Header for LaTeX with short descriptions of packages - for scientific publications/dissertations/books/articles in natural sciences (computer science, electrical engineering, physics, math, ...)

header.tex

%%
%% Header file including short descriptions of packages
%% preferably to be used for natural sciences and such:
%%    computer science, electrical engineering, physics, maths
%%
%% Author: Markus Meissner <[email protected]>
%% License: BSD
%%

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{book}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% CITATION 
\usepackage{cite}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% ENCODING AND LANGUAGE

% utf8x behaves way better for obscure c&p unicode chars!
% (texlive-extra package may be needed)
%\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} 
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage[USenglish,ngerman]{babel}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% GRAPHICS / PICTURES / COLORS

% use only __ONE__ of the following:
% always implicitly included inside the other
%\usepackage[dvips]{graphicx}
% - OR
% only 'ps' drawing package tikz replacement 
%\usepackage{pstricks}
% - OR
% drawing package, successor of pstricks and 'pdflatex' compatible
%\usepackage{tikz}
% - OR
% drawing circuits package, including 'tikz'
\usepackage[european]{circuitikz}

% drawing supplemental stuff (dependencies!)
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{menukeys}

% define aliases for colors using RGB
\definecolor{blueish}{rgb}{.4,.4,.9}
\definecolor{grey}{rgb}{.6,.6,.6}
\definecolor{darkblue}{rgb}{.0,.0,.3}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% TODO NOTES (provides \missingfigure  \todo)

% disabled
%\usepackage[disable]{todonotes}
% enabled
\usepackage{todonotes}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% GRAPHICS / DRAWING CONFIGURATION

% default path/suffix for graphics
\graphicspath{{pics/}}
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.eps}

% declare layers - for (circui)tikz
\pgfdeclarelayer{bg}    
\pgfdeclarelayer{top}
% set the order of the layers (main is the standard layer)
\pgfsetlayers{bg,main,top}  

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% MATH STUFF 

% math symbols (always keep this!)
\usepackage{amsmath}

% create own "theorem" environments
\usepackage{amsthm}
% \begin{mydef}[My optional theorem desc] <theorem body> \end{mydef}
\newtheorem{mydef}{Definition}

% allow arbitrary rotating of any element
%\usepackage{rotating}

% allow multi-page tables
\usepackage{longtable}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% FONTS / UNITS

% Palatino font family for maths
%\usepackage{mathpazo}

% ams (additional) fonts
\usepackage{amssymb}

% various unit related typesetting
\usepackage{siunitx}

% import courier font
%\usepackage{courier}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% EXTENSIONS FOR EXISTING ENVS

% more column options for tabular and array env
\usepackage{array}

% allow cells in tabular to span across multiple rows
%\usepackage{multirow}

% allow switching between regular and multicol writing (clashes with longtable)
%\usepackage{multicol}

% balancing multiple columns 
%\usepackage{balance}

% advanced tabular env allowing setting of column types
%\usepackage{tabularx}
% the three usual columntypes extended with a width setting
%\newcolumntype{L}[1]{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{#1}}   % left-aligned 
%\newcolumntype{C}[1]{>{\centering\arraybackslash}p{#1}}     % centered
%\newcolumntype{R}[1]{>{\raggedleft\arraybackslash}p{#1}}    % right-aligned 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% FLOAT / SUBFIGURES / FIGURES

% subfigures all-in-one packages, do not use subfigure package!
% to use:  \subcaptionbox{<subcaption>}[<subfigure width>]{\includegraphics{}}
% e.g.,    \subcaptionbox{hello}[.5\linewidth]{\includegraphics{pics/foo.eps}}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage[font=footnotesize]{subcaption}

% change the figure caption format/layout
%\captionnamefont{\bfseries}
%\captiontitlefont{\slshape}
%\captiondelim{:\ }
%\hangcaption
%\renewcommand{\figurename}{Figure}

% allow more float settings and tools
%\usepackage{floatrow}

% float env, mainly provides 'H' placement in figures 
\usepackage{float}

% wrap figures (let text flow around)
\usepackage{wrapfig}

% allow replacement of "tags" inside EPS files with arbitrary latex stuff
%\usepackage{psfrag}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% HYPERLINKS IN DOCUMENT

