Latex Treats and Tricks
Use package a4wide or geometry (\usepackage[left=1cm,top=1cm,right=1cm,nohead,nofoot]{geometry}) or use package simplemargins or set margins manually, eg: \setlength{\topmargin}{0.5cm}.
Use: \usepackage[small,compact]{titlesec} or \usepackage[small,it]{caption}
Use: \vspace{\fill} or \vspace{10cm} or \hfill or \qquad.
Use the right encoding (UTF-8 or ISO-8859-2/LATIN-2) of the file and define it in the input encodings. Use babel package. When all fails do this:
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\newcommand\ahook{\k{a}} \newcommand\Ahook{\k{A}}
\newcommand\capos{\'{c}} \newcommand\Capos{\'{C}}
\newcommand\ehook{\k{e}} \newcommand\Ehook{\k{E}}
\newcommand\ldash{\l} \newcommand\Ldash{\L}
\newcommand\napos{\'{n}} \newcommand\Napos{\'{N}}
\newcommand\oapos{\'{o}} \newcommand\Oapos{\'{O}}
\newcommand\sapos{\'{s}} \newcommand\Sapos{\'{S}}
\newcommand\zdot{\.{z}} \newcommand\Zdot{\.{Z}}
\newcommand\zapos{\'{z}} \newcommand\Zapos{\'{Z}}
which all produce these (including uppercase too), in the same order:
Example usage:El{\zdot}bieta Kr{\ehook}pska
Use latex2html or pdftoppm.
Use:\questionnespread{1.3}
Use: \begin{center}\rule{.48\textwidth}{0.1mm}\end{center}
Use: \usepackage{cite}.
Be careful, they might not want to use this package in the final proceedings and you'll end up with ugly looking references.
Look in Font Catalogue.
Use one of the packages: lgrind, algorithm+algorithmic or lstlisting. I actually create listings and tables in LyX and export them as lstlistings to LaTeX. Here's a script which converts all LyX files to LaTeX and removes `preamble' and 'footer', so that they be included in another LaTeX file.
I use LyX and GVim with the syntax installed. Other editors supporting LaTeX: Kile (KDE), TeXmacs.
I use JabRef which is open-source. I have heard EndNode is good. Editing by hand quickly leads to errors.
Editing the tables in LaTeX is the only things that LaTeX really sucks at. I edit tables with LyX, export them to LaTeX and include in my original document. Here's a script which converts all LyX files to LaTeX and removes `preamble' and 'footer', so that they be included in another LaTeX file.
Use the wonderful res document class. See here for examples.
To indent each paragraph use package indentfirst. To remove indentation use \setlength{\parindent}{0in}. To remove an indentation before a single paragraph use \noindent.
If it's a PDF or Postscript picture use includegraphics. PDF images can only be processed with pdflatex. Examples of including figures here and here. Alternatively you can use the "DeclareGraphicsExtensions" to include images with other extensions. Unless the image is a vector graphics including an image in latex generally produces poor results. No such problem in Beamer, why..?
This is abbrv-unsrt.bst: abbreviated unsorted bibtex style. It's identical to abbrv just not sorted so citations appear in the order of citing rather than alphabetical order. All I did was to take abbrv and remove the sorting part. For alphabetical order use the standard abbrv style.
To generally discourage hyphenation use \pretolerance=1500 or \tolerance=some big number but less than 10000. To encourage hyphenation make the parameter smaller. To correct a single hyphenation do this my\-looo\-ooong\-word which tells latex where it is allowed to break the word. Solution for very desperate or very lazy is to put a line break.
Add \looseness=-1 at the end of that paragraph.
Use aspell (I recomment this option because it seemed easier in usage):
Such a warning means that LaTeX could not get a line spacing right - with all the options tried, it was always too long or too short, so the warning was printed for the user to resolve it manually. Try changing the line a bit. If you recompile with a draft option, the problem will be shown as a black rectangle.
- Reduce margins, font size, vertical spacing, spaces between lines, spaces between paragraphs, spaces around headings, spaces around images (vspace*{-1cm}), in the enumeration or itemization (paralist). All that generally not allowed when submitting a camera ready paper with a requested document class.
- Shorten Figure to Fig \renewcommand{\figurename}{\Fig}
- In formulas: make horizontal spaces smaller, e.g. a\!+\!b
- Reduce picutre sizes (\includegraphics[width=0.4\textwidth]{..})
- Reduce the size of bibliography (\scriptsize \parskip=8pt)
- Look for short lines and try to remove them. Especially in bibliography
- Use serif font \usepackage{times}
- Use savetrees package. Makes a document much shorter but generally will not be accepted for a camera-ready paper.
Check your LaTeX with
Spellcheck.
I found these sites offering great LaTeX tricks: