LaTeX Stuff
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Links/Tips to help with writing articles for various physics journals:

LaTeX is wonderful for writing scientific articles -- you don't have to worry about the journal and reference style or anything like that, just concentrate on the article itself.  In addition, once you've written the article, if you need to submit to multiple journals it is a trivial process to convert between journal styles.  And of course, if your paper will involve many mathematical formulas, LaTeX produces the nicest looking math in the business with the least amount of work.

Another good point to make is that LaTeX excels at things such as cross-referencing, table-of-contents generation and index creation, making it an excellent tool with which to eventually write your thesis.  See below for more information on the uiucthesis package and how to use it.

Of course, you need to use BibTeX to take advantage of the reference style features, which in my opinion is the most important part.  Creating a reference database is a snap if you use an editor like WinEdt (see below) -- just create a new file and use the Insert -> BibTeX Items menu to insert templates for each reference (you don't have to fill in all the fields usually), then save the file with the .bib extension.  (Here's my database as an example.)  In your paper, give the command \bibliography{database name} where you want your list of references to appear (database name is your database file without the .bib extension).  Usually you will also want the command \bibliographystyle{style name} somewhere, where style name is the name of the .bst file you are using (without the extension).  Then every time you want to cite a reference, just give the command \cite{key1,key2,...} in your paper and LaTeX will find the entry(ies) in your database with that key value(s), cite them and add them to the list of references.  You don't have to worry about numbering, what the citation style is, duplicates, etc.  No problem!  Note that when you compile your document, you need to run it through LaTeX first, then BibTeX, then LaTeX twice more to get all the references correct.  I know it seems weird, but if you understand how the compilation process works it makes perfect sense, I swear.

To install LaTeX on your computer, see the instructions below.  For more detailed help creating documents with LaTeX, look at some of the links below and/or get yourself a good reference book -- Leslie Lamport's book is the standard, but I use A Guide to LaTeX by Helmut Kopka and Patrick Daly and have been eminently satisfied with it.

Below are links and tips for writing for the journals to which our group submits the bulk of its papers.  In all cases you can just put the files in the same directory as your .tex source file or incorporate it into your local TEXMF tree.

Nature

The LaTeX and BibTeX style files I found on the web for Nature were pretty much useless (the BibTeX file was outright incorrect for the current Nature style), so I created my own class and template files and generated the correct BibTeX style file.  I have uploaded it to CTAN, get it from here.

Science

Science provides a pair of style files and a template for creation of preprint articles which are available from their website.  If you just follow the template you shouldn't have any problems.

Physical Review __

You'll want to use REVTeX 4.  It works like a charm and is very easy to use.  You can print the result as a preprint or in the two-column publish-ready format, which is convenient to see how the article will look in print and how long it is (an issue for PRL).  It is a standard LaTeX2e package, so you probably have it already if you downloaded the full version of MiKTeX (look in the subdirectory doc\latex\revtex4 for documentation, including examples and a template), but if you don't have it, you can download it from their homepage, which also has a ton more information on REVTeX.

Surface Science and other Elsevier journals

I have not used them, but Elsevier supplies LaTeX class and BibTeX style files for their journals and they seem to be very LaTeX friendly in general.  Go to their website at http://authors.elsevier.com.  You can also download it as a package from CTAN.

Other Sources

A fair number of other journals are discussed at this website.  It also contains a lot of useful links and other TeX-related information.

BibTeX style files can be easily generated using the custom-bib package (look in \tex\latex\custom-bib), assuming that you know exactly what the journal's style is (if you can find a good example article, that works best).  Just LaTeX the makebst.tex file (in a DOS window, if you're on a Windows machine) and use the merlin.mbs master style file.  Then answer about a zillion questions about the journal's reference style and it spits out a .bst file.

Other Packages/Classes

uiucthesis.  If you want to write your thesis with LaTeX, you're in luck -- this package was written by folks here at UIUC and contains style files and such all ready for use that will produce a thesis that (supposedly) conforms to the UIUC Graduate College's requirements.  The package includes documentation (process the .dtx file with LaTeX).  Also check out this site for some handy tips regarding thesis writing with LaTeX at UIUC.

vitae.cls and vitae.bst.  A class and BibTeX style I created for writing my curriculum vitae.  Read the comments at the beginning for how to use it and/or look at the source for my CV.

resume.cls.  A class created by Miklos Csuros at the University of Montreal for writing resumes, see his example for how to use it.  His website from which I downloaded it also has some useful fonts and other documents on it.

LaTeX-Related Links/Tips:

How do you prepare PowerPoint-like presentations in LaTeX?  Well, you have lot's of options as it turns out.  They are reviewed in the linked article with an emphasis on the prosper package, which is my current preference and is actually written on top of seminar and as such includes most of its features.  It comes with the standard distribution, but I'd recommend downloading the latest version from CTAN.

