Re: TECH: more help?

On 6/22/06, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> for a Windows PC I've found
> the MikTeX package to be easiest to install and get going with; it's
> available here: http://www.miktex.org/
That's what I use, most of the time.

> 2. Run the "latex" command on the .tex file.  If you've made errors
> and LaTeX can't figure out what you mean, it will complain and abort.
> Otherwise, you get a "dvi" file containing the output.  This is a
> "DeVice Independent" rendering of the document that can readily be
> formatted for various printers and display schemes without having to
> go through all the parsing of the original LaTeX file.
>
> 3. Run a converter to get the final output.  Usually you want PDF,
> which you create by running the "dvipdf" command on the dvi file.
I usually combine those two steps into one: "pdflatex blabla" (if the
file is blabla.tex). Goes straight to PDF. Since PDF is usually what
I'm after, that suits me just fine. (Not sure whether it leaves a DVI
file around as a by-product or whether it sidesteps that.)

> Unfortunately, the default font is, as mentioned, fugly.
*nods*

Also easily fixable in principle -- but I don't know how well
alternative fonts play with things such as mathematics mode or IPA.

> And the default margins are set ludicrously large, too.
I think that was on purpose, on the principle that the maximum number
of characters on a line for easy reading shouldn't be more than "x",
and that MS-Word-like 1-inch margins or so make for lines that are
"too long" (at typical font sizes).

No idea whether that's true or not; just be aware that the default
setting has wider margins than you may be used to.

> So right off the bat
> you have to do some extra stuff beyond the bare minimum if you want an
> attractive document...
Heh, I suppose it depends on what your standards for "attractive" are
-- I presume the wider margins are there because Dr. Knuth found them
more attractive than the alternative :)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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