Department of Mathematics, UC Davis
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LaTeX Related Questions

This is an collection of Answers to Frequently Asked Questions for the UC Davis Math Dept.


How do I do TeX under OSX?

TeXShop is nice and can be found at http://math.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/texshop.html
It is also possible to install TeTeX which is used from the terminal window. It can be installed with fink which can be found at http://fink.sourceforge.net


How do I generate a PDF version of a LaTeX document?

Use the latex command to generate a DVI file, then use dvipdf to convert the DVI file into a PDF file.

example:

# latex file.tex
# dvipdf file.dvi file.pdf

or

# latex file.tex
# dvips -o file.ps file.dvi
# ps2pdf file.ps file.pdf

[Zachariah Johnson]


or

# pdflatex file.tex         #usually produces more attractive fonts, 
                            #allows doccument navigation to work, and 
                            #URL's to work, and cut and paste. 
[Bill Broadley]


How do I make TeX do ______ ?

The UCDavis Galois Group has written a great tutorial for using LaTeX in the Math Department:

In addition, here are two LaTeX references on the web: The Department of Mathematics sometimes has books available for short term loan. However, if you're looking for a book to get you started, many faculty recommend books written by Leslie Lamport. Lamport was the author of the original LaTeX package. This book in particular is a good introduction:
LaTeX: A Document Preparation System (2nd Edition) by Leslie Lamport
ISBN: 0-201-52983-1
Publisher: Addison Wesley Professional
For more breadth and a better depth of references, consider the following:
Guide to LaTeX (4th Edition) by Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly
ISBN: 0-321-17385-6
Publisher: Addison Wesley Professional

The LaTeX Companion, (2nd Edition) by Frank Mittelbach, Michel Goossens, Johannes Braams David Carlisle and Chris Rowley
ISBN: 0-201-36299-6
Publisher: Addison Wesley Professional


Where can I find the UCD letterhead in latex format?

The UCD letterhead is available in /opt/tex/ucdletter/ on our main application servers.


Why does the PDF I made with ps2pdf or dvipdf look so blurry in Adobe Acroread?

Because Adobe Acrobat Reader does a bad job of displaying bitmaped Type3 fonts.

Solution: Force dvips to use Type1 fonts.

Example:

[52]zjohnson@point:~$ dvips -o talks.ps -Ppdf talks.dvi
[53]zjohnson@point:~$ ps2pdf talks.ps
[54]zjohnson@point:~$ acroread talks.pdf


[Zachariah Johnson]

Index

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