The main problem with the prosper package is that it uses A4 paper by default, which is a problem for us North Americans, so beware when using it for printing transparencies.  They are working on this deficiency but who knows when they will support it.  See the paragraph below about HA-prosper, though.

If you want to create presentations for live use that offer features like slide transitions (wipe, fade, etc.) and overlays (like lists that pop up one item at a time), the prosper package has a number of built-in features for that.  Alternatively, check out the ppower4 package, which can be used with any document class to add in transition effects and is quite comprehensive, but requires a post-processing step with Java.  In any case, check out the documentation files in the appropriate doc/latex/package directory.

In addition, Hendri Adriaens has created an extension of the prosper package he calls HA-prosper in which he has fixed some bugs and added a lot more features to prosper, mainly for live presentation use, but useful for transparencies nonetheless.  I believe HA-prosper also defaults to letter sized paper.

In any case, no matter what you use, I'd eventually learn how to use the pstricks package (see below), as that will allow you to add things like arrows between elements, drawings, etc.  I'd also get real familiar with using minipage environments, as they will give you more power to place text and objects (for example, if you want a two-column slide, you can use a pair of "minipages").  Read about them in your favorite reference book or documentation.


An explanation of how to do underlines, strike-outs, etc. with LaTeX (short answer: use the ulem package).

Here is a site with a bunch of stuff to make posters with LaTeX.  Also look up the class a0poster and use the a0size package, both are in the standard distribution.  I've never actually tried to do this so I can't vouch for how easy or convenient it is.  This is one of the few jobs for which I feel a WYSIWYG program is really advantageous, although PowerPoint irritates me to no end.

Want to make detailed drawings and/or graphs with LaTeX?  Or even just add graphical elements like arrows and circles and such?  The built-in graphics features (that you put in a picture environment, usually) that come with the standard distribution are very limited in their utility.  A much more comprehensive set of commands is available with the pstricks package.  The documentation is not in the \doc subdirectory of the standard MiKTeX distribution for some reason (at least mine), but you can get it from CTAN here.

The LaTeX Project homepage, which includes some guides.

A description of the TeX Directory Structure (TDS).  It is actually fairly straightforward, just large for most installations.  The main point is if you want to manually add packages and classes and such, you should create your own local TEXMF tree and add it to the search path (if using MiKTeX, add it to "Roots" in MiKTeX Options).  This local TEXMF tree must be of TDS structure however, otherwise TeX won't find your files.

Writing your own LaTeX classes and packages

The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN), which has a good catalog for finding things.

An excellent documentation site from the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering.

NASA's quick guide for LaTeX in hypertext form.

How do you print multiple pages on one page in order to save paper?  Use the psnup utility.  For example:
psnup -pletter -d -nup 4
See the manual page in doc/psutils of your distribution for details.

Reference Documents/Books:

An overview of how to use BibTeX (PDF, 105 KB)

The (Not So) Short Introduction to LaTeX2e (PDF, 2.3 MB)

Short Math Guide for LaTeX (PDF, 532 KB)

The Comprehensive LaTeX Symbol List (PDF, 2.4 MB)

TeX for the Impatient.  A book freely available for download that gives a good introduction to using TeX.  (PDF, 1.4 MB)

Making TeX Work.  This book was originally published by O'Reilly but has since been discontinued and is now available for free on the web.

How to set up LaTeX on your Windows computer:

  1. Set up MiKTeX by either downloading the system from the MiKTeX Project or by using the downloaded files in "\\chiangpc10\C\Downloads\MiKTeX-2.2\", which is the complete 2.2 version system (the complete system is a huge download -- around 230 MB).  If you download the latest version, you will have to run the setup program twice: once to download the files and a second time to actually install the system.

  2. Navigate the setup program.  I recommend installing the complete system, in a shared environment into a folder such as C:\MiKTeX or something similar that has no spaces in the pathname.  Select the "create a local TEXMF tree" option.

  3. After MiKTeX is fully set up you are technically done, but I'd recommend installing WinEdt, an editor that will make the creation of LaTeX documents much easier.  A trial version can be downloaded from their web page.  If you're a member of CNL, version 5.3 is in "\\chiangpc10\C\Downloads" along with a site license for our group (see the .txt file in that same directory).

  4. Note that a lot of things with LaTeX are set up for A4 paper by default (the non-U.S. standard).  One thing in particular is that (at least with my distribution) caused me problems is the default paper size for dvips and dvipdfm (the utilities used to convert your LaTeX document into a PostScript or PDF formats, respectively) is A4.  For dvips this isn't such a problem since WinEdt has a drop-down list for selecting command line options (choose "-P pdf -t letter") but it doesn't have any corresponding menu for dvipdfm (the dvi2pdf button).  To instruct dvipdfm to use letter size paper by default, change the config file in the directory [TEXMF]\dvipdfm\config.  There is a line for the default paper size.

Last Updated: March 14, 2005 .