameOfFigure.eps,width=0.9\linewidth,clip=}
\caption{A title of some sort}
\label{fig:aNicePicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

The width=0.9\linewidth means that you want to have your eps scaled to be only 90% of the width of the page/column/bounding box.

Tables are a pain to create with Latex. If your column labels are too long, heres a handy bit of code to rotate them 90 degrees, so that you can fit everything in nicely. It uses the rotating package.

Here is what the output looks like:


Put this at the top of your code:

\usepackage{rotating}

Simply to create a table with rotated column text use this code:
\begin{tabular}{|r|r|}\hline
\begin{sideways}Paper\end{sideways} &\begin{sideways}Static\end{sideways} \\
\hline
HAR1994j & Journal \\
SWRT1996c & Conference \\
\hline
\end{tabular}

This is a complicated table:

\begin{tabular}{|r|ccccccc|c|c|}\hline
\begin{sideways}Paper\end{sideways} &\begin{sideways}Static\end{sideways}
&\begin{sideways}Heterogeneous\end{sideways} &\begin{sideways}Preemptive\end{sideways}
&\begin{sideways}Task sizes known\end{sideways} &\begin{sideways}Comms costs known\end{sideways} &\begin{sideways}Platform independent\end{sideways} &\begin{sideways}Year\end{sideways} &\begin{sideways}Pub type\end{sideways}\\
\hline
HAR1994j &x & & &x &x & &1994 & Journal \\
SWRT1996c &x &x & &x &x & &1996 & Conference \\
GRA1999c &x &x &- &x &x & &1999 & Conference \\
CFR1999j &x & & &x &x &x &1999 & Journal \\
TBS2001b &x &x & &x &x &x &2001 & Book Chapter \\
DAYA2002j &x &x &- &x &x &x &2002 & Journal \\
\hline
\end{tabular}