Latex

• Author: Fu Yin

• Update: July 29, 2022

• Reading: 60 min

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Introduction

TEX is software developed by Donald E. Knuth for typesetting words and mathematical formulas. LaTeX is a Format that uses the TEX software as the typesetting engine, which can be roughly interpreted as an encapsulation of TEX.

Do you know the concept of “Distribution”, “Compiler”, “Macro-package”, and “Editor” in LaTeX?

Layout Engine(排版引擎):

• a program that compiles source code and generates documents, such as pdftex, xetex, and luatex. Sometimes also called the compiler.

Format(格式):

• a set of code that defines a set of commands. LaTeX is one of the most widely used formats.

Compiling Command(编译命令):

• a program which combines Engine and Format to read source files and outputs PDFs. For example, the xelatex command is that combines the xetex Engine and LaTeX Format.

Compiling Command	Concept
latex	The engine of the underlying invocation is actually pdftex. This command generates a Device Independent (DVI) file
pdflatex	The engine of the underlying invocation is actually pdftex. This command generates a PDF file
xelatex	The engine for the underlying invocation is xetex, which supports UTF-8 encoding and TrueType/OpenType fonts. Current Chinese typesetting solutions are based on xelatex
lualatex	The engine for the underlying invocation is luatex which is an evolution of the pdftex engine. In addition to supporting UTF-8 encoding and TrueType/OpenType fonts, also supports the extension of tex functionality through the Lua language

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Note

The Compiling Command latex and the Format LaTeX are often confused.

Macro-package(宏包):

• LaTeX code package to enable extended functionality, such as fontspec and natbib

Distribution(发行版):

• a collection of compilers, macro packages, editors, and other tools, such as TeX Live, MacTeX and MikTeX

Editor(编辑器):

• a tool for editing LaTeX source files, such as TeXShop, TeXworks, WinEdt and VSCode

The following are the major Distributions in different systems:

Distribution	Linux	macOS	Windows
TeX live	yes	yes	yes
MacTeX		yes
MikTeX	yes	yes	yes

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The common file format in LaTex:

• .tex: source file

• .bib: the references document, and the .bbl is the file after using BibTex compiling`

• .sty: the package file, usually imported using \usepackage

• .cls: the class file, usually imported through the \documentclass command at the beginning of the document

A learning Latex chinese website

Install

The full LaTeX distribution are recommended, and install it via TexLive on Linux, and via MacTex on MacOS.

• MacTex Webpage: https://www.tug.org/mactex/

• MacTex Mirror in USTC: http://mirrors.ustc.edu.cn/CTAN/systems/mac/mactex/MacTeX.pkg

Note

The full software of MacTex is very large, and it takes about 7.98G space. However, the lightweight TinyTeX (< 100MB) is not recommended because it need install all the packages by yourself.

How to uninstall?

If you want to upgrade LaTeX to the latest version and want to reclaim space by erasing the old distribution, you need to uninstall it and reinstall. (Scrolling Update are not recommended)

Why tlmgr command cannot be used for upgrade?

The Latex distribution is updated once a year. After each update, the tlmgr command cannot be used because the remote repository has been changed to the latest version. For example the version from “2021” to “2022”, so the corresponding remote repository cannot be found.

The uninstallation instructions provided by the official website:

# Uninstalling TeX
sudo rm -r /usr/local/texlive/2022 # In general, we can also see that there is another directory called "texmf-local" under TexLive path. It is just an empty directory tree according to offical website. If you are obsessive-compulsive, delete it.

# Uninstalling the GUI Applications
sudo rm -r /Applications/Tex 

# Uninstalling the TeX Distribution Data Structure
sudo rm -r /Library/TeX

Configration

Latexmk

If you use cross-references or use BibTeX for your bibliography, you often have to run compiling command such as xelatex to do those work, which need compile multiple times.

The following code is about how to compile the document with BibTex references, refer to the example.

xelatex -shell-escape file.tex
bibtex file.aux
xelatex -shell-escape file.tex
xelatex -shell-escape file.tex

Why it need compile multiple times?

• TEX needs to refer to the document itself (tex -> tex). Those information can only be known once you run it one time. For example, I want to know what page Chapter 2 starts on, and what a particular formula is in the document.

• TEX needs to use the output of other programs, and the input of other programs is TEX’s output (tex -> other -> tex). For example, references (tex -> bibtex -> tex), indexes, etc..

Latexmk, a Perl script, only needs compile one time. It completely automates the process of generating a LaTex document. Latexmk is part of MacTeX and MikTeX and it is bundled with many Linux Distributions.

Running latexmk

latexmk file.tex

Cleaning Up

latexmk -c

Specify "xelatex" Compile

latexmk -xelatex file.tex

Makefile

You can run make and make clean for your main.tex document. The following is the content of Makefile file:

$ cat Makefile
MAIN = main
LATEXMK = latexmk -xelatex -shell-escape

all: main clean

main:
	$(LATEXMK) $(MAIN).tex

clean: 
	latexmk -c $(MAIN).tex
	rm -r _minted-main
	rm -r *.bbl

VSCode

Download the plugin, LaTex Workshop, in VSCode Extensions.

• For each Latex project, put the .vscode/settings.json file in the root directory.

• Please check latex-workshop.latex.tools and latex-workshop.latex.recipes options in .vscode/settings.json file.

Here is my .vscode/settings.json file:

{
    "latex-workshop.intellisense.package.enabled": true,
    "latex-workshop.intellisense.unimathsymbols.enabled": true,
    "latex-workshop.latex.build.forceRecipeUsage": true,
    "latex-workshop.latex.recipes": [
        {
            "name": "latexmk -xelatex",
            "tools": ["latexmk -xelatex"]
        }
    ],
    "latex-workshop.latex.tools": [
        {
            "name": "xelatex",
            "command": "xelatex",   // "/Library/TeX/texbin/xelatex"
            "args": [
                "-shell-escape",    // use pygments to highlight syntax code
                "-synctex=1",
                "-interaction=nonstopmode",
                "-file-line-error",
                "%DOCFILE%"
            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "latexmk -xelatex",
            "command": "latexmk",   // "/Library/TeX/texbin/latexmk"
            "args": [
                "-xelatex",
                "-shell-escape",    // use pygments to highlight syntax code
                "-file-line-error",
                "-halt-on-error",
                "-interaction=nonstopmode",
                "-synctex=1",
                "-pv-",
                "-pvc-",
                "-outdir=%OUTDIR%",
                "%DOCFILE%"
            ],
            "env": {}
        }
    ]
}

Overleaf

Overleaf is a collaborative cloud-based LaTeX editor used for writing, editing and publishing scientific documents. It partners with a wide range of scientific publishers to provide official journal LaTeX templates, and direct submission links.

Tutrial

• The detailed manual, please refer to the book: 一份不太简短的 LaTeX2e 介绍（lshort-zh-cn).

• Latex-Template-Rice-USTC is my Latex project , which is a template including book, thesis, and assignment for Rice and USTC university. You can use it via Overleaf https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/latex-template-rice-ustc/tkdscxhkympd

• CV is my academic CV powered by LaTeX.

Reference

1. USTC LaTeX 新手入门指南

2. Book: 一份不太简短的 LaTeX2e 介绍（lshort-zh-cn）

3. Book: LaTeX 入门（亚马逊）