LaTeX2e: An unofficial reference manual ¶

2.1 Starting and ending ¶

LaTeX files have a simple global structure, with a standard beginning and ending. Here is a small example:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Hello, \LaTeX\ world.
\end{document}

Every LaTeX document has a \begin{document} line and an \end{document} line.

Here, the ‘article’ is the document class. It is implemented in a file article.cls. You can use any document class available on your system. A few document classes are defined by LaTeX itself, and a vast array of others are available. See Document classes.

You can include other LaTeX commands between the \documentclass and the \begin{document} commands. This area is called the preamble.

The \begin{document} … \end{document} pair defines an environment; the ‘document’ environment (and no others) is required in all LaTeX documents (see document). LaTeX provides many environments that are documented here (see Environments). Many more are available to you from external packages, most importantly those available at CTAN (see CTAN: The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network).

The following sections discuss how to produce PDF or other output from a LaTeX input file.

2.2 Output files ¶

LaTeX produces a main output file and at least two auxiliary files. The main output file’s name ends in either .dvi or .pdf.

.dvi ¶

If LaTeX is invoked with the system command latex then it produces a DeVice Independent file, with extension .dvi. You can view this file with a command such as xdvi, or convert it to a PostScript .ps file with dvips or to a Portable Document Format .pdf file with dvipdfmx. The contents of the file can be dumped in human-readable form with dvitype. A vast array of other DVI utility programs are available (https://mirror.ctan.org/dviware).

.pdf ¶

If LaTeX is invoked via the system command pdflatex, among other commands (see TeX engines), then the main output is a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. Typically this is a self-contained file, with all fonts and images included.

LaTeX always produces at least two additional files.

.log ¶

This transcript file contains summary information such as a list of loaded packages. It also includes diagnostic messages and perhaps additional information for any errors.

.aux ¶

Auxiliary information is used by LaTeX for things such as cross references. For example, the first time that LaTeX finds a forward reference—a cross reference to something that has not yet appeared in the source—it will appear in the output as a doubled question mark ??. When the referred-to spot does eventually appear in the source then LaTeX writes its location information to this .aux file. On the next invocation, LaTeX reads the location information from this file and uses it to resolve the reference, replacing the double question mark with the remembered location.

LaTeX may produce yet more files, characterized by the filename ending. These include a .lof file that is used to make a list of figures, a .lot file used to make a list of tables, and a .toc file used to make a table of contents (see Table of contents, list of figures, list of tables). A particular class may create others; the list is open-ended.

2.3 TeX engines ¶

LaTeX is a large set of commands (macros) that is executed by a TeX program (see Overview of LaTeX). Such a set of commands is called a format, and is embodied in a binary .fmt file, which can be read much more quickly than the corresponding TeX source.

This section gives a terse overview of the TeX programs that are commonly available (see also Command line interface).

latex ¶

pdflatex ¶

In TeX Live (https://tug.org/texlive), if LaTeX is invoked via either the system command latex or pdflatex, then the pdfTeX engine is run (https://ctan.org/pkg/pdftex). When invoked as latex, the main output is a .dvi file; as pdflatex, the main output is a .pdf file.

pdfTeX incorporates the e-TeX extensions to Knuth’s original program (https://ctan.org/pkg/etex), including additional programming features and bi-directional typesetting, and has plenty of extensions of its own. e-TeX is available on its own as the system command etex, but this is plain TeX (and produces .dvi).

In other TeX distributions, latex may invoke e-TeX rather than pdfTeX. In any case, the e-TeX extensions can be assumed to be available in LaTeX, and a few extensions beyond e-TeX, particularly for file manipulation.

lualatex ¶

If LaTeX is invoked via the system command lualatex, the LuaTeX engine is run (https://ctan.org/pkg/luatex). This program allows code written in the scripting language Lua (http://luatex.org) to interact with TeX’s typesetting. LuaTeX handles UTF-8 Unicode input natively, can handle OpenType and TrueType fonts, and produces a .pdf file by default. There is also dvilualatex to produce a .dvi file.

xelatex ¶

If LaTeX is invoked with the system command xelatex, the XeTeX engine is run (https://tug.org/xetex). Like LuaTeX, XeTeX natively supports UTF-8 Unicode and TrueType and OpenType fonts, though the implementation is completely different, mainly using external libraries instead of internal code. XeTeX produces a .pdf file as output; it does not support DVI output.

Internally, XeTeX creates an .xdv file, a variant of DVI, and translates that to PDF using the (x)dvipdfmx program, but this process is automatic. The .xdv file is only useful for debugging.

hilatex ¶

If LaTeX is invoked via the system command hilatex, the HiTeX engine is run (https://ctan.org/pkg/hitex). This program produces its own format, named HINT, designed especially for high-quality typesetting on mobile devices.

platex ¶

uplatex ¶

These commands provide significant additional support for Japanese and other languages; the u variant supports Unicode. See https://ctan.org/pkg/ptex and https://ctan.org/pkg/uptex.

As of 2019, there is a companion -dev command and format for all of the above, except hitex:

dvilualatex-dev ¶

latex-dev ¶

lualatex-dev ¶

pdflatex-dev ¶

platex-dev ¶

uplatex-dev ¶

xelatex-dev ¶

These are candidates for an upcoming LaTeX release. The main purpose is to find and address compatibility problems before an official release.

These -dev formats make it easy for anyone to help test documents and code: you can run, say, pdflatex-dev instead of pdflatex, without changing anything else in your environment. Indeed, it is easiest and most helpful to always run the -dev versions instead of bothering to switch back and forth. During quiet times after a release, the commands will be equivalent.

These are not daily snapshots or untested development code. They undergo the same extensive regression testing by the LaTeX team before being released.

For more information, see “The LaTeX release workflow and the LaTeX dev formats” by Frank Mittelbach, TUGboat 40:2, https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb40-2/tb125mitt-dev.pdf.

2.4 Input text ¶

To a first approximation, most input characters in LaTeX print as themselves. But there are exceptions, as discussed in the following sections.

• Input encodings
• Ligatures
• Special characters: \ { } % $ & _ ^ # ~

2.5 LaTeX command syntax ¶

In the LaTeX input file, a command name starts with a backslash character, \. The name itself then consists of either (a) a string of letters or (b) a single non-letter.

LaTeX commands names are case sensitive; for example, \pagebreak differs from \Pagebreak (the latter is not a standard command). Most command names are lowercase, but in any event you must enter all commands in the same case as they are defined.

A command may be followed by zero, one, or more arguments. These arguments may be either required or optional. Required arguments are contained in curly braces, {...}. Optional arguments are contained in square brackets, [...]. Generally, but not universally, if the command accepts an optional argument, it comes first, before any required arguments; optional arguments could come after required arguments, or both before and after.

Inside of an optional argument, to use the character close square bracket (]) hide it inside curly braces, as in \item[closing bracket {]}]. Similarly, if an optional argument comes last, with no required argument after it, then to make the first character of the following text be an open square bracket, hide it inside curly braces.

LaTeX has the convention that some commands have a * form that is closely related to the form without a *, such as \chapter and \chapter*. The difference in behavior varies from command to command.

This manual describes all accepted options and *-forms for the commands it covers (barring unintentional omissions, a.k.a. bugs).

As of the 2020-10-01 release of LaTeX, the expl3 and xparse packages are part of the LaTeX2e format. They provide a completely different underlying programming language syntax. We won’t try to cover that in this document; see the related package documentation and other LaTeX manuals.

2.6 Environment syntax ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{environment-name}
  ...
\end{environment-name}

An environment is an area of LaTeX source, inside of which there is a distinct behavior. For instance, for poetry in LaTeX put the lines between \begin{verse} and \end{verse}.

\begin{verse}
  There once was a man from Nantucket \\
  ...
\end{verse}

See Environments, for a list of environments. Particularly notable is that every LaTeX document must have a document environment, a \begin{document} ... \end{document} pair.

The environment-name at the beginning must exactly match that at the end. This includes the case where environment-name ends in a star (*); both the \begin and \end texts must include the star.

Environments may have arguments, including optional arguments. This example produces a table. The first argument is optional (and causes the table to be aligned on its top row) while the second argument is required (it specifies the formatting of columns).

\begin{tabular}[t]{r|l}
  ... rows-of-table ...
\end{tabular}

2.7 \DocumentMetadata: Producing tagged PDF output ¶

The \DocumentMetadata command was added to LaTeX in 2022. It enables so-called “tagging” of the PDF output, aiding accessibility of the PDF. It is supported best with LuaLaTeX; pdfLaTeX and XeLaTeX are supported as well as possible (see TeX engines).

It is unlike nearly any other command in LaTeX in that it must occur before the \documentclass command that starts a LaTeX document proper (see \documentclass). Therefore it must be called with \RequirePackage rather than \usepackage (see \RequirePackage).

This support is still in development, so we will not try to list all the possible settings. Please see the documentmetadata-support-doc document, part of the latex-lab package (https://ctan.org/pkg/latex-lab). Here is a simple example which enables most tagging currently implemented:

\DocumentMetadata{testphase={phase-III,firstaid}}
\documentclass{article}
...

As you can see from the key name testphase, this is all still in an experimental phase. The LaTeX developers strongly encourage users to give it a try and report problems, so it can be improved.

2.8 CTAN: The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network ¶

The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network, CTAN, is the TeX and LaTeX community’s repository of free material. It is a set of Internet sites around the world that offer material related to LaTeX for download. Visit CTAN on the web at https://ctan.org.

This material is organized into packages, discrete bundles that typically offer some coherent functionality and are maintained by one person or a small number of people. For instance, many publishers have a package that allows authors to format papers to that publisher’s specifications.

In addition to its massive holdings, the ctan.org web site offers features such as search by name or by functionality.

CTAN is not a single host, but instead is a set of hosts, one of which is the so-called “master”. The master host actively manages the material, for instance, by accepting uploads of new or updated packages. For many years, it has been hosted by the German TeX group, DANTE e.V.

Other sites around the world help out by mirroring, that is, automatically syncing their collections with the master site and then in turn making their copies publicly available. This gives users close to their location better access and relieves the load on the master site. The list of mirrors is at https://ctan.org/mirrors.

3.1 Document class options ¶

You can specify global options or class options to the \documentclass command by enclosing them in square brackets. To specify more than one option, separate them with a comma.

\documentclass[option1,option2,...]{class}

LaTeX automatically passes options specified for \documentclass on to any other loaded classes that can handle them.

Here is the list of the standard class options.

All of the standard classes except slides accept the following options for selecting the typeface size; the default is 10pt:

10pt  11pt  12pt

All of the standard classes accept these options for selecting the paper size (dimensions are listed height by width):

a4paper

210 by 297mm (about 8.25 by 11.75 inches)

a5paper

148 by 210mm (about 5.8 by 8.3 inches)

b5paper

176 by 250mm (about 6.9 by 9.8 inches)

executivepaper

7.25 by 10.5 inches

legalpaper

8.5 by 14 inches

letterpaper

8.5 by 11 inches (the default)

When using one of the engines pdfLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, or XeLaTeX (see TeX engines), options other than letterpaper set the print area but you must also set the physical paper size. Usually, the geometry package is the best way to do that; it provides flexible ways of setting the print area and physical page size. Otherwise, setting the paper size is engine-dependent. For example, with pdfLaTeX, you could include \pdfpagewidth=\paperwidth and \pdfpageheight=\paperheight in the preamble.

Miscellaneous other options:

draft ¶

final

Mark (draft) or do not mark (final) overfull boxes with a black box in the margin; default is final.

fleqn ¶

Put displayed formulas flush left; default is centered.

landscape ¶

Selects landscape format; default is portrait.

leqno ¶

Put equation numbers on the left side of equations; default is the right side.

openbib ¶

Use “open” bibliography format.

titlepage ¶

notitlepage

Specifies whether there is a separate page for the title information and for the abstract also, if there is one. The default for the report class is titlepage, for the other classes it is notitlepage.

The following options are not available with the slides class.

onecolumn

twocolumn

Typeset in one or two columns; default is onecolumn.

oneside ¶

twoside

Selects one- or two-sided layout; default is oneside, except that in the book class the default is twoside.

For one-sided printing, the text is centered on the page. For two-sided printing, the \evensidemargin (\oddsidemargin) parameter determines the distance on even (odd) numbered pages between the left side of the page and the text’s left margin, with \oddsidemargin being 40% of the difference between \paperwidth and \textwidth, and \evensidemargin is the remainder.

openright

openany

Determines if a chapter should start on a right-hand page; default is openright for book, and openany for report.

The slides class offers the option clock for printing the time at the bottom of each note.

3.2 \usepackage: Additional packages ¶

To load a package pkg, with the package options given in the comma-separated list options:

\usepackage[options]{pkg}[mindate]

To specify more than one package you can separate them with a comma, as in \usepackage{pkg1,pkg2,...}, or use multiple \usepackage commands.

If the mindate optional argument is given, LaTeX gives a warning if the loaded package has an earlier date, i.e., is too old. The mindate argument must be in the form YYYY/MM/DD. More info on this: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/47743.

\usepackage must be used in the document preamble, between the \documentclass declaration and the \begin{document}. Occasionally it is necessary to load packages before the \documentclass; see \RequirePackage for that (see \RequirePackage).

Any options given in the global \documentclass command that are unknown to the selected document class are passed on to the packages loaded with \usepackage.

3.3 Class and package creation ¶

You can create new document classes and new packages. For instance, if your memos must satisfy some local requirements, such as a standard header for each page, then you could create a new class smcmemo.cls and begin your documents with \documentclass{smcmemo}.

