# Category Archives: LaTeX

## Using LaTeX

It is no secret that I’m a fan of $\LaTeX$.

Here is a good (if not the best) tutorial:

http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf

Here are a few examples of math(I can only show inline math in this blog so this stuff won’t look right in the post, but LaTeX has other equation typesetting features. Check the above link for more info):

1. Integrals $\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}f(x)dx = 2$ becomes $\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}f(x)dx = 2$
2. Fractions $\frac{x+1}{x+2}$ becomes $\frac{x+1}{x+2}$
3. Superscripts, subscripts, etc $\sum_{n=0}^{N}2n + 1$ becomes $\sum_{n=0}^{N}2n + 1$

As an example of other math formatting you would do:

\prod_{x = 2}^{10}2x+1

Note that when you don’t typeset math inline with text, you omit the \$ symbol and instead wrap the equation inside a $$..$$ pair.

## Some Vim and Emacs configuration files I dug up.

So, I found my Vim and Emacs configuration files for LaTeX literally from a year ago. Someone might find them helpful. It is funny – I don’t remember at all how I wrote the Emacs Lisp functions–I think it worked when I tried it a year ago, I don’t even remember how to load Emacs Lisp configuration files anymore. I am pretty familiar with the Vim stuff though, since I use it on a regular basis. Take a look at the GPLv2 disclaimers for the disclaimers that come with these configuration files.

(I am attaching pdf because of the files WordPress accepts for upload. There shouldn’t be problems copy/pasting from a pdf file to a text editor)

Vim configuration file

Emacs configuration file

## Thoughts on my favorite software tools

Vim is the excellent cross-platform editor that lets me achieve dhyana(Zen) while programming.

Preparing documents with LaTeX (using Vim of course) similarly lets me concentrate on my task without worrying about the irritating formatting details while composing.

To be quite honest, after I have gotten used to these two tools, I feel cramped and inefficient whenever I have to use a non-modal editor or a WYSIWYG(“What is see is what you get”) editor like Word.

By the way, for those who don’t want to jump in head-first into LaTeX, LaTeXiT is an excellent app for generating image files that can be put inside Word documents, etc.