What is LaTeX?

LaTeX, which is pronounced as 'Latech', is a document preparation system. LaTex uses a plain
text markup language to generate pdf documents.
Features of LaTeX
■ Suitable for typesetting journal articles, technical reports, and books.
■Control over large documents containing sectioning, cross-references, tables etc..
■Facilitates easy typesetting of complex mathe- matical formulas.
■It has the facility for multi-lingual typesetting.
■Facility for inclusion of artwork.
Advantage of LaTex
1.LaTex is freesoftware.
2.LaTex is the de facto standard for publication of scientific documents.
3LaTex has typographical expertise and hence, generates beautiful documents.
4.LaTex separate contnt from layot& formatng.
5. At can generate plots and tables.
Limitations of LaTeX
1. LaTeX does not follow WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get).
2. LaTeX discourages raw formatting.
3. Complete mastery of LaTex is quite difficult compared to a word processor.
4. LaTeX has great flexibility, but the complexity increases with the flexibility.
5. Unlike in a WYSIWYG word processor, there is the possibility of syntaxborders
Q)Sectioning commands available in Latex
Basic Commands
In a word processor, you will find the following options:-
■Font, font size, text decorations, alignment
■Bulleted list, numbered list, multilevel List
■Header, footer, page number, margins, spacing, borders
■Tables, images, symbols, equations editor
■Cross-referencing,table of contents,footnote.
But, LaTex does everything with the help of plain text commands. The backslash character (\) is
reserved for this purpose.
In LaTex, a few characters such as \, ^,-%, & etc. are reserved with a special meaning. LaTex
employs commands called escape sequence to print these special characters
1.Escape Sequence :- Escape sequence are commands that allows you to escape the special
meaning of those reserved. characters.
Example 1: Escape Sequence
\begin{document}
A common nichrome alloy is 80% nickel+
\& 20\% chromium.
\end{document)
Output:- A common nichrome alloy is 80% nickel & 20% chromium.
Basic LaTeX Syntax
1. Lines starting with % are comments. LaTex allows you to add comments in your source file
(*.tex) for improving readability.
2. Words starting with are commands, argument for the commands are given in braces { } and
optional arguments are in brackets [ ].
3. LaTex is case-sensitive. That is, \begin and \Begin are treated as entirely different words or
commands.
2.Environments :- Environments perform an action on a block (of something or other) rather
than just doing something at one place in your document. Environments are latex commands of
the following form:
\begin{environment)
%body of the environment
\end{environment}
3.Document Structure
Usually, a LaTex file starts with the document class command and it contains a document
environment. Thedocument class command may take arguments like article, book, report, and
optional argument like a4paper, 12pt, etc.
Example 2: Basic LaTex Document Structure
%Sample01.tex
\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{article}
%- Preamble -
\begin{document}
%--- Content —
This document is generated using LaTex.
\end{document}
Output: :- This document is generated using LaTex.
4.Sectioning Commands
LaTex has the following commands for dividing your document content into different parts.
■\part ■\chapter ■\section ■\subsection
■\subsubsection ■\paragraph ■\subparagraph
Sectioning commands allows you to divide your document into main headings and subheading.
And start writing with a clear idea on your document content.
Advantages of Sectioning
1. Forces you to prepare the content in a systematic way.
2. Useful in generating table of contents..
3. Enables bulk formatting of the headings.
5.Fonts :- are like different hand writing scripts. Using the font facility, you can choose the way
in
which the alphabet script is displayed.
6.Text Alignment :- The uniform visual arrangement of the text along the margins of the page is
referred to as alignment. In LaTex, you can modify text alignments using the following three
environments.1 center 2. flushleft 3. Pushright
Q. Lists available in Latex
1.Enumerated list:- allows people to organize a list of items and then permit the software to
handle automated numbering.
2.Bulleted lists are useful when you want to create a list that stands out from the text without
implying a certain chronology or ordering of the items.
3.Description lists, which contain a list of terms and descriptions for each term.
Q.How to create a title in Latex
To create a title in LaTeX, you can use the \title command. Here's an example:
\documentclass{article}
\title{My Awesome Title}
\authsyntaxborders
\date{}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
Hello world!
\end{document}
Q.Labelling in Latex
Labeling refers to assigning a unique identifier or label to a specific element, such as a section,
equation, figure, or table. This allows you to refer to that element later in your document using
the \ref command. It's a handy way to cross-reference different parts of your document.
Q. How to insert/adding image in Latex?
\includegraphics [ ] {} command is used to add an image into you document. It has the following
optional arguments: width, height, scale and angle.Figure Environment may be used for
handling images so that you can attach captions and may refer to them(images) from different
parts of the document in a consistent way.
Example: Adding Images
…
\usepackage{graphicx}
…
\begin{document}
…\begin{figure}[h]
\centering
\includegraphics(flower)
\caption{A flower}
\label{image:flower}
\end{figure}
…
\end{document}