What separates a package from a document class is that the commands in a package are useful across classes while those in a document class are specific to that class. Thus, a command to set page headers is for a package while a command to make the page headers be Memo from the SMC Math Department is for a class.

Inside of a class or package definition you can use the at-sign @ as a character in command names without having to surround the code containing that command with \makeatletter and \makeatother (see \makeatletter & \makeatother). This allows you to create commands that users will not accidentally redefine.

It is also highly desirable to prefix class- or package-specific commands with your package name or similar string, to prevent your definitions from clashing with those from other packages. For instance, the class smcmemo might have commands \smc@tolist, \smc@fromlist, etc.

• Class and package structure

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\ProvidesClass{stub}[2017/07/06 stub to start building classes from]
\DeclareOption*{\PassOptionsToClass{\CurrentOption}{article}}
\ProcessOptions\relax
\LoadClass{article}

4.1 fontenc package ¶

Synopsis:

\usepackage[font_encoding]{fontenc}

or

\usepackage[font_encoding1, font_encoding2, ...]{fontenc}

Specify the font encodings. A font encoding is a mapping of the character codes to the font glyphs that are used to typeset your output.

This package only applies if you use the pdflatex engine (see TeX engines). If you use the xelatex or lualatex engine then instead use the fontspec package.

TeX’s original font family, Computer Modern, has a limited character set. For instance, to make common accented characters you must use \accent (see \accent) but this disables hyphenation. TeX users have agreed on a number of standards to access the larger sets of characters provided by modern fonts. If you are using pdflatex then put this in the preamble

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

gives you support for the most widespread European languages, including French, German, Italian, Polish, and others. In particular, if you have words with accented letters then LaTeX will hyphenate them and your output can be copied and pasted. (The optional second line allows you to directly enter accented characters into your source file.)

If you are using an encoding such as T1 and the characters appear blurry or do not magnify well then your fonts may be bitmapped, sometimes called raster or Type 3. You want vector fonts. Use a package such as lmodern or cm-super to get a font that extends LaTeX’s default using vector fonts.

For each font_encoding given as an option but not already declared, this package loads the encoding definition files, named font_encodingenc.def. It also sets \encodingdefault to be the last encoding in the option list.

These are the common values for font_encoding:

OT1 ¶

The original 7-bit encoding for TeX. Limited to mostly English characters.

OMS, OML

Math symbols and math letters encoding.

T1 ¶

TeX text extended. Sometimes called the Cork encoding for the users group meeting where it was developed (1990). Gives access to most European accented characters. The most common option for this package.

TS1 ¶

Text Companion encoding.

LaTeX’s default is to load OML, T1, OT1, and then OMS, and set the default to OT1.

Even if you do not use accented letters, you may need to specify a font encoding if your font requires it.

If you use T1 encoded fonts other than the default Computer Modern family then you may need to load the package that selects your fonts before loading fontenc, to prevent the system from loading any T1 encoded fonts from the default.

The LaTeX team reserves encoding names starting with: ‘T’ for the standard text encodings with 256 characters, ‘TS’ for symbols that extend the corresponding T encodings, ‘X’ for test encodings, ‘M’ for standard math encodings with 256 characters, ‘A’ for special applications, ‘OT’ for standard text encodings with 128 characters, and ‘OM’ for standard math encodings with 128 characters (‘O’ stands for ‘obsolete’).

This package provides a number of commands, detailed below. Many of them are encoding-specific, so if you have defined a command that works for one encoding but the current encoding is different then the command is not in effect.

• \DeclareFontEncoding
• \DeclareTextAccent
• \DeclareTextAccentDefault
• \DeclareTextCommand & \ProvideTextCommand
• \DeclareTextCommandDefault & \ProvideTextCommandDefault
• \DeclareTextComposite
• \DeclareTextCompositeCommand
• \DeclareTextSymbol
• \DeclareTextSymbolDefault
• \LastDeclaredEncoding
• \UseTextSymbol & \UseTextAccent

\DeclareFontEncoding{encoding}{text-settings}{math-settings}

\DeclareFontEncoding{T1}{}{}

\DeclareTextAccent{cmd}{encoding}{slot}

\DeclareTextAccent{\^}{T1}{2}

\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\cmd}{encoding}

\DeclareTextAccentDefault{\"}{OT1}

\DeclareTextCommandDefault[1]{\cmd}
   {\UseTextAccent{encoding}{\cmd}{#1}}

\DeclareTextCommand{\cmd}{encoding}{defn}
\DeclareTextCommand{\cmd}{encoding}[nargs]{defn}
\DeclareTextCommand{\cmd}{encoding}[nargs][optargdefault]{defn}

\ProvideTextCommand{\cmd}{encoding}{defn}
\ProvideTextCommand{\cmd}{encoding}[nargs]{defn}
\ProvideTextCommand{\cmd}{encoding}[nargs][optargdefault]{defn}

\DeclareTextCommand{\textperthousand}{T1}{\%\char 24 }

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}  % in preamble
  ...
Legal limit is \( 0.8 \)\textperthousand.

\DeclareTextCommandDefault{\cmd}{defn}

\ProvideTextCommandDefault{\cmd}{defn}

\DeclareTextCommandDefault{\copyright}{\textcircled{c}}

\DeclareTextComposite{\cmd}{encoding}{simple_object}{slot}

\DeclareTextComposite{\^}{T1}{o}{244}

\DeclareTextCompositeCommand{\cmd}{encoding}{arg}{code}

\DeclareTextCompositeCommand{\'}{OT1}{i}{\'\i}

\DeclareTextSymbol{\cmd}{encoding}{slot}

\DeclareTextSymbol{\guillemetleft}{T1}{19}

\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\cmd}{encoding}

\DeclareTextSymbolDefault{\textdollar}{OT1}

\DeclareTextCommandDefault{\cmd}
   {\UseTextSymbol{encoding}{\cmd}}

\LastDeclaredEncoding

\DeclareFontEncoding{JH1}{}{}
\DeclareTextAccent{\'}{\LastDeclaredEncoding}{0}

\UseTextSymbol{encoding}{\cmd}

\UseTextAccent{encoding}{\cmd}{text}

\UseTextSymbol{OT1}{\ss}

{\fontencoding{OT1}\selectfont\ss}

\UseTextAccent{OT1}{\'}{a}

{fontencoding{OT1}\selectfont\'{\fontencoding{enc_in_use}\selectfont a}}

4.2 Font styles ¶

The following type style commands are supported by LaTeX.

In the table below the listed commands, the \text... commands, are used with an argument as in \textit{text}. This is the preferred form. But shown after it in parenthesis is the corresponding declaration form, which is often useful. This form takes no arguments, as in {\itshape text}. The scope of the declaration form lasts until the next type style command or the end of the current group. In addition, each has an environment form such as \begin{itshape}...\end{itshape}, which we’ll describe further at the end of the section.

These commands, in any of the three forms, are cumulative; for instance you can get bold sans serif by saying either of \sffamily\bfseries or \bfseries\sffamily.

One advantage of these commands is that they automatically insert italic corrections if needed (see \/). Specifically, they insert the italic correction unless the following character is in the list \nocorrlist, which by default consists of period and comma. To suppress the automatic insertion of italic correction, use \nocorr at the start or end of the command argument, such as \textit{\nocorr text} or \textsc{text \nocorr}.

\textrm (\rmfamily) ¶

Roman.

\textit (\itshape) ¶

Italics.

\textmd (\mdseries) ¶

Medium weight (default).

\textbf (\bfseries) ¶

Boldface.

\textup (\upshape) ¶

Upright (default).

\textsl (\slshape) ¶

Slanted.

\textsf (\sffamily) ¶

Sans serif.

\textsc (\scshape) ¶

Small caps.

\texttt (\ttfamily) ¶

Typewriter.

\textnormal (\normalfont) ¶

Main document font.

Although it also changes fonts, the \emph{text} command is semantic, for text to be emphasized, and should not be used as a substitute for \textit. For example, \emph{start text \emph{middle text} end text} will result in the start text and end text in italics, but middle text will be in roman.

LaTeX also provides the following commands, which unconditionally switch to the given style, that is, are not cumulative. They are used as declarations: {\cmd...} instead of \cmd{...}.

(The unconditional commands below are an older version of font switching. The earlier commands are an improvement in most circumstances. But sometimes an unconditional font switch is what is needed.)

\bf ¶

Switch to bold face.

\cal ¶

Switch to calligraphic letters for math.

\it ¶

Italics.

\rm ¶

Roman.

\sc ¶

Small caps.

\sf ¶

Sans serif.

\sl ¶

Slanted (oblique).

\tt ¶

Typewriter (monospace, fixed-width).

The \em command is the unconditional version of \emph.

The following commands are for use in math mode. They are not cumulative, so \mathbf{\mathit{symbol}} does not create a boldface and italic symbol; instead, it will just be in italics. This is because typically math symbols need consistent typographic treatment, regardless of the surrounding environment.

\mathrm ¶

Roman, for use in math mode.

\mathbf ¶

Boldface, for use in math mode.

\mathsf ¶

Sans serif, for use in math mode.

\mathtt ¶

Typewriter, for use in math mode.

\mathit

(\mit)

Italics, for use in math mode.

\mathnormal ¶

For use in math mode, e.g., inside another type style declaration.

\mathcal ¶

Calligraphic letters, for use in math mode.

In addition, the command \mathversion{bold} can be used for switching to bold letters and symbols in formulas. \mathversion{normal} restores the default.

Finally, the command \oldstylenums{numerals} will typeset so-called “old-style” numerals, which have differing heights and depths (and sometimes widths) from the standard “lining” numerals, which all have the same height as uppercase letters. LaTeX’s default fonts support this, and will respect \textbf (but not other styles; there are no italic old-style numerals in Computer Modern). Many other fonts have old-style numerals also; sometimes package options are provided to make them the default. FAQ entry: https://www.texfaq.org/FAQ-osf.

4.3 Font sizes ¶

The following standard type size commands are supported by LaTeX. The table shows the command name and the corresponding actual font size used (in points) with the ‘10pt’, ‘11pt’, and ‘12pt’ document size options, respectively (see Document class options).

The commands are listed here in declaration (not environment) form, since that is how they are typically used. For example.

\begin{quotation} \small
  The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.
\end{quotation}

Here, the scope of the \small lasts until the end of the quotation environment. It would also end at the next type style command or the end of the current group, so you could enclose it in curly braces {\small This text is typeset in the small font.}.

Trying to use these commands in math, as with $\small mv^2/2$, results in ‘LaTeX Font Warning: Command \small invalid in math mode’, and the font size doesn’t change. To work with a too-large formula, often the best option is to use the displaymath environment (see Math formulas), or one of the environments from the amsmath package. For inline mathematics, such as in a table of formulas, an alternative is something like {\small $mv^2/2$}. (Sometimes \scriptsize and \scriptstyle are confused. Both change the font size, but the latter also changes a number of other aspects of how mathematics is typeset. See Math styles.)

An environment form of each of these commands is also defined; for instance, \begin{tiny}...\end{tiny}. However, in practice this form can easily lead to unwanted spaces at the beginning and/or end of the environment without careful consideration, so it’s generally less error-prone to stick to the declaration form.

(Aside: Technically, due to the way LaTeX defines \begin and \end, nearly every command that does not take an argument technically has an environment form. But in almost all cases, it would only cause confusion to use it. The reason for mentioning the environment form of the font size declarations specifically is that this particular use is not rare.)

4.4 Low-level font commands ¶

These commands are primarily intended for writers of macros and packages. The commands listed here are only a subset of the available ones.

\fontencoding{encoding} ¶

Select the font encoding, the encoding of the output font. There are a large number of valid encodings. The most common are OT1, Knuth’s original encoding for Computer Modern (the default), and T1, also known as the Cork encoding, which has support for the accented characters used by the most widespread European languages (German, French, Italian, Polish and others), which allows TeX to hyphenate words containing accented letters. For more, see https://ctan.org/pkg/encguide.

\fontfamily{family} ¶

Select the font family. The web page https://tug.org/FontCatalogue/ provides one way to browse through many of the fonts easily used with LaTeX. Here are examples of some common families.

pag	Avant Garde
fvs	Bitstream Vera Sans
pbk	Bookman
bch	Charter
ccr	Computer Concrete
cmr	Computer Modern
cmss	Computer Modern Sans Serif
cmtt	Computer Modern Typewriter
pcr	Courier
phv	Helvetica
fi4	Inconsolata
lmr	Latin Modern
lmss	Latin Modern Sans
lmtt	Latin Modern Typewriter
pnc	New Century Schoolbook
ppl	Palatino
ptm	Times
uncl	Uncial
put	Utopia
pzc	Zapf Chancery

\fontseries{series} ¶

Select the font series. A series combines a weight and a width. Typically, a font supports only a few of the possible combinations. Some common combined series values include:

m	Medium (normal)
b	Bold
c	Condensed
bc	Bold condensed
bx	Bold extended

The possible values for weight, individually, are:

ul	Ultra light
el	Extra light
l	Light
sl	Semi light
m	Medium (normal)
sb	Semi bold
b	Bold
eb	Extra bold
ub	Ultra bold

The possible values for width, individually, are (the meaning and relationship of these terms varies with individual typefaces):

uc	Ultra condensed
ec	Extra condensed
c	Condensed
sc	Semi condensed
m	Medium
sx	Semi expanded
x	Expanded
ex	Extra expanded
ux	Ultra expanded

When forming the series string from the weight and width, drop the m that stands for medium weight or medium width, unless both weight and width are m, in which case use just one (‘m’).

