gistfile1.txt

LaTeX Cheatsheet
----------------

Common mistakes.
  Never use "", use `` and ''.
  endash = -- | emdash = --- | minus sign will appear in formulae
  In URLs, use $\sim$ rather than ~.
  "he/she" should be "he\slash she"

Simple Formatting.
  \newline or \\ or \\*
  \newpage
  \linebreak[n] \nolinebreak[n] \pagebreak[n] \nopagebreak[n]
    (where n is int 0 to 4, where 4 requires compiler to follow rule)
  \ldots for ellipsis.
  \underline{text}
  \emph{text} - emphasis is nestable

Environments
  Environments are nestable a bit like HTML or XML tags.

  description = a definition list
  e.g.
  \begin{description}
  \item[Cheese] A tasty food.
  \item[Vomit] A not so tasty food. Not really food at all.
  \end{description}

  itemize = a bulleted list, like a ul in HTML.
  \begin{itemize}
  \item Foo
  \item Bar
  \item Baz
  \end{itemize}

  enumerate = a numbered list, like an ol in HTML.
  \begin{enumerate}
  \item Slice the weevil.
  \item Cook at gas mark five.
  \item Serve.
  \end{enumerate}

  flushleft, flushright and center - for alignment.
  
  quote - for short quotes.
  quotation - for longer quotes
  verse - for poetry, separate lines of poem with \\

  abstract - an abstract, usually for a scientific paper

  verbatim - basically <pre>, useful for code listings etc.
  can be used inline with \verb+code goes here+

  verbatim* - verbatim, plus marks spaces with a space character

  tabular - for laying out tables

  figure, table - CSS-style floating.

Accents.
  \"o = ö
  \o = ø
  \'e = é
  \`a = à
  \~n = ñ
  for i and j, \i and \j - e.g. \"\i to give ï.
  \ss for ß
  ! before a word gives ¡

Hyphenation
  Pop a \hyphenation{words...} command in the preamble, add words that
  should not be hyphenated.

  Hyphenation points in words can be set like this:
  onto\-logical

  Want something to not break across lines or be hypthenated?
  \mbox{01234 567890}

Sections
  \section{title}
  \subsection{title}
  \subsubsection{title}
  \paragraph{...}
  \subparagraph{...}
  \part{title}
  \chapter{title} for books

  Add a \tableofcontents at the start.

  Add a * to a section, subsection, subsubsection, part, chapter etc.
  to exclude it from the numbering and TOC. e.g.
  \section*{title}

  \frontmatter, \mainmatter, \appendix, \backmatter are used to demarcate
  sections of books.

References
  Mark anchors with \label{name} where name is a unique ID for that anchor.
  Refer to anchors with \ref{name} which will insert the last section num.
  Page number of the anchor is \pageref{name}
  e.g. "See further description in section \ref{bla} on page \pageref{bla}."

Footnotes
  \footnote{Text of the footnote bla bla bla.}

BibTeX (Natbib):
  Add Natbib to preamble:
  \usepackage{natbib}
  
  Parenthetical citations:
  \citep{Botham:2003-PFME} -> (Botham 2003)
  \citep[p. 436--439]{Botham:2003-PFME} -> (Botham 2003, p.436–469)
  \citep[see][]{Botham:2003-PFME} -> (see Botham 2003}
  \citep[see][p. 437]{Botham:2003-PFME} -> (see Botham 2003, p. 437)
  \citep{Botham:2003-PFME,Dawson:1992-PFABA} -> (Botham 2003, Dawson 1992)
  \citeyearpar{Botham:2003-PFME} -> (2003)

  Textual citations:
  \citet{Botham:2003-PFME} -> Botham (2003)
  see above for before and after text.
  \citeyear{Botham:2003-PFME] -> 2003
  \citeauthor{Botham:2003-PFME] -> Botham

  Bibliography section:
  \bibliographystyle{oxford}
  \bibliography{my-bibfile}

  see http://www.charlietanksley.net/philtex/natbib-cheat-sheets/
  for a nice Natbib-only cheatsheet

Indexing
  In the preamble:
  \usepackage{makeidx}
  \makeindex

  \index{key@formatted_entry}
  key = the sorting key
  formatted_entry = lets you format the entry

  e.g.
  \index{cheese} = adds the word cheese to the index
  \index{cheese!Cheddar} = Cheddar, subentry of cheese
  \index{Plantinga@\textfb{Plantinga}} = formatted entry
  \index{ecole@\'ecole} = formatting for accent

  Put \printindex where you want the index.

  For debugging, add \usepackage{showidx} before \makeindex.

Textcomp package.
  \usepackage{textcomp}
  \textdegree{} gives you the degree symbol.
  \textcelsius{} gives you degree symbol plus C.
  \texteuro{} gives you €. You may prefer \euro{}.

Polyglossia
  in preamble:
    \usepackage{polyglossia}
    \setdefaultlanguage[babelshorthands]{english}
    \usepackage[Ligatures=TeX]{fontspec}
    \setdefaultlanguage{english}

  add another language to preamble:
    \setotherlanguage[babelshorthands]{german}

  a span of German text:
    \textgerman{Gesundheit}

  a paragraph of German text:
    \begin{german}
    Ich mag Hacking!
    \end{german}


Useful tricks.
  \today prints the date in the form "March 10, 2012"

  Don't want ligatures? Pop an \mbox{} in-between characters.

  When you have a full stop and it isn't the end of a sentence, replace
  the space afterwards with a ~ or put a \@ before the full stop.

Background: I've created this for myself. I've used LaTeX for a while, and this is intended for humanists, specifically philosophers, who aren't writing mathematically-heavy papers but want to use LaTeX because it's a version-controllable way of writing with footnotes and all that.