Basic Typesetting Requirements

The language LaTeX has very few rules. It is not what you see is what you get, but rather command driven. While this may not seem as convenient intially, it is a remarkably efficient approach to typesetting the complex formulae typically found in mathematics. The implicit commands of importance are:

• Leaving a blank space after any set of joined characters defines a new word. Words are defined by having blanks around them. The amount of blank spaces between words has no effect on the spacing produced in the finished document.

• Sentences or parts of sentences are delimited by punctuation marks such as commas, colons, and periods which must be joined to the last word in the phrase. Never leave a punctuation mark with any blanks on its left.

• New paragraphs are begun whenever an extra line is skipped from the previous paragraph. Note that if you do not want a new paragraph indentation to occur, use the command

  \noindent

  to prevent indentation.

• The language and its commands are case sensitive.

• Comments are placed in the document by putting a

  %

  percent sign in the document. Anything to the right of percent sign is not processed.

There is a short sample file illustrating an elementary application of the the use of LaTeX to produce a document. To process the file, obtain it, then execute, tar xvzf sample.tar.gz. To produce a docuement, type

• latex sample

To preview the document, type

• xdvi sample

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