\fontshape{shape} ¶

Select font shape. Valid shapes are:

n	Upright (normal)
it	Italic
sl	Slanted (oblique)
sc	Small caps
ui	Upright italics
ol	Outline

The two last shapes are not available for most font families, and small caps are often missing as well.

\fontsize{size}{skip} ¶

Set the font size and the line spacing. The unit of both parameters defaults to points (pt). The line spacing is the nominal vertical space between lines, baseline to baseline. It is stored in the parameter \baselineskip. The default \baselineskip for the Computer Modern typeface is 1.2 times the \fontsize. Changing \baselineskip directly is inadvisable since its value is reset every time a size change happens; instead use \baselinestretch. (see \baselineskip & \baselinestretch).

\linespread{factor} ¶

Equivalent to \renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{factor}, and therefore must be followed by \selectfont to have any effect. Best specified in the preamble. See \baselineskip & \baselinestretch, for using setspace package instead.

\selectfont ¶

The effects of the font commands described above do not happen until \selectfont is called, as in \fontfamily{familyname}\selectfont. It is often useful to put this in a macro:
\newcommand*{\myfont}{\fontfamily{familyname}\selectfont}
(see \newcommand & \renewcommand).

\usefont{enc}{family}{series}{shape} ¶

The same as invoking \fontencoding, \fontfamily, \fontseries and \fontshape with the given parameters, followed by \selectfont. For example:

\usefont{ot1}{cmr}{m}{n}

5.1 \onecolumn ¶

Synopsis:

\onecolumn

Start a new page and produce single-column output. If the document is given the class option onecolumn then this is the default behavior (see Document class options). This command is fragile (see \protect).

5.2 \twocolumn ¶

Synopses:

\twocolumn
\twocolumn[prelim one column text]

Start a new page and produce two-column output. If the document is given the class option twocolumn then this is the default (see Document class options). This command is fragile (see \protect).

If the optional prelim one column text argument is present, it is typeset in one-column mode before the two-column typesetting starts.

These parameters control typesetting in two-column output:

\columnsep ¶

The distance between columns. The default is 35pt. Change it with a command such as \setlength{\columnsep}{40pt}. You must change it before the two column mode starts; in the preamble is a good place.

\columnseprule ¶

The width of the rule between columns. The default is 0pt, meaning that there is no rule. Otherwise, the rule appears halfway between the two columns. Change it with a command such as \setlength{\columnseprule}{0.4pt}, before the two-column mode starts.

\columnwidth ¶

The width of a single column. In one-column mode this is equal to \textwidth. In two-column mode by default LaTeX sets the width of each of the two columns, \columnwidth, to be half of \textwidth minus \columnsep.

In a two-column document, the starred environments table* and figure* are two columns wide, whereas the unstarred environments table and figure take up only one column (see figure and see table). LaTeX places starred floats at the top of a page. The following parameters control float behavior of two-column output.

\dbltopfraction ¶

The maximum fraction at the top of a two-column page that may be occupied by two-column wide floats. The default is 0.7, meaning that the height of a table* or figure* environment must not exceed 0.7\textheight. If the height of your starred float environment exceeds this then you can take one of the following actions to prevent it from floating all the way to the back of the document:

• Use the [tp] location specifier to tell LaTeX to try to put the bulky float on a page by itself, as well as at the top of a page.
• Use the [t!] location specifier to override the effect of \dbltopfraction for this particular float.
• Increase the value of \dbltopfraction to a suitably large number, to avoid going to float pages so soon.

You can redefine it, as with \renewcommand{\dbltopfraction}{0.9}.

\dblfloatpagefraction ¶

For a float page of two-column wide floats, this is the minimum fraction that must be occupied by floats, limiting the amount of blank space. LaTeX’s default is 0.5. Change it with \renewcommand.

\dblfloatsep ¶

On a float page of two-column wide floats, this length is the distance between floats, at both the top and bottom of the page. The default is 12pt plus2pt minus2pt for a document set at 10pt or 11pt, and 14pt plus2pt minus4pt for a document set at 12pt.

\dbltextfloatsep ¶

This length is the distance between a multi-column float at the top or bottom of a page and the main text. The default is 20pt plus2pt minus4pt.

\dbltopnumber ¶

On a float page of two-column wide floats, this counter gives the maximum number of floats allowed at the top of the page. The LaTeX default is 2.

This example uses \twocolumn’s optional argument of to create a title that spans the two-column article:

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\newcommand{\authormark}[1]{\textsuperscript{#1}}
\begin{document}
\twocolumn[{% inside this optional argument goes one-column text
  \centering
  \LARGE The Title \\[1.5em]
  \large Author One\authormark{1},
         Author Two\authormark{2},
         Author Three\authormark{1} \\[1em]
  \normalsize
  \begin{tabular}{p{.2\textwidth}@{\hspace{2em}}p{.2\textwidth}}
    \authormark{1}Department one  &\authormark{2}Department two \\ 
     School one                   &School two 
  \end{tabular}\\[3em] % space below title part
  }]

Two column text here.

5.3 \flushbottom ¶

Make all pages in the document after this declaration have the same height, by stretching the vertical space where necessary to fill out the page. This is most often used when making two-sided documents since the differences in facing pages can be glaring.

If TeX cannot satisfactorily stretch the vertical space in a page then you get a message like ‘Underfull \vbox (badness 10000) has occurred while \output is active’. If you get that, one option is to change to \raggedbottom (see \raggedbottom). Alternatively, you can adjust the textheight to make compatible pages, or you can add some vertical stretch glue between lines or between paragraphs, as in \setlength{\parskip}{0ex plus0.1ex}. Your last option is to, in a final editing stage, adjust the height of individual pages (see \enlargethispage).

The \flushbottom state is the default only if you select the twocolumn document class option (see Document class options), and for indexes made using makeidx.

5.4 \raggedbottom ¶

Make all later pages the natural height of the material on that page; no rubber vertical lengths will be stretched. Thus, in a two-sided document the facing pages may be different heights. This command can go at any point in the document body. See \flushbottom.

This is the default unless you select the twocolumn document class option (see Document class options).

5.5 Page layout parameters ¶

\columnsep ¶

\columnseprule ¶

\columnwidth ¶

The distance between the two columns, the width of a rule between the columns, and the width of the columns, when the document class option twocolumn is in effect (see Document class options). See \twocolumn.

\headheight ¶

Height of the box that contains the running head. The default in the article, report, and book classes is ‘12pt’, at all type sizes.

\headsep ¶

Vertical distance between the bottom of the header line and the top of the main text. The default in the article and report classes is ‘25pt’. In the book class the default is: if the document is set at 10pt then it is ‘0.25in’, and at 11pt or 12pt it is ‘0.275in’.

\footskip ¶

Distance from the baseline of the last line of text to the baseline of the page footer. The default in the article and report classes is ‘30pt’. In the book class the default is: when the type size is 10pt the default is ‘0.35in’, while at 11pt it is ‘0.38in’, and at 12pt it is ‘30pt’.

\linewidth ¶

Width of the current line, decreased for each nested list (see list). That is, the nominal value for \linewidth is to equal \textwidth but for each nested list the \linewidth is decreased by the sum of that list’s \leftmargin and \rightmargin (see itemize).

\marginparpush ¶

\marginsep ¶

\marginparwidth ¶

The minimum vertical space between two marginal notes, the horizontal space between the text body and the marginal notes, and the horizontal width of the notes.

Normally marginal notes appear on the outside of the page, but the declaration \reversemarginpar changes that (and \normalmarginpar changes it back).

The defaults for \marginparpush in both book and article classes are: ‘7pt’ if the document is set at 12pt, and ‘5pt’ if the document is set at 11pt or 10pt.

For \marginsep, in article class the default is ‘10pt’ except if the document is set at 10pt and in two-column mode where the default is ‘11pt’.

For \marginsep in book class the default is ‘10pt’ in two-column mode and ‘7pt’ in one-column mode.

For \marginparwidth in both book and article classes, in two-column mode the default is 60% of \paperwidth − \textwidth, while in one-column mode it is 50% of that distance.

\oddsidemargin ¶

\evensidemargin ¶

The \oddsidemargin length is the extra distance between the left side of the page and the text’s left margin, on odd-numbered pages when the document class option twoside is chosen and on all pages when oneside is in effect. When twoside is in effect, on even-numbered pages the extra distance on the left is \evensidemargin.

LaTeX’s default is that \oddsidemargin is 40% of the difference between \paperwidth and \textwidth, and \evensidemargin is the remainder.

\paperheight ¶

The height of the paper, as distinct from the height of the print area. Normally set with a document class option, as in \documentclass[a4paper]{article} (see Document class options).

\paperwidth ¶

The width of the paper, as distinct from the width of the print area. Normally set with a document class option, as in \documentclass[a4paper]{article} (see Document class options).

\textheight ¶

The normal vertical height of the page body. If the document is set at a nominal type size of 10pt then for an article or report the default is ‘43\baselineskip’, while for a book it is ‘41\baselineskip’. At a type size of 11pt the default is ‘38\baselineskip’ for all document classes. At 12pt it is ‘36\baselineskip’ for all classes.

\textwidth ¶

The full horizontal width of the entire page body. For an article or report document, the default is ‘345pt’ when the chosen type size is 10pt, the default is ‘360pt’ at 11pt, and it is ‘390pt’ at 12pt. For a book document, the default is ‘4.5in’ at a type size of 10pt, and ‘5in’ at 11pt or 12pt.

In multi-column output, \textwidth remains the width of the entire page body, while \columnwidth is the width of one column (see \twocolumn).

In lists (see list), \textwidth remains the width of the entire page body (and \columnwidth the width of the entire column), while \linewidth may decrease for nested lists.

Inside a minipage (see minipage) or \parbox (see \parbox), all the width-related parameters are set to the specified width, and revert to their normal values at the end of the minipage or \parbox.

\hsize ¶

This entry is included for completeness: \hsize is the TeX primitive parameter used when text is broken into lines. It should not be used in normal LaTeX documents.

\topmargin ¶

Space between the top of the TeX page (one inch from the top of the paper, by default) and the top of the header. The value is computed based on many other parameters: \paperheight − 2in − \headheight − \headsep − \textheight − \footskip, and then divided by two.

\topskip ¶

Minimum distance between the top of the page body and the baseline of the first line of text. For the standard classes, the default is the same as the font size, e.g., ‘10pt’ at a type size of 10pt.

5.6 \baselineskip & \baselinestretch ¶

The \baselineskip is a rubber length (see Lengths). It gives the leading, the normal distance between lines in a paragraph, from baseline to baseline.

Ordinarily document authors do not directly change \baselineskip while writing. Instead, it is set by the low level font selection command \fontsize (see low level font commands fontsize). The \baselineskip’s value is reset every time a font change happens and so any direct change to \baselineskip would vanish the next time there was a font switch. For how to influence line spacing, see the discussion of \baselinestretch below.

Usually, a font’s size and baseline skip is assigned by the font designer. These numbers are nominal in the sense that if, for instance, a font’s style file has the command \fontsize{10pt}{12pt} then that does not mean that the characters in the font are 10pt tall; for instance, parentheses and accented capitals may be taller. Nor does it mean that if the lines are spaced less than 12pt apart then they risk touching. Rather these numbers are typographic judgements. (Often, the \baselineskip is about twenty percent larger than the font size.)

The \baselineskip is not a property of each line but of the entire paragraph. As a result, large text in the middle of a paragraph, such as a single {\Huge Q}, will be squashed into its line. TeX will make sure it doesn’t scrape up against the line above but won’t change the \baselineskip for that one line to make extra room above. For the fix, use a \strut (see \strut).

The value of \baselineskip that TeX uses for the paragraph is the value in effect at the blank line or command that ends the paragraph unit. So if a document contains this paragraph then its lines will be scrunched together, compared to lines in surrounding paragraphs.

Many people see a page break between text and a displayed equation as 
bad style, so in effect the display is part of the paragraph.
Because this display is in footnotesize, the entire paragraph has the
baseline spacing matching that size.
{\footnotesize $$a+b = c$$}

The process for making paragraphs is that when a new line is added, if the depth of the previous line plus the height of the new line is less than \baselineskip then TeX inserts vertical glue to make up the difference. There are two fine points. The first is that if the lines would be too close together, closer than \lineskiplimit, then TeX instead uses \lineskip as the interline glue. The second is that TeX doesn’t actually use the depth of the previous line. Instead it uses \prevdepth, which usually contains that depth. But at the beginning of the paragraph (or any vertical list) or just after a rule, \prevdepth has the value -1000pt and this special value tells TeX not to insert any interline glue at the paragraph start.

In the standard classes \lineskiplimit is 0pt and \lineskip is 1pt. By the prior paragraph then, the distance between lines can approach zero but if it becomes zero (or less than zero) then the lines jump to 1pt apart.

Sometimes authors must, for editing purposes, put the document in double space or one-and-a-half space. The right way to influence the interline distance is via \baselinestretch. It scales \baselineskip, and has a default value of 1.0. It is a command, not a length, and does not take effect until a font change happens, so set the scale factor like this: \renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.5}\selectfont.

The most straightforward way to change the line spacing for an entire document is to put \linespread{factor} in the preamble. For double spacing, take factor to be 1.6 and for one-and-a-half spacing use 1.3. These numbers are rough: for instance, since the \baselineskip is about 1.2 times the font size, multiplying by 1.6 gives a baseline skip to font size ratio of about 2. (The \linespread command is defined as \renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{factor} so it also won’t take effect until a font setting happens. But that always takes place at the start of a document, so there you don’t need to follow it with \selectfont.)