% make links, urls, cites, TOCs-lines clickable inside the document
\usepackage{hyperref}
\hypersetup{
	dvips,                        % latex mode
	breaklinks=true,              % allow line breaking links
	colorlinks,                   % removes frame around links
        linkcolor={blue!60!black},    
	filecolor={blue!60!black},
        citecolor={blue!60!black},
        urlcolor={blue!60!black}
}
% allows line-breaking for urls/links and alike
\usepackage{breakurl}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% WHITE SPACES 

% smart adding white space after \stuff (string-only) commands
% e.g., \newcommand{foo}{just a string}
\usepackage{xspace}

% line spacing package (spreads lines, useful for reviewing)
%\usepackage{setspace}
%\linespread{2}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% LAYOUT AND FORMATTING

% allows an quote on the chapter title page, (\savequote, \qauthor}
% and changes chapter numbering font use one of these fonts: 
%   avantgarde, bera{mono,sans}, biolinum, bookman, charter, courier, 
%   helvetica, kpfonts, libertine, lmodern, newcentury, palatino, times, utopia
%\usepackage[bookman]{quotchap}

% provides 7 predefined chaper header layouts, fully overrules 'quotchap' pkg
% use one of: Sonny, Lenny, Glenn, Conny, Rejne, Bjarne, Bjornstrup
\usepackage[Bjarne]{fncychap}

% "Schusterjungen", "Hurenkinder" rules, 
% forbid single lines from last/next paragraphs on previous/next page
\clubpenalty = 10000
\widowpenalty = 10000 
\displaywidowpenalty = 10000

% page size configuration
\setlength{\textwidth}{15cm}
\setlength{\textheight}{22.0cm}
\setlength{\topmargin}{0.1cm}
\setlength{\topskip}{0.4cm}
\setlength{\footskip}{1.5cm} 
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-0.05cm}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{-0.05cm}

% depth of the section numbering
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{5} 
% maximum depth of shown items inside the table of contents
\setcounter{tocdepth}{3}

% change chapter-/sectionmark style
\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{\markboth{\thechapter\ \ #1}{}}
\renewcommand{\sectionmark}[1]{\markright{\thesection\ \ #1}{}}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% FANCY PAGESTYLE FOR FULLY CUSTOM HEADINGS / FOOTERS
\usepackage{fancyhdr}

% sets the current page style 
% use one of: plain, headings, empty, myheadings
% 'fancyhdr' package adds page style 'fancy' 
\pagestyle{fancy}

% once pagestyle is fancy, use the following header/footer settings:
% clear all headers/footers
\fancyhf{}

% an (open) book has even page numbers (left page) and odd ones (right page)
%
% header |  EL  EC  ER  |  OL  OC  OR |
% body           < my body text >
% footer |  EL  EC  ER  |  OL  OC  OR |

\fancyhead[EL,OR]{\nouppercase{\textsc{\rightmark}}}

% header/footer ruler widths may be changed
%\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{}
%\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{}

% redefining 'plain' as \section, \chapter call \thispagestyle{plain} 
%\fancypagestyle{plain} {
%   \fancyhead...
%   \fancyfoot...
%}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% SOURCE(CODE) TYPESETTING

% a verbatim env with embedded math 
%\usepackage{alltt}

% provides algorithm env mainly for pseudocode listings 
\usepackage{algorithm}
\usepackage{algpseudocode}

% alternative to algorithm (more customizable}
%\usepackage{algorithm2e}

% allow drawing of Nassi-Shneiderman (algorithm diagrams)
%\usepackage{struktex}

% provides \url to typeset the very same (and allow line breaks)
\usepackage{url}

% sourcecode listings 
\usepackage{listings}
% set custom style(s) for listings (see listings.pdf on ctan)
% \lstdefinestyle{mystylename}{key=value}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

% own cmds
%\input{my_commands.tex}

% config specific to tikz 
%\input{tikz_config.tex}

\begin{document}