A simpler approach is the setspace package. The basic example:

\usepackage{setspace}
\doublespacing  % or \onehalfspacing for 1.5

In the preamble these will start the document off with that sizing. But you can also use these declarations in the document body to change the spacing from that point forward, and consequently there is \singlespacing to return the spacing to normal. In the document body, a better practice than using the declarations is to use environments, such as \begin{doublespace} ... \end{doublespace}. The package also has commands to do arbitrary spacing: \setstretch{factor} and \begin{spacing}{factor} ... \end{spacing}. This package also keeps the line spacing single-spaced in places where that is typically desirable, such as footnotes and figure captions. See the package documentation.

5.7 Floats ¶

Some typographic elements, such as figures and tables, cannot be broken across pages. They must be typeset outside of the normal flow of text, for instance floating to the top of a later page.

LaTeX can have a number of different classes of floating material. The default is the two classes, figure (see figure) and table (see table), but you can create a new class with the package float.

Within any one float class LaTeX always respects the order, so that the first figure in a document source must be typeset before the second figure. However, LaTeX may mix the classes, so it can happen that while the first table appears in the source before the first figure, it appears in the output after it.

The placement of floats is subject to parameters, given below, that limit the number of floats that can appear at the top of a page, and the bottom, etc. If so many floats are queued that the limits prevent them all from fitting on a page then LaTeX places what it can and defers the rest to the next page. In this way, floats may end up being typeset far from their place in the source. In particular, a float that is big may migrate to the end of the document. In which event, because all floats in a class must appear in sequential order, every following float in that class also appears at the end.

In addition to changing the parameters, for each float you can tweak where the float placement algorithm tries to place it by using its placement argument. The possible values are a sequence of the letters below. The default for both figure and table, in both article and book classes, is tbp.

t

(Top)—at the top of a text page.

b

(Bottom)—at the bottom of a text page. (However, b is not allowed for full-width floats (figure*) with double-column output. To ameliorate this, use the stfloats or dblfloatfix package, but see the discussion at caveats in the FAQ: https://www.texfaq.org/FAQ-2colfloat.

h

(Here)—at the position in the text where the figure environment appears. However, h is not allowed by itself; t is automatically added.

To absolutely force a float to appear “here”, you can \usepackage{float} and use the H specifier which it defines. For further discussion, see the FAQ entry at https://www.texfaq.org/FAQ-figurehere.

p ¶

(Page of floats)—on a separate float page, which is a page containing no text, only floats.

!

Used in addition to one of the above; for this float only, LaTeX ignores the restrictions on both the number of floats that can appear and the relative amounts of float and non-float text on the page. The ! specifier does not mean “put the float here”; see above.

Note: the order in which letters appear in the placement argument does not change the order in which LaTeX tries to place the float; for instance, btp has the same effect as tbp. All that placement does is that if a letter is not present then the algorithm does not try that location. Thus, LaTeX’s default of tbp is to try every location except placing the float where it occurs in the source.

To prevent LaTeX from moving floats to the end of the document or a chapter you can use a \clearpage command to start a new page and insert all pending floats. If a pagebreak is undesirable then you can use the afterpage package and issue \afterpage{\clearpage}. This will wait until the current page is finished and then flush all outstanding floats.

LaTeX can typeset a float before where it appears in the source (although on the same output page) if there is a t specifier in the placement parameter. If this is not desired, and deleting the t is not acceptable as it keeps the float from being placed at the top of the next page, then you can prevent it by either using the flafter package or using the command \suppressfloats[t], which causes floats for the top position on this page to moved to the next page.

Parameters relating to fractions of pages occupied by float and non-float text (change them with \renewcommand{parameter}{decimal between 0 and 1}):

\bottomfraction ¶

The maximum fraction of the page allowed to be occupied by floats at the bottom; default ‘.3’.

\floatpagefraction ¶

The minimum fraction of a float page that must be occupied by floats; default ‘.5’.

\textfraction ¶

Minimum fraction of a page that must be text; if floats take up too much space to preserve this much text, floats will be moved to a different page. The default is ‘.2’.

\topfraction ¶

Maximum fraction at the top of a page that may be occupied before floats; default ‘.7’.

Parameters relating to vertical space around floats (change them with a command of the form \setlength{parameter}{length expression}):

\floatsep ¶

Space between floats at the top or bottom of a page; default ‘12pt plus2pt minus2pt’.

\intextsep ¶

Space above and below a float in the middle of the main text; default ‘12pt plus2pt minus2pt’ for 10 point and 11 point documents, and ‘14pt plus4pt minus4pt’ for 12 point documents.

\textfloatsep ¶

Space between the last (first) float at the top (bottom) of a page; default ‘20pt plus2pt minus4pt’.

Counters relating to the number of floats on a page (change them with a command of the form \setcounter{ctrname}{natural number}):

bottomnumber ¶

Maximum number of floats that can appear at the bottom of a text page; default 1.

dbltopnumber ¶

Maximum number of full-sized floats that can appear at the top of a two-column page; default 2.

topnumber ¶

Maximum number of floats that can appear at the top of a text page; default 2.

totalnumber ¶

Maximum number of floats that can appear on a text page; default 3.

The principal TeX FAQ entry relating to floats https://www.texfaq.org/FAQ-floats contains suggestions for relaxing LaTeX’s default parameters to reduce the problem of floats being pushed to the end. A full explanation of the float placement algorithm is in Frank Mittelbach’s article “How to influence the position of float environments like figure and table in LaTeX?” (https://www.latex-project.org/publications/2014-FMi-TUB-tb111mitt-float-placement.pdf).

• \caption

\caption{caption-text}

\caption[short-caption-text]{caption-text}

\begin{figure}
  \vspace*{1cm}
  \caption{Alonzo Cushing, Battery A, 4th US Artillery.}
  \label{fig:CushingPic}
\end{figure}

\begin{table}
  \centering
  \begin{tabular}{|*{3}{c}|}
    \hline
    4  &9  &2 \\
    3  &5  &7 \\ 
    8  &1  &6 \\
    \hline
  \end{tabular}
  \caption[\textit{Lo Shu} magic square]{%
    The \textit{Lo Shu} magic square, which is unique among
    squares of order three up to rotation and reflection.}
  \label{tab:LoShu}
\end{table}

6.1 \part ¶

Synopsis, one of:

\part{title}
\part*{title}
\part[toc-title]{title}

Start a document part. The standard LaTeX classes book, report, and article, all have this command.

This produces a document part, in a book.

\part{VOLUME I \\
       PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF  U.\ S.\ GRANT}
\chapter{ANCESTRY--BIRTH--BOYHOOD.}
My family is American, and has been for generations,
in all its branches, direct and collateral.

In each standard class the \part command outputs a part number such as ‘Part I’, alone on its line, in boldface, and in large type. Then LaTeX outputs title, also alone on its line, in bold and in even larger type. In class book, the LaTeX default puts each part alone on its own page. If the book is two-sided then LaTeX will skip a page if needed to have the new part on an odd-numbered page. In report it is again alone on a page, but LaTeX won’t force it onto an odd-numbered page. In an article LaTeX does not put it on a fresh page, but instead outputs the part number and part title onto the main document page.

The * form shows title but it does not show the part number, does not increment the part counter, and produces no table of contents entry.

The optional argument toc-title will appear as the part title in the table of contents (see Table of contents, list of figures, list of tables) and in running headers (see Page styles). If it is not present then title will be there. This example puts a line break in title but omits the break in the table of contents.

\part[Up from the bottom; my life]{Up from the bottom\\ my life}

For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a part is -1 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth, and Sectioning/tocdepth).

In the class article, if a paragraph immediately follows the part title then it is not indented. To get an indent you can use the package indentfirst.

One package to change the behavior of \part is titlesec. See its documentation on CTAN.

6.2 \chapter ¶

Synopsis, one of:

\chapter{title}
\chapter*{title}
\chapter[toc-title]{title}

Start a chapter. The standard LaTeX classes book and report have this command but article does not.

This produces a chapter.

\chapter{Loomings}
Call me Ishmael.
Some years ago---never mind how long precisely---having little or no
money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I
thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of
the world.

The LaTeX default starts each chapter on a fresh page, an odd-numbered page if the document is two-sided. It produces a chapter number such as ‘Chapter 1’ in large boldface type (the size is \huge). It then puts title on a fresh line, in boldface type that is still larger (size \Huge). It also increments the chapter counter, adds an entry to the table of contents (see Table of contents, list of figures, list of tables), and sets the running header information (see Page styles).

The * form shows title on a fresh line, in boldface. But it does not show the chapter number, does not increment the chapter counter, produces no table of contents entry, and does not affect the running header. (If you use the page style headings in a two-sided document then the header will be from the prior chapter.) This example illustrates.

\chapter*{Preamble}

The optional argument toc-title will appear as the chapter title in the table of contents (see Table of contents, list of figures, list of tables) and in running headers (see Page styles). If it is not present then title will be there. This shows the full name in the chapter title,

\chapter[Weyl]{Hermann Klaus Hugo (Peter) Weyl (1885--1955)}

but only ‘Weyl’ on the contents page. This puts a line break in the title but that doesn’t work well with running headers so it omits the break in the contents

\chapter[Given it all; my story]{Given it all\\ my story}

For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a chapter is 0 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth and see Sectioning/tocdepth).

The paragraph that follows the chapter title is not indented, as is a standard typographical practice. To get an indent use the package indentfirst.

You can change what is shown for the chapter number. To change it to something like ‘Lecture 1’, put in the preamble either \renewcommand{\chaptername}{Lecture} or this (see \makeatletter & \makeatother).

\makeatletter
\renewcommand{\@chapapp}{Lecture}
\makeatother

To make this change because of the primary language for the document, see the package babel.

In a two-sided document LaTeX puts a chapter on odd-numbered page, if necessary leaving an even-numbered page that is blank except for any running headers. To make that page completely blank, see \clearpage & \cleardoublepage.

To change the behavior of the \chapter command, you can copy its definition from the LaTeX format file and make adjustments. But there are also many packages on CTAN that address this. One is titlesec. See its documentation, but the example below gives a sense of what it can do.

\usepackage{titlesec}   % in preamble
\titleformat{\chapter}
  {\Huge\bfseries}  % format of title
  {}                % label, such as 1.2 for a subsection
  {0pt}             % length of separation between label and title
  {}                % before-code hook

This omits the chapter number ‘Chapter 1’ from the page but unlike \chapter* it keeps the chapter in the table of contents and the running headers.

6.3 \section ¶

Synopsis, one of:

\section{title}
\section*{title}
\section[toc-title]{title}

Start a section. The standard LaTeX classes article, book, and report all have this command.

This produces a section.

In this Part we tend to be more interested in the function,
in the input-output behavior,
than in the details of implementing that behavior.

\section{Turing machines}
Despite this desire to downplay implementation,
we follow the approach of A~Turing that the
first step toward defining the set of computable functions
is to reflect on the details of what mechanisms can do.

For the standard LaTeX classes book and report the default output is like ‘1.2 title’ (for chapter 1, section 2), alone on its line and flush left, in boldface and a larger type (the type size is \Large). The same holds in article except that there are no chapters in that class so it looks like ‘2 title’.

The * form shows title. But it does not show the section number, does not increment the section counter, produces no table of contents entry, and does not affect the running header. (If you use the page style headings in a two-sided document then the header will be from the prior section.)

The optional argument toc-title will appear as the section title in the table of contents (see Table of contents, list of figures, list of tables) and in running headers (see Page styles). If it is not present then title will be there. This shows the full name in the title of the section:

\section[Elizabeth~II]{Elizabeth the Second,
  by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom,
  Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen,
  Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.}

but only ‘Elizabeth II’ on the contents page and in the headers. This has a line break in title but that does not work with headers so it is omitted from the contents and headers.

\section[Truth is, I cheated; my life story]{Truth is,
  I cheated\\my life story}

For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a section is 1 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth and see Sectioning/tocdepth).

The paragraph that follows the section title is not indented, as is a standard typographical practice. One way to get an indent is to use the package indentfirst.

In general, to change the behavior of the \section command, there are a number of options. One is the \@startsection command (see \@startsection: Typesetting sectional unit headings). There are also many packages on CTAN that address this, including titlesec. See the documentation but the example below gives a sense of what they can do.

\usepackage{titlesec}   % in preamble
\titleformat{\section}
  {\normalfont\Large\bfseries}  % format of title
  {\makebox[1pc][r]{\thesection\hspace{1pc}}} % label
  {0pt}                   % length of separation between label and title
  {}                      % before-code hook
\titlespacing*{\section}
  {-1pc}{18pt}{10pt}[10pc]

That puts the section number in the margin.

6.4 \subsection ¶

Synopsis, one of:

\subsection{title}
\subsection*{title}
\subsection[toc-title]{title}

Start a subsection. The standard LaTeX classes article, book, and report all have this command.

This produces a subsection.

We will show that there are more functions than Turing machines and that
therefore some functions have no associated machine.

\subsection{Cardinality} We will begin with two paradoxes that
dramatize the challenge to our intuition posed by comparing the sizes of
infinite sets.

For the standard LaTeX classes book and report the default output is like ‘1.2.3 title’ (for chapter 1, section 2, subsection 3), alone on its line and flush left, in boldface and a larger type (the type size is \large). The same holds in article except that there are no chapters in that class so it looks like ‘2.3 title’.

The * form shows title. But it does not show the subsection number, does not increment the subsection counter, and produces no table of contents entry.

The optional argument toc-title will appear as the subsection title in the table of contents (see Table of contents, list of figures, list of tables). If it is not present then title will be there. This shows the full text in the title of the subsection:

\subsection[$\alpha,\beta,\gamma$ paper]{\textit{The Origin of
  Chemical Elements} by R.A.~Alpher, H.~Bethe, and G.~Gamow}

but only ‘α,β,γ paper’ on the contents page.

For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a subsection is 2 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth and see Sectioning/tocdepth).

The paragraph that follows the subsection title is not indented, as is a standard typographical practice. One way to get an indent is to use the package indentfirst.

There are a number of ways to change the behavior of the \subsection command. One is the \@startsection command (see \@startsection: Typesetting sectional unit headings). There are also many packages on CTAN that address this, including titlesec. See the documentation but the example below gives a sense of what they can do.

\usepackage{titlesec}   % in preamble
\titleformat{\subsection}[runin]
  {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries}  % format of the title
  {\thesubsection}                   % label
  {0.6em}                            % space between label and title
  {}                                 % before-code hook

That puts the subsection number and title in the first line of text.

6.5 \subsubsection, \paragraph, \subparagraph ¶

Synopsis, one of:

\subsubsection{title}
\subsubsection*{title}
\subsubsection[toc-title]{title}

or one of:

\paragraph{title}
\paragraph*{title}
\paragraph[toc-title]{title}

or one of:

\subparagraph{title}
\subparagraph*{title}
\subparagraph[toc-title]{title}

Start a subsubsection, paragraph, or subparagraph. The standard LaTeX classes article, book, and report all have these commands, although they are not commonly used.

This produces a subsubsection.

\subsubsection{Piston ring compressors: structural performance}
Provide exterior/interior wall cladding assemblies
capable of withstanding the effects of load and stresses from 
consumer-grade gasoline engine piston rings.

The default output of each of the three does not change over the standard LaTeX classes article, book, and report. For \subsubsection the title is alone on its line, in boldface and normal size type. For \paragraph the title is inline with the text, not indented, in boldface and normal size type. For \subparagraph the title is inline with the text, with a paragraph indent, in boldface and normal size type (Because an article has no chapters its subsubsections are numbered and so it looks like ‘1.2.3 title’, for section 1, subsection 2, and subsubsection 3. The other two divisions are not numbered.)

The * form shows title. But it does not increment the associated counter and produces no table of contents entry (and does not show the number for \subsubsection).

The optional argument toc-title will appear as the division title in the table of contents (see Table of contents, list of figures, list of tables). If it is not present then title will be there.

For determining which sectional units are numbered and which appear in the table of contents, the level number of a subsubsection is 3, of a paragraph is 4, and of a subparagraph is 5 (see Sectioning/secnumdepth and see Sectioning/tocdepth).

The paragraph that follows the subsubsection title is not indented, as is a standard typographical practice. One way to get an indent is to use the package indentfirst.

There are a number of ways to change the behavior of the these commands. One is the \@startsection command (see \@startsection: Typesetting sectional unit headings). There are also many packages on CTAN that address this, including titlesec. See the documentation on CTAN.

6.6 \appendix ¶

Synopsis:

\appendix

This does not directly produce any output. But in a book or report document it declares that subsequent \chapter commands start an appendix. In an article it does the same, for \section commands. It also resets the chapter and section counters to 0 in a book or report, and in an article resets the section and subsection counters.

In this book

\chapter{One}  ...
\chapter{Two}  ...
 ...
\appendix
\chapter{Three}  ...
\chapter{Four}  ...

the first two will generate output numbered ‘Chapter 1’ and ‘Chapter 2’. After the \appendix the numbering will be ‘Appendix A’ and ‘Appendix B’. See Larger book template, for another example.

The appendix package adds the command \appendixpage to put a separate ‘Appendices’ in the document body before the first appendix, and the command \addappheadtotoc to do the same in the table of contents. You can reset the name ‘Appendices’ with a command like \renewcommand{\appendixname}{Specification}, as well as a number of other features. See the documentation on CTAN.

6.7 \frontmatter, \mainmatter, \backmatter ¶

Synopsis, one or more of:

\frontmatter
...
\mainmatter
...
\backmatter
...

Format a book class document differently according to which part of the document is being produced. All three commands are optional.

Traditionally, a book’s front matter contains such things as the title page, an abstract, a table of contents, a preface, a list of notations, a list of figures, and a list of tables. (Some of these front matter pages, such as the title page, are traditionally not numbered.) The back matter may contain such things as a glossary, notes, a bibliography, and an index.

The \frontmatter command makes the pages numbered in lowercase roman, and makes chapters not numbered, although each chapter’s title appears in the table of contents; if you use other sectioning commands here, use the *-version (see Sectioning).

The \mainmatter command changes the behavior back to the expected version, and resets the page number.

The \backmatter command leaves the page numbering alone but switches the chapters back to being not numbered.

See Larger book template, for an example using these three commands.

6.8 \@startsection: Typesetting sectional unit headings ¶

Synopsis:

\@startsection{name}{level}{indent}{beforeskip}{afterskip}{style}

Used to help redefine the behavior of commands that start sectioning divisions such as \section or \subsection.

The titlesec package makes manipulation of sectioning easier. Further, while most requirements for sectioning commands can be satisfied with \@startsection, some cannot. For instance, in the standard LaTeX book and report classes the commands \chapter and \report are not constructed using this. To make such a command you may want to use the \secdef command.

The \@startsection macro is used like this:

\@startsection{name}
  {level}
  {indent}
  {beforeskip}
  {afterskip}
  {style}*[toctitle]{title}

so that issuing

\renewcommand{\section}{\@startsection{name}
  {level}
  {indent}
  {beforeskip}
  {afterskip}
  {style}}

redefines \section while keeping its standard calling form \section*[toctitle]{title} (in which, as a reminder, the star * is optional). See Sectioning. This implies that when you write a command like \renewcommand{\section}{...}, the \@startsection{...} must come last in the definition. See the examples below.

name

Name of the counter used to number the sectioning header. This counter must be defined separately. Most commonly this is either section, subsection, or paragraph. Although in those cases the counter name is the same as the sectioning command itself, you don’t have to use the same name.

Then \thename displays the title number and \namemark is for the page headers. See the third example below.

level

An integer giving the depth of the sectioning command. See Sectioning, for the list of standard level numbers.

If level is less than or equal to the value of the counter secnumdepth then titles for this sectioning command will be numbered (see Sectioning/secnumdepth). For instance, if secnumdepth is 1 in an article then the command \section{Introduction} will produce output like “1 Introduction” while \subsection{Discussion} will produce output like “Discussion”, without the number prefix.

If level is less than or equal to the value of the counter tocdepth then the table of contents will have an entry for this sectioning unit (see Sectioning/tocdepth). For instance, in an article, if tocdepth is 1 then the table of contents will list sections but not subsections.

indent

A length giving the indentation of all of the title lines with respect to the left margin. To have the title flush with the margin use 0pt. A negative indentation such as -\parindent will move the title into the left margin.

beforeskip

The absolute value of this length is the amount of vertical space that is inserted before this sectioning unit’s title. This space will be discarded if the sectioning unit happens to start at the beginning of a page. If this number is negative then the first paragraph following the header is not indented; if it is non-negative then the first paragraph is indented. (Example: the negative of 1pt plus 2pt minus 3pt is -1pt plus -2pt minus -3pt.)

For example, if beforeskip is -3.5ex plus -1ex minus -0.2ex then to start the new sectioning unit, LaTeX will add about 3.5 times the height of a letter x in vertical space, and the first paragraph in the section will not be indented. Using a rubber length, with plus and minus, is good practice here since it gives LaTeX more flexibility in making up the page (see Lengths).

The full accounting of the vertical space between the baseline of the line prior to this sectioning unit’s header and the baseline of the header is that it is the sum of the \parskip of the text font, the \baselineskip of the title font, and the absolute value of the beforeskip. This space is typically rubber so it may stretch or shrink. (If the sectioning unit starts on a fresh page so that the vertical space is discarded then the baseline of the header text will be where LaTeX would put the baseline of the first text line on that page.)

afterskip

This is a length. If afterskip is non-negative then this is the vertical space inserted after the sectioning unit’s title header. If it is negative then the title header becomes a run-in header, so that it becomes part of the next paragraph. In this case the absolute value of the length gives the horizontal space between the end of the title and the beginning of the following paragraph. (Note that the negative of 1pt plus 2pt minus 3pt is -1pt plus -2pt minus -3pt.)

As with beforeskip, using a rubber length, with plus and minus components, is good practice here since it gives LaTeX more flexibility in putting together the page.

If afterskip is non-negative then the full accounting of the vertical space between the baseline of the sectioning unit’s header and the baseline of the first line of the following paragraph is that it is the sum of the \parskip of the title font, the \baselineskip of the text font, and the value of after. That space is typically rubber so it may stretch or shrink. (Note that because the sign of afterskip changes the sectioning unit header’s from standalone to run-in, you cannot use a negative afterskip to cancel part of the \parskip.)

style

Controls the styling of the title. See the examples below. Typical commands to use here are \centering, \raggedright, \normalfont, \hrule, or \newpage. The last command in style may be one that takes one argument, such as \MakeUppercase or \fbox that takes one argument. The section title will be supplied as the argument to this command. For instance, setting style to \bfseries\MakeUppercase would produce titles that are bold and uppercase.

These are LaTeX’s defaults for the first three sectioning units that are defined with \@startsection, for the article, book, and report classes.

• For section: level is 1, indent is 0pt, beforeskip is -3.5ex plus -1ex minus -0.2ex, afterskip is 2.3ex plus 0.2ex, and style is \normalfont\Large\bfseries.
• For subsection: level is 2, indent is 0pt, beforeskip is -3.25ex plus -1ex minus -0.2ex, afterskip is 1.5ex plus 0.2ex, and style is \normalfont\large\bfseries.

• For subsubsection: level is 3, indent is 0pt, beforeskip is -3.25ex plus -1ex minus -0.2ex, afterskip is 1.5ex plus 0.2ex, and style is \normalfont\normalsize\bfseries.

Some examples follow. These go either in a package or class file or in the preamble of a LaTeX document. If you put them in the preamble they must go between a \makeatletter command and a \makeatother. (Probably the error message You can't use `\spacefactor' in vertical mode. means that you forgot this.) See \makeatletter & \makeatother.

This will put section titles in large boldface type, centered. It says \renewcommand because LaTeX’s standard classes have already defined a \section. For the same reason it does not define a section counter, or the commands \thesection and \l@section.

\renewcommand\section{%
  \@startsection{section}% name
    {1}% level
    {0pt}% indent
    {-3.5ex plus -1ex minus -.2ex}% beforeskip
    {2.3ex plus.2ex}% afterskip
    {\centering\normalfont\Large\bfseries}% style
  }

This will put subsection titles in small caps type, inline with the paragraph.

\renewcommand\subsection{%
  \@startsection{subsection}%  name
    {2}% level
    {0em}% indent
    {-1ex plus 0.1ex minus -0.05ex}% beforeskip
    {-1em plus 0.2em}% afterskip
    {\scshape}% style
  }

The prior examples redefined existing sectional unit title commands. This defines a new one, illustrating the needed counter and macros to display that counter.

\setcounter{secnumdepth}{6}% show counters this far down
\newcounter{subsubparagraph}[subparagraph]% counter for numbering
\renewcommand{\thesubsubparagraph}%               how to display 
  {\thesubparagraph.\@arabic\c@subsubparagraph}%  numbering
\newcommand{\subsubparagraph}{\@startsection
                         {subsubparagraph}%
                         {6}%
                         {0em}%
                         {\baselineskip}%
                         {0.5\baselineskip}%
                         {\normalfont\normalsize}}
\newcommand*\l@subsubparagraph{\@dottedtocline{6}{10em}{5em}}% for toc
\newcommand{\subsubparagraphmark}[1]{}% for page headers

7.1 \label ¶

Synopsis:

\label{key}

Assign a reference number to key. In ordinary text \label{key} assigns to key the number of the current sectional unit. Inside an environment with numbering, such as a table or theorem environment, \label{key} assigns to key the number of that environment. Retrieve the assigned number with the \ref{key} command (see \ref).

A key name can consist of any sequence of letters, digits, or common punctuation characters. Upper and lowercase letters are distinguished, as usual.

A common convention is to use labels consisting of a prefix and a suffix separated by a colon or period. Thus, \label{fig:Post} is a label for a figure with a portrait of Emil Post. This helps to avoid accidentally creating two labels with the same name, and makes your source more readable. Some commonly-used prefixes:

ch

for chapters

sec

subsec

for lower-level sectioning commands

fig

for figures

tab

for tables

eq

for equations

In the auxiliary file the reference information is kept as the text of a command of the form \newlabel{label}{{currentlabel}{pagenumber}}. Here currentlabel is the current value of the macro \@currentlabel that is usually updated whenever you call \refstepcounter{counter}.

Below, the key sec:test will get the number of the current section and the key fig:test will get the number of the figure. (Incidentally, put labels after captions in figures and tables.)

\section{section name}
\label{sec:test}
This is Section~\ref{sec:test}.
\begin{figure}
  ...
  \caption{caption text}
  \label{fig:test}
\end{figure}
See Figure~\ref{fig:test}.

7.2 \pageref ¶

Synopsis:

\pageref{key}

Produce the page number of the place in the text where the corresponding \label{key} command appears.

If there is no \label{key} then you get something like ‘LaTeX Warning: Reference `th:GrensThm' on page 1 undefined on input line 11.’

Below, the \label{eq:main} is used both for the formula number and for the page number. (Note that the two references are forward references so this document would need to be compiled twice to resolve those.)

The main result is formula~\ref{eq:main} on page~\pageref{eq:main}.
  ...
\begin{equation} \label{eq:main}
   \mathbf{P}=\mathbf{NP}
\end{equation}

7.3 \ref ¶

Synopsis:

\ref{key}

Produces the number of the sectional unit, equation, footnote, figure, …, of the corresponding \label command (see \label). It does not produce any text, such as the word ‘Section’ or ‘Figure’, just the bare number itself.

If there is no \label{key} then you get something like ‘LaTeX Warning: Reference `th:GrensThm' on page 1 undefined on input line 11.’

In this example the \ref{popular} produces ‘2’. Note that it is a forward reference since it comes before \label{popular} so this document would have to be compiled twice.

The most widely-used format is item number~\ref{popular}.
\begin{enumerate}
\item Plain \TeX
\item \label{popular} \LaTeX
\item Con\TeX t
\end{enumerate}

The cleveref package includes text such as ‘Theorem’ in the reference. See the documentation on CTAN.

7.4 xr package ¶

Synopsis:

\usepackage{xr}
  \externaldocument{document-basename}

or

\usepackage{xr}
  \externaldocument[reference-prefix]{document-basename}

Make cross references to the external document document-basename.tex.

Here is an example. If lectures.tex has this in the preamble

\usepackage{xr}
  \externaldocument{exercises}
  \externaldocument[H-]{hints} 
  \externaldocument{answers}

then it can use cross reference labels from the other three documents. Suppose that exercises.tex has an enumerated list containing this,

\item \label{exer:EulersThm} What if every vertex has odd degree?

and hints.tex has an enumerated list with this,

\item \label{exer:EulersThm} Distinguish the case of two vertices.

and answers.tex has an enumerated list with this,

\item \label{ans:EulersThm} There is no Euler path, except if there
  are exactly two vertices.

After compiling the exercises, hints, and answers documents, entering this in the body of lectures.tex will result in the lectures getting the reference numbers used in the other documents.

See Exercise~\ref{exer:EulersThm}, with Hint~\ref{H-exer:EulersThm}.
The solution is Answer~\ref{ans:EulersThm}.

The prefix H- for the reference from the hints file is needed because the label in the hints file is the same as the label in the exercises file. Without that prefix, both references would get the number from the later file.

Note: if the document uses the hyperref package then in place of xr, put \usepackage{xr-hyper} before the \usepackage{hyperref}. Also, if any of the multiple documents uses hyperref then they all must use it.

8.1 abstract ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{abstract}
...
\end{abstract}

Produce an abstract, possibly of multiple paragraphs. This environment is only defined in the article and report document classes (see Document classes).

Using the example below in the article class produces a displayed paragraph. Document class option titlepage causes the abstract to be on a separate page (see Document class options); this is the default only in the report class.

\begin{abstract}
  We compare all known accounts of the proposal made by Porter Alexander 
  to Robert E Lee at the Appomattox Court House that the army continue
  in a guerrilla war, which Lee refused.
\end{abstract}

The next example produces a one column abstract in a two column document (for a more flexible solution, use the package abstract).

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
  ...
\begin{document}
\title{Babe Ruth as Cultural Progenitor: a Atavistic Approach}
\author{Smith \\ Jones \\ Robinson\thanks{Railroad tracking grant.}}
\twocolumn[
  \begin{@twocolumnfalse}
     \maketitle
     \begin{abstract}
       Ruth was not just the Sultan of Swat, he was the entire swat
       team.   
     \end{abstract}
   \end{@twocolumnfalse}
   ]
{   % by-hand insert a footnote at page bottom
 \renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}
 \footnotetext[1]{Thanks for all the fish.}
}

8.2 array ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{array}{cols}
  column 1 entry &column 2 entry ... &column n entry \\
  ...
\end{array}

or:

\begin{array}[pos]{cols}
  column 1 entry &column 2 entry ... &column n entry \\
  ...
\end{array}

Produce a mathematical array. This environment can only be used in math mode (see Modes), and normally appears within a displayed mathematics environment such as equation (see equation). Inside of each row the column entries are separated by an ampersand, (&). Rows are terminated with double-backslashes (see \\).

This example shows a three by three array.

\begin{displaymath}
  \chi(x) =
  \left|              % vertical bar fence
    \begin{array}{ccc}
      x-a  &-b  &-c  \\
      -d   &x-e &-f  \\
      -g   &-h  &x-i
    \end{array}
 \right|
\end{displaymath}

The required argument cols describes the number of columns, their alignment, and the formatting of the intercolumn regions. For instance, \begin{array}{rcl}...\end{array} gives three columns: the first flush right, the second centered, and the third flush left. See tabular for the complete description of cols and of the other common features of the two environments, including the optional pos argument.

There are two ways that array diverges from tabular. The first is that array entries are typeset in math mode, in textstyle (see Math styles) except if the cols definition specifies the column with p{...}, which causes the entry to be typeset in text mode. The second is that, instead of tabular’s parameter \tabcolsep, LaTeX’s intercolumn space in an array is governed by \arraycolsep, which gives half the width between columns. The default for this is ‘5pt’ so that between two columns comes 10pt of space.

To obtain arrays with braces the standard is to use the amsmath package. It comes with environments pmatrix for an array surrounded by parentheses (...), bmatrix for an array surrounded by square brackets [...], Bmatrix for an array surrounded by curly braces {...}, vmatrix for an array surrounded by vertical bars |...|, and Vmatrix for an array surrounded by double vertical bars ||...||, along with a number of other array constructs.

The next example uses the amsmath package.

\usepackage{amsmath}  % in preamble

\begin{equation}    
  \begin{vmatrix}{cc}  % array with vert lines
    a  &b \\
    c  &d       
  \end{vmatrix}=ad-bc
\end{equation}

There are many packages concerning arrays. The array package has many useful extensions, including more column types. The dcolumn package adds a column type to center on a decimal point. For both see the documentation on CTAN.

8.3 center ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{center}
  line1 \\
  line2 \\
  ...
\end{center}

Create a new paragraph consisting of a sequence of lines that are centered within the left and right margins. Use double-backslash, \\, to get a line break (see \\). If some text is too long to fit on a line then LaTeX will insert line breaks that avoid hyphenation and avoid stretching or shrinking any interword space.

This environment inserts space above and below the text body. See \centering to avoid such space, for example inside a figure environment.

This example produces three centered lines. There is extra vertical space between the last two lines.

\begin{center}
  A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fufillment \\
  of the Requirements of \\[0.5ex]
  the School of Environmental Engineering
\end{center}

In this example, depending on the page’s line width, LaTeX may choose a line break for the part before the double backslash. If so, it will center each of the two lines and if not it will center the single line. Then LaTeX will break at the double backslash, and will center the ending.

\begin{center}
  My father considered that anyone who went to chapel and didn't drink 
  alcohol was not to be tolerated.\\ 
  I grew up in that belief.  ---Richard Burton 
\end{center}

A double backslash after the final line is optional. If present it doesn’t add any vertical space.

In a two-column document the text is centered in a column, not in the entire page.

• \centering

{\centering ... }

\begin{group}
  \centering ...
\end{group}

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.6\textwidth]{ctan_lion.png}
  \caption{CTAN Lion}  \label{fig:CTANLion}
\end{figure}

8.4 description ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{description}
  \item[label of first item] text of first item
  \item[label of second item] text of second item
   ...
\end{description}

Environment to make a list of labeled items. Each item’s label is typeset in bold and is flush left, so that long labels continue into the first line of the item text. There must be at least one item; having none causes the LaTeX error ‘Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item’.

This example shows the environment used for a sequence of definitions.

\begin{description}
  \item[lama] A priest.
  \item[llama] A beast.
\end{description}

The labels ‘lama’ and ‘llama’ are output in boldface, with the left edge on the left margin.

Start list items with the \item command (see \item: An entry in a list). Use the optional labels, as in \item[Main point], because there is no sensible default. Following the \item is optional text, which may contain multiple paragraphs.

Since the labels are in bold style, if the label text calls for a font change given in argument style (see Font styles) then it will come out bold. For instance, if the label text calls for typewriter with \item[\texttt{label text}] then it will appear in bold typewriter, if that is available. The simplest way around this, in this example to get non-bold typewriter, is to use declarative style: \item[{\tt label text}]. Similarly, get the standard roman font with \item[{\rm label text}].

For other major LaTeX labelled list environments, see itemize and enumerate. Unlike those environments, nesting description environments does not change the default label; it is boldface and flush left at all levels.

For information about list layout parameters, including the default values, and for information about customizing list layout, see list. The package enumitem is useful for customizing lists.

This example changes the description labels to small caps.

\renewcommand{\descriptionlabel}[1]{%
  {\hspace{\labelsep}\textsc{#1}}}

8.5 displaymath ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{displaymath}
  mathematical text
\end{displaymath}

Environment to typeset the mathematical text on its own line, in display style and centered. To make the text be flush-left use the global option fleqn (see Document class options).

In the displaymath environment no equation number is added to the math text. One way to get an equation number is to use the equation environment (see equation).

LaTeX will not break the math text across lines.

The amsmath package defines an equation* environment which is functionally identical to displaymath but allows use of other amsmath facilities. In general, amsmathhas significantly more extensive displayed equation facilities. For example, there are a number of ways in that package for having math text broken across lines; see also the breqn package for that (https://ctan.org/pkg/breqn).

The construct \[ math \] is a synonym for the environment \begin{displaymath} math \end{displaymath} but the latter is easier to work with in the source; for instance, searching for a square bracket may get false positives but the word displaymath will likely be unique.

The construct $$math$$ from plain TeX is sometimes used instead of LaTeX’s displaymath. Although the output is similar, but is not officially supported in LaTeX at all; $$ doesn’t support the fleqn option, has different vertical spacing, and doesn’t perform consistency checks.

The output from this example is centered and alone on its line.

\begin{displaymath}
  \int_1^2 x^2\,dx=7/3
\end{displaymath}

Also, the integral sign is larger than the inline version \( \int_1^2 x^2\,dx=7/3 \) produces.

8.6 document ¶

The document environment encloses the entire body of a document. It is required in every LaTeX document. See Starting and ending.

• \AtBeginDocument
• \AtEndDocument

\AtBeginDocument{code}

\AtEndDocument{code}

8.7 enumerate ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{enumerate}
  \item[optional label of first item] text of first item
  \item[optional label of second item] text of second item
  ...
\end{enumerate}

Environment to produce a numbered list of items. The format of the label numbering depends on the nesting level of this environment; see below. The default top-level numbering is ‘1.’, ‘2.’, etc. Each enumerate list environment must have at least one item; having none causes the LaTeX error ‘Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item’.

This example gives the first two finishers in the 1908 Olympic marathon. As a top-level list the labels would come out as ‘1.’ and ‘2.’.

\begin{enumerate}
 \item Johnny Hayes (USA)
 \item Charles Hefferon (RSA) 
\end{enumerate}

Start list items with the \item command (see \item: An entry in a list). If you give \item an optional argument by following it with square brackets, as in \item[Interstitial label], then the next item will continue the interrupted sequence (see \item: An entry in a list). That is, you will get labels like ‘1.’, then ‘Interstitial label’, then ‘2.’. Following the \item is optional text, which may contain multiple paragraphs.

Enumerations may be nested within other enumerate environments, or within any paragraph-making environment such as itemize (see itemize), up to four levels deep. This gives LaTeX’s default for the format at each nesting level, where 1 is the top level, the outermost level.

1. arabic number followed by a period: ‘1.’, ‘2.’, …
2. lowercase letter inside parentheses: ‘(a)’, ‘(b)’ …
3. lowercase roman numeral followed by a period: ‘i.’, ‘ii.’, …
4. uppercase letter followed by a period: ‘A.’, ‘B.’, …

The enumerate environment uses the counters \enumi through \enumiv (see Counters).

For other major LaTeX labeled list environments, see description and itemize. For information about list layout parameters, including the default values, and for information about customizing list layout, see list. The package enumitem is useful for customizing lists.

To change the format of the label use \renewcommand (see \newcommand & \renewcommand) on the commands \labelenumi through \labelenumiv. For instance, this first level list will be labelled with uppercase letters, in boldface, and without a trailing period.

\renewcommand{\labelenumi}{\textbf{\Alph{enumi}}}
\begin{enumerate}
  \item Shows as boldface A
  \item Shows as boldface B
\end{enumerate}

For a list of counter-labeling commands see \alph \Alph \arabic \roman \Roman \fnsymbol: Printing counters.

8.8 eqnarray ¶

The eqnarray environment is obsolete. It has infelicities, including spacing that is inconsistent with other mathematics elements. (See “Avoid eqnarray!” by Lars Madsen https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb33-1/tb103madsen.pdf). New documents should include the amsmath package and use the displayed mathematics environments provided there, such as the align environment. We include a description only for completeness and for working with old documents.

Synopsis:

\begin{eqnarray} 
  first formula left  &first formula middle  &first formula right \\
  ...
\end{eqnarray}

or

\begin{eqnarray*} 
  first formula left  &first formula middle  &first formula right \\
  ...
\end{eqnarray*}

Display a sequence of equations or inequalities. The left and right sides are typeset in display mode, while the middle is typeset in text mode.

It is similar to a three-column array environment, with items within a row separated by an ampersand (&), and with rows separated by double backslash  \\). The starred form of line break (\\*) can also be used to separate equations, and will disallow a page break there (see \\).

The unstarred form eqnarray places an equation number on every line (using the equation counter), unless that line contains a \nonumber command. The starred form eqnarray* omits equation numbering, while otherwise being the same.

The command \lefteqn is used for splitting long formulas across lines. It typesets its argument in display style flush left in a box of zero width.

This example shows three lines. The first two lines make an inequality, while the third line has not entry on the left side.

\begin{eqnarray*}
  \lefteqn{x_1+x_2+\cdots+x_n}     \\
    &\leq &y_1+y_2+\cdots+y_n      \\
    &=    &z+y_3+\cdots+y_n
\end{eqnarray*}

8.9 equation ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{equation}
  mathematical text
\end{equation}

The same as a displaymath environment (see displaymath) except that LaTeX puts an equation number flush to the right margin. The equation number is generated using the equation counter.

You should have no blank lines between \begin{equation} and \end{equation}, or LaTeX will tell you that there is a missing dollar sign.

The package amsmath package has extensive displayed equation facilities. New documents should include this package.

8.10 figure ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{figure}[placement]
  figure body
  \caption[loftitle]{title}  % optional
  \label{label}              % optional
\end{figure}

or:

\begin{figure*}[placement]
  figure body
  \caption[loftitle]{title}  % optional
  \label{label}              % optional  
\end{figure*}

Figures are for material that is not part of the normal text. An example is material that you cannot have split between two pages, such as a graphic. Because of this, LaTeX does not typeset figures in sequence with normal text but instead “floats” them to a convenient place, such as the top of a following page (see Floats).

The figure body can consist of imported graphics (see Graphics), or text, LaTeX commands, etc. It is typeset in a parbox of width \textwidth.

The possible values of placement are h for ‘here’, t for ‘top’, b for ‘bottom’, and p for ‘on a separate page of floats’. For the effect of these options on the float placement algorithm, see Floats.

The starred form figure* is used when a document is in double-column mode (see \twocolumn). It produces a figure that spans both columns, at the top of the page. To add the possibility of placing at a page bottom see the discussion of placement b in Floats.

The label is optional; it is used for cross references (see Cross references). The optional \caption command specifies caption text for the figure (see \caption). By default it is numbered. If loftitle is present, it is used in the list of figures instead of title (see Table of contents, list of figures, list of tables).

This example makes a figure out of a graphic. LaTeX will place that graphic and its caption at the top of a page or, if it is pushed to the end of the document, on a page of floats.

\usepackage{graphicx}  % in preamble
  ...
\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{CTANlion.png}
  \caption{The CTAN lion, by Duane Bibby}
\end{figure}

8.11 filecontents ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{filecontents}[option]{filename}
  text
\end{filecontents}

or

\begin{filecontents*}[option]{filename}
  text
\end{filecontents*}

Create a file named filename in the current directory (or the output directory, if specified; see output directory) and write text to it. By default, an existing file is not overwritten.

The unstarred version of the environment filecontents prefixes the content of the created file with a header of TeX comments; see the example below. The starred version filecontents* does not include the header.

The possible options are:

force ¶

overwrite

Overwrite an existing file.

noheader ¶

Omit the header. Equivalent to using filecontents*.

nosearch ¶

Only check the current directory (and the output directory, if specified) for an existing file, not the entire search path.

These options were added in a 2019 release of LaTeX.

This environment can be used anywhere in the preamble, although it often appears before the \documentclass command. It is commonly used to create a .bib or other such data file from the main document source, to make the source file self-contained. Similarly, it can be used to create a custom style or class file, again making the source self-contained.

For example, this document:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{filecontents}{JH.sty}
\newcommand{\myname}{Jim Hef{}feron}
\end{filecontents}
\usepackage{JH}
\begin{document}
Article by \myname.
\end{document}

produces this file JH.sty:

%% LaTeX2e file `JH.sty'
%% generated by the `filecontents' environment
%% from source `test' on 2015/10/12.
%%
\newcommand{\myname}{Jim Hef{}feron}

8.12 flushleft ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{flushleft}
  line1 \\
  line2 \\
  ...
\end{flushleft}

An environment that creates a paragraph whose lines are flush to the left-hand margin, and ragged right. If you have lines that are too long then LaTeX will linebreak them in a way that avoids hyphenation and stretching or shrinking interword spaces. To force a new line use a double backslash, \\. For the declaration form see \raggedright.

This creates a box of text that is at most 3 inches wide, with the text flush left and ragged right.

\noindent\begin{minipage}{3in}
\begin{flushleft}
  A long sentence that will be broken by \LaTeX{}
    at a convenient spot. \\
  And, a fresh line forced by the double backslash.
\end{flushleft}
\end{minipage}

• \raggedright

{\raggedright  ... }

\begin{environment} \raggedright
  ...
\end{environment}

\begin{tabular}{rp{2in}}
  Team alpha  &{\raggedright This team does all the real work.} \\
  Team beta   &{\raggedright This team ensures that the water
                cooler is never empty.}                         \\
\end{tabular}

8.13 flushright ¶

\begin{flushright}
  line1 \\
  line2 \\
  ...
\end{flushright}

An environment that creates a paragraph whose lines are flush to the right-hand margin and ragged left. If you have lines that are too long to fit the margins then LaTeX will linebreak them in a way that avoids hyphenation and stretching or shrinking inter-word spaces. To force a new line use a double backslash, \\. For the declaration form see \raggedleft.

For an example related to this environment, see flushleft, where one just have mutatis mutandis to replace flushleft by flushright.

• \raggedleft

{\raggedleft  ... }

\begin{environment} \raggedleft
  ...
\end{environment}

8.14 itemize ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{itemize}
  \item[optional label of first item] text of first item
  \item[optional label of second item] text of second item
  ...
\end{itemize}

Produce an unordered list, sometimes called a bullet list. There must be at least one \item within the environment; having none causes the LaTeX error ‘Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item’.

This gives a two-item list:

\begin{itemize}
 \item Pencil and watercolor sketch by Cassandra
 \item Rice portrait 
\end{itemize}

By default, in a top-level list each label would come out as a bullet, •. The format of the labeling depends on the nesting level; see below.

Many language adaptations change list formatting, in which case this section may apply only partially or not at all. For instance, after this:

\usepackage[french]{babel} % changes list formatting!

the margins are smaller and the item markers are different.

Start list items with the \item command (see \item: An entry in a list). If you give \item an optional argument by following it with square brackets, as in \item[Optional label], then by default Optional label will appear in bold and be flush right, so it could extend into the left margin. For labels that are flush left see the description environment. Following the \item is the text of the item, which may be empty or contain multiple paragraphs.

Unordered lists can be nested within one another, up to four levels deep. They can also be nested within other paragraph-making environments, such as enumerate (see enumerate).

The itemize environment uses the commands \labelitemi through \labelitemiv to produce the default label (note the convention of lowercase roman numerals at the end of the command names that signify the nesting level). These are the default marks at each level.

1. • (bullet, from \textbullet)
2. – (bold en-dash, from \normalfont\bfseries\textendash)
3. * (asterisk, from \textasteriskcentered)
4. \cdot (vertically centered dot, rendered here as a period, from \textperiodcentered)

Change the labels with \renewcommand. For instance, this makes the first level use diamonds.

\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{$\diamond$}

The distance between the left margin of the enclosing environment and the left margin of the itemize list is determined by the parameters \leftmargini through \leftmarginvi. (This also uses the convention of using lowercase roman numerals at the end of the command name to denote the nesting level.) The defaults are: 2.5em in level 1 (2em in two-column mode), 2.2em in level 2, 1.87em in level 3, and 1.7em in level 4, with smaller values for more deeply nested levels. The margin parameters must be overridden before the list starts.

For other major LaTeX labeled list environments, see description and enumerate. The itemize, enumerate and description environment use the same list layout parameters. For a description, including the default values, and for information about customizing list layout, see list. The package enumitem is useful for customizing lists.

This example greatly reduces the margin space for an outermost itemized list:

\setlength{\leftmargini}{1.25em} % default 2.5em
\begin{itemize}
\item ...
\end{itemize}

Especially for lists with short items, it may be desirable to elide space between items. Here is an example defining an itemize* environment with no extra spacing between items, or between paragraphs within a single item (\parskip is not list-specific; see \parindent & \parskip):

\newenvironment{itemize*}%
  {\begin{itemize}%
    \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt}%
    \setlength{\parsep}{0pt}%
    \setlength{\parskip}{0pt}%
  }%
  {\end{itemize}}

8.15 letter environment: writing letters ¶

This environment is used for creating letters. See Letters.

8.16 list ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{list}{labeling}{spacing}
  \item[optional label of first item] text of first item
  \item[optional label of second item] text of second item
  ...
\end{list}

An environment for constructing lists.

Note that this environment does not typically appear in the document body. Most lists created by LaTeX authors are the ones that come standard: the description, enumerate, and itemize environments (see description, enumerate, and itemize).

Instead, the list environment is most often used in macros. For example, many standard LaTeX environments that do not immediately appear to be lists are in fact constructed using list, including quotation, quote, and center (see quotation & quote, see center).

This uses the list environment to define a new custom environment.

\newcounter{namedlistcounter}  % number the items
\newenvironment{named}
  {\begin{list}
     {Item~\Roman{namedlistcounter}.} % labeling 
     {\usecounter{namedlistcounter}   % set counter
      \setlength{\leftmargin}{3.5em}} % set spacing 
  }
  {\end{list}}

\begin{named}
  \item Shows as ``Item~I.''
  \item[Special label.] Shows as ``Special label.''
  \item Shows as ``Item~II.''
\end{named}

The mandatory first argument labeling specifies the default labeling of list items. It can contain text and LaTeX commands, as above where it contains both ‘Item’ and ‘\Roman{…}’. LaTeX forms the label by putting the labeling argument in a box of width \labelwidth. If the label is wider than that, the additional material extends to the right. When making an instance of a list you can override the default labeling by giving \item an optional argument by including square braces and the text, as in the above \item[Special label.]; see \item: An entry in a list.

The mandatory second argument spacing has a list of commands. This list can be empty. A command that can go in here is \usecounter{countername} (see \usecounter). Use this to tell LaTeX to number the items using the given counter. The counter will be reset to zero each time LaTeX enters the environment, and the counter is incremented by one each time LaTeX encounters an \item that does not have an optional argument.

Another command that can go in spacing is \makelabel, which constructs the label box. By default it puts the contents flush right. Its only argument is the label, which it typesets in LR mode (see Modes). One example of changing its definition is that to the above named example, before the definition of the environment add \newcommand{\namedmakelabel}[1]{\textsc{#1}}, and between the \setlength command and the parenthesis that closes the spacing argument also add \let\makelabel\namedmakelabel. Then the labels will be typeset in small caps. Similarly, changing the second code line to \let\makelabel\fbox puts the labels inside a framed box. Another example of the \makelabel command is below, in the definition of the redlabel environment.

Also often in spacing are commands to redefine the spacing for the list. Below are the spacing parameters with their default values. (Default values for derived environments such as itemize can be different than the values shown here.) See also the figure that follows the list. Each is a length (see Lengths). The vertical spaces are normally rubber lengths, with plus and minus components, to give TeX flexibility in setting the page. Change each with a command such as \setlength{\itemsep}{2pt plus1pt minus1pt}. For some effects these lengths should be zero or negative.

\itemindent ¶

Extra horizontal space indentation, beyond leftmargin, of the first line each item. Its default value is 0pt.

\itemsep ¶

Vertical space between items, beyond the \parsep. The defaults for the first three levels in LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and ‘report’ classes at 10 point size are: 4pt plus2pt minus1pt, \parsep (that is, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt), and \topsep (that is, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt). The defaults at 11 point are: 4.5pt plus2pt minus1pt, \parsep (that is, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt), and \topsep (that is, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt). The defaults at 12 point are: 5pt plus2.5pt minus1pt, \parsep (that is, 2.5pt plus1pt minus1pt), and \topsep (that is, 2.5pt plus1pt minus1pt).

\labelsep ¶

Horizontal space between the label and text of an item. The default for LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and ‘report’ classes is 0.5em.

\labelwidth ¶

Horizontal width. The box containing the label is nominally this wide. If \makelabel returns text that is wider than this then the first line of the item will be indented to make room for this extra material. If \makelabel returns text of width less than or equal to \labelwidth then LaTeX’s default is that the label is typeset flush right in a box of this width.

The left edge of the label box is \leftmargin+\itemindent-\labelsep-\labelwidth from the left margin of the enclosing environment.

The default for LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and ‘report’ classes at the top level is \leftmargini-\labelsep, (which is 2em in one column mode and 1.5em in two column mode). At the second level it is \leftmarginii-\labelsep, and at the third level it is \leftmarginiii-\labelsep. These definitions make the label’s left edge coincide with the left margin of the enclosing environment.

\leftmargin ¶

Horizontal space between the left margin of the enclosing environment (or the left margin of the page if this is a top-level list), and the left margin of this list. It must be non-negative.

In the standard LaTeX document classes, a top-level list has this set to the value of \leftmargini, while a list that is nested inside a top-level list has this margin set to \leftmarginii. More deeply nested lists get the values of \leftmarginiii through \leftmarginvi. (Nesting greater than level five generates the error message ‘Too deeply nested’.)

The defaults for the first three levels in LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and ‘report’ classes are: \leftmargini is 2.5em (in two column mode, 2em), \leftmarginii is 2.2em, and \leftmarginiii is 1.87em.

\listparindent ¶

Horizontal space of additional line indentation, beyond \leftmargin, for second and subsequent paragraphs within a list item. A negative value makes this an “outdent”. Its default value is 0pt.

\parsep ¶

Vertical space between paragraphs within an item. The defaults for the first three levels in LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and ‘report’ classes at 10 point size are: 4pt plus2pt minus1pt, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt, and 0pt. The defaults at 11 point size are: 4.5pt plus2pt minus1pt, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt, and 0pt. The defaults at 12 point size are: 5pt plus2.5pt minus1pt, 2.5pt plus1pt minus1pt, and 0pt.

\partopsep ¶

Vertical space added, beyond \topsep+\parskip, to the top and bottom of the entire environment if the list instance is preceded by a blank line. (A blank line in the LaTeX source before the list changes spacing at both the top and bottom of the list; whether the line following the list is blank does not matter.)

The defaults for the first three levels in LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and ‘report’ classes at 10 point size are: 2pt plus1 minus1pt, 2pt plus1pt minus1pt, and 1pt plus0pt minus1pt. The defaults at 11 point are: 3pt plus1pt minus1pt, 3pt plus1pt minus1pt, and 1pt plus0pt minus1pt). The defaults at 12 point are: 3pt plus2pt minus3pt, 3pt plus2pt minus2pt, and 1pt plus0pt minus1pt.

\rightmargin ¶

Horizontal space between the right margin of the list and the right margin of the enclosing environment. Its default value is 0pt. It must be non-negative.

\topsep ¶

Vertical space added to both the top and bottom of the list, in addition to \parskip (see \parindent & \parskip). The defaults for the first three levels in LaTeX’s ‘article’, ‘book’, and ‘report’ classes at 10 point size are: 8pt plus2pt minus4pt, 4pt plus2pt minus1pt, and 2pt plus1pt minus1pt. The defaults at 11 point are: 9pt plus3pt minus5pt, 4.5pt plus2pt minus1pt, and 2pt plus1pt minus1pt. The defaults at 12 point are: 10pt plus4pt minus6pt, 5pt plus2.5pt minus1pt, and 2.5pt plus1pt minus1pt.

This shows the horizontal and vertical distances.

The lengths shown are listed below. The key relationship is that the right edge of the bracket for h1 equals the right edge of the bracket for h4, so that the left edge of the label box is at h3+h4-(h0+h1).

v0

\topsep + \parskip if the list environment does not start a new paragraph, and \topsep+\parskip+\partopsep if it does

v1

\parsep

v2

\itemsep+\parsep

v3

Same as v0. (This space is affected by whether a blank line appears in the source above the environment; whether a blank line appears in the source below the environment does not matter.)

h0

\labelwidth

h1

\labelsep

h2

\listparindent

h3

\leftmargin

h4

\itemindent

h5

\rightmargin

The list’s left and right margins, shown above as h3 and h5, are with respect to the ones provided by the surrounding environment, or with respect to the page margins for a top-level list. The line width used for typesetting the list items is \linewidth (see Page layout parameters). For instance, set the list’s left margin to be one quarter of the distance between the left and right margins of the enclosing environment with \setlength{\leftmargin}{0.25\linewidth}.

Page breaking in a list structure is controlled by the three parameters below. For each, the LaTeX default is -\@lowpenalty, that is, -51. Because it is negative, it somewhat encourages a page break at each spot. Change it with, e.g., \@beginparpenalty=9999; a value of 10000 prohibits a page break.

\@beginparpenalty ¶

The page breaking penalty for breaking before the list (default -51).

\@itempenalty ¶

The page breaking penalty for breaking before a list item (default -51).

\@endparpenalty ¶

The page breaking penalty for breaking after a list (default -51).

The package enumitem is useful for customizing lists.

This example has the labels in red. They are numbered, and the left edge of the label lines up with the left edge of the item text. See \usecounter.

\usepackage{color}
\newcounter{cnt}  
\newcommand{\makeredlabel}[1]{\textcolor{red}{#1.}}
\newenvironment{redlabel}
  {\begin{list}
    {\arabic{cnt}}
    {\usecounter{cnt}
     \setlength{\labelwidth}{0em}
     \setlength{\labelsep}{0.5em}
     \setlength{\leftmargin}{1.5em}
     \setlength{\itemindent}{0.5em} % equals \labelwidth+\labelsep
     \let\makelabel=\makeredlabel
    }
  }
{\end{list}}

• \item: An entry in a list
• trivlist: A restricted form of list

\item text of item

\item[optional-label] text of item

\begin{enumerate}
  \item Moe
  \item[sometimes] Shemp
  \item Larry
\end{enumerate}

\begin{trivlist}
  ...
\end{trivlist}

\newenvironment{center}
  {\begin{trivlist}\centering\item\relax}
  {\end{trivlist}}

\begin{trivlist}
\item The \textit{Surprise} is not old; no one would call her old.
\item She has a bluff bow, lovely lines.
\end{trivlist}

8.17 math ¶

Synopsis:

\begin{math}
math
\end{math}

The math environment inserts given math material within the running text. \(...\) and $...$ are synonyms. See Math formulas.

8.18 minipage ¶

Synopses:

\begin{minipage}{width}
  contents
\end{minipage}

or

\begin{minipage}[position][height][inner-pos]{width}
  contents
\end{minipage}

Put contents into a box that is width wide. This is like a small version of a page; it can contain its own footnotes, itemized lists, etc. (There are some restrictions, including that it cannot have floats.) This box will not be broken across pages. So minipage is similar to \parbox (see \parbox) but here you can have paragraphs.

This example will be 3 inches wide, and has two paragraphs.

\begin{minipage}{3in}
  Stephen Kleene was a founder of the Theory of Computation.

  He was a student of Church, wrote three influential texts,
  was President of the Association for Symbolic Logic,
  and won the National Medal of Science.
\end{minipage}

See below for a discussion of the paragraph indent inside a minipage.

The required argument width is a rigid length (see Lengths). It gives the width of the box into which contents are typeset.

There are three optional arguments, position, height, and inner-pos. You need not include all three. For example, get the default position and set the height with \begin{minipage}[c][2.54cm]{\columnwidth} contents \end{minipage}. (Get the natural height with an empty argument, [].)

The optional argument position governs how the minipage vertically aligns with the surrounding material.

c

(synonym m) Default. Positions the minipage so its vertical center lines up with the center of the adjacent text line.

t ¶

Align the baseline of the top line in the minipage with the baseline of the surrounding text (plain TeX’s \vtop).

b ¶

Align the baseline of the bottom line in the minipage with the baseline of the surrounding text (plain TeX’s \vbox).

To see the effects of these, contrast running this

---\begin{minipage}[c]{0.25in}
  first\\ second\\ third
\end{minipage}

with the results of changing c to b or t.

The optional argument height is a rigid length (see Lengths). It sets the height of the minipage. You can enter any value larger than, or equal to, or smaller than the minipage’s natural height and LaTeX will not give an error or warning. You can also set it to a height of zero or a negative value.

The final optional argument inner-pos controls the placement of contents inside the box. These are the possible values are (the default is the value of position).

t

Place contents at the top of the box.

c

Place it in the vertical center.

b

Place it at the box bottom.

s

Stretch contents out vertically; it must contain vertically stretchable space.

The inner-pos argument makes sense when the height option is set to a value larger than the minipage’s natural height. To see the effect of the options, run this example with the various choices in place of b.

Text before
\begin{center}
  ---\begin{minipage}[c][3in][b]{0.25\textwidth}
       first\\ second\\ third
  \end{minipage}              
\end{center}
Text after  

By default paragraphs are not indented in a minipage. Change that with a command such as \setlength{\parindent}{1pc} at the start of contents.

Footnotes in a minipage environment are handled in a way that is particularly useful for putting footnotes in figures or tables. A \footnote or \footnotetext command puts the footnote at the bottom of the minipage instead of at the bottom of the page, and it uses the \mpfootnote counter instead of the ordinary footnote counter (see Counters).

This puts the footnote at the bottom of the table, not the bottom of the page.

\begin{center}           % center the minipage on the line
\begin{minipage}{2.5in}
  \begin{center}         % center the table inside the minipage
    \begin{tabular}{ll}
      \textsc{Monarch}  &\textsc{Reign}             \\ \hline
      Elizabeth II      &63 years\footnote{to date} \\
      Victoria          &63 years                   \\
      George III        &59 years
    \end{tabular}
  \end{center}  
\end{minipage}
\end{center}

If you nest minipages then there is an oddness when using footnotes. Footnotes appear at the bottom of the text ended by the next \end{minipage} which may not be their logical place.

This puts a table containing data side by side with a map graphic. They are vertically centered.

% siunitx to have the S column specifier,
% which aligns numbers on their decimal point.
\usepackage{siunitx}
\newcommand*{\vcenteredhbox}[1]{\begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}}#1\end{tabular}}
  ...
\begin{center}
  \vcenteredhbox{\includegraphics[width=0.3\textwidth]{nyc.png}}
  \hspace{0.1\textwidth}
  \begin{minipage}{0.5\textwidth}
    \begin{tabular}{r|S}
      % \multicolumn to remove vertical bar between column headers
      \multicolumn{1}{r}{Borough} &
      % braces to prevent siunitx from misinterpreting the
      % period as a decimal separator
      {Pop. (million)}  \\ \hline
      The Bronx      &1.5  \\
      Brooklyn       &2.6  \\
      Manhattan      &1.6  \\
      Queens         &2.3  \\
      Staten Island  &0.5  
    \end{tabular}
  \end{minipage}              
\end{center}

8.19 picture ¶

Synopses:

\begin{picture}(width,height)
   picture command
\end{picture}

or

\begin{picture}(width,height)(xoffset,yoffset)
  picture command
\end{picture}

Where there may be any number of picture command’s.

An environment to create simple pictures containing lines, arrows, boxes, circles, and text. This environment is not obsolete, but new documents typically use much more powerful graphics creation systems, such as TikZ, PSTricks, MetaPost, or Asymptote. None of these are covered in this document; see CTAN.

To start, here’s an example showing the parallelogram law for adding vectors.

\setlength{\unitlength}{1cm}
\begin{picture}(6,6)      % picture box will be 6cm wide by 6cm tall
  \put(0,0){\vector(2,1){4}}  % for every 2 over this vector goes 1 up
    \put(2,1){\makebox(0,0)[l]{\ first leg}}
  \put(4,2){\vector(1,2){2}}
    \put(5,4){\makebox(0,0)[l]{\ second leg}}  
  \put(0,0){\vector(1,1){6}}
    \put(3,3){\makebox(0,0)[r]{sum\ }}  
\end{picture}

The picture environment has one required argument, a pair of positive real numbers (width,height). Multiply these by the value \unitlength to get the nominal size of the output, i.e. the space that LaTeX reserves on the output page. This nominal size need not be how large the picture really is; LaTeX will draw things from the picture outside the picture’s box.

This environment also has an optional argument (xoffset,yoffset). It is used to shift the origin. Unlike most optional arguments, this one is not contained in square brackets. As with the required argument, it consists of a pair of two real numbers, but these may also be negative or null. Multiply these by \unitlength to get the coordinates of the point at the lower-left corner of the picture.

For example, if \unitlength has been set to 1mm, the command

\begin{picture}(100,200)(10,20)

produces a box of width 100 millimeters and height 200 millimeters. The picture’s origin is the point (10mm,20mm) and so the lower-left corner is there, and the upper-right corner is at (110mm,220mm). When you first draw a picture you typically omit the optional argument, leaving the origin at the lower-left corner. If you then want to modify your picture by shifting everything, you can just add the appropriate optional argument.

Each picture command tells LaTeX where to put something by providing its position. A position is a pair such as (2.4,-5) giving the x- and y-coordinates. A coordinate is a not a length, it is a real number (it may have a decimal point or a minus sign). It specifies a length in multiples of the unit length \unitlength, so if \unitlength has been set to 1cm, then the coordinate 2.54 specifies a length of 2.54 centimeters.

LaTeX’s default for \unitlength is 1pt. It is a rigid length (see Lengths). Change it with the \setlength command (see \setlength). Make this change only outside of a picture environment.

The picture environment supports using standard arithmetic expressions as well as numbers.

Coordinates are given with respect to an origin, which is by default at the lower-left corner of the picture. Note that when a position appears as an argument, as with \put(1,2){...}, it is not enclosed in braces since the parentheses serve to delimit the argument. Also, unlike in some computer graphics systems, larger y-coordinates are further up the page, for example, y = 1 is above y = 0.

There are four ways to put things in a picture: \put, \multiput, \qbezier, and \graphpaper. The most often used is \put. This

\put(11.3,-0.3){...}

places the object with its reference point at coordinates (11.3,-0.3). The reference points for various objects will be described below. The \put command creates an LR box (see Modes). Anything that can go in an \mbox (see \mbox & \makebox) can go in the text argument of the \put command. The reference point will be the lower left corner of the box. In this picture

\setlength{\unitlength}{1cm}
...\begin{picture}(1,1)
  \put(0,0){\line(1,0){1}}
  \put(0,0){\line(1,1){1}}
\end{picture}

the three dots are just slightly left of the point of the angle formed by the two lines. (Also, \line(1,1){1} does not call for a line of length one; rather the line has a change in the x coordinate of 1.)

The \multiput, qbezier, and graphpaper commands are described below.

You can also use this environment to place arbitrary material at an exact location. For example:

\usepackage{color,graphicx}  % in preamble
  ...
\begin{center}
\setlength{\unitlength}{\textwidth} 
\begin{picture}(1,1)      % leave space, \textwidth wide and tall
  \put(0,0){\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{desertedisland.jpg}}
  \put(0.25,0.35){\textcolor{red}{X Treasure here}}
\end{picture}
\end{center}

The red X will be precisely a quarter of the \textwidth from the left margin, and 0.35\textwidth up from the bottom of the picture. Another example of this usage is to put similar code in the page header to get repeat material on each of a document’s pages.

• \put
• \multiput
• \qbezier
• \graphpaper
• \line
• \linethickness
• \thinlines
• \thicklines
• \circle
• \oval
• \shortstack
• \vector
• \makebox (picture)
• \framebox (picture)
• \frame
• \dashbox