Preparing documents for TeX typesetting is easy. Make sure there's a blank line between the paragraphs of a plain text file, and run file through the TeX program with the command
tex your_text_fileThe result will be a file of the same base name and the extension
.dvi. TeX formats the text in 10-point, Computer Modern
Roman, single-spaced, with justified left and right margins. If you
receive error messages from special characters like dollar signs,
escape them with a backslash character, \, and run TeX
on the file again. You should be able to process the resulting file
with the .dvi file translator of your choice (see above) to
get printed output.
One peculiarity of TeX input is that you must use opening and closing quotes, which are denoted in the input file with the grave accent and single quote characters. Emacs' TeX mode does this for you automatically.
"These are ASCII-type quotes." ``These are `TeX-style' quotes.''
Commands in TeX start with a backslash (``\''). For example, the command to change the spacing between lines is
\baselineskip=24pt
The baseline is the bottom of the characters on a line, not counting
descenders. The distance between the baseline of one line and the
next is the \baselineskip, and is assigned a value of 24
points.
Measurements or dimensions in TeX are often given in the following units:
pt % Point 1/72 in. pc % Pica: 12 pt. in % Inch: 72.27 pt. cm % Centimeter: 2.54 cm = 1 in. mm % Millimeter: 10 mm = 1 cm.
Some commands do not take assignments. For example:
\smallskip % Approximately 3 pt. \medskip % Two \smallskips. \bigskip % Two \medskips.
A \smallskip inserts a 3 pt. vertical space in the
document. The measurements are approximate because TeX needs to
adjust the dimensions for page breaks, section headings, and other
units of vertical space. This is true for horizontal spacing as well.
\hsize=6.5inThis command sets the line length to a width of 6.5 inches. TeX tries to fill the line by adjusting the spacing between words, and some letters. If TeX cannot fill a line to within its tolerances, it produces a warning message, and adjusts the horizontal spacing within the line as best it can. Formatting tolerances are discussed in Section Tolerances.
There are many other commands that specify horizontal and vertical dimensions and tolerances, and the most commonly use commands are described below.
In TeX, the default font is 10 pt. Computer Modern Roman. To specify a typeface, like italic, bold, or monospaced, use the following commands.
\rm % Roman (the default). \it % Italics. \bf % Bold. \tt % Monospaced (teletype). \sl % Oblique (slanted).The commands change the typeface where they appear in the text, as in this example.
This text is Roman, \it and this text is italic. \bf This text is bold, and \rm this text is in Roman again.
To specify a font for your document, use the\font
command.
\font\romantwelve=cmr12This creates the font command
\romantwelve, which, when
used in the text, changes the font to Computer Modern Roman, 12 point.
\romantwelve This is the Computer Modern Roman font at 12 points.For information about the fonts in the teTeX distribution look at the file:
/usr/lib/teTeX/texmf/doc/fonts/fontname/fontname.dvi
If you want to print a sample of a font, TeX the file
/usr/lib/teTeX/texmf/tex/plain/base/fontchart.texand fill in the name of the font you want to print at the prompt.
You can also change the size of a font to get different effects.
Font magnification is exponential, and specified with the
scaled \magstep command, which is placed after the font
specification.
\font\sfmedium=cmss12 scaled \magstep 1This command will give you a sans serif font that is 120 percent the size of the 12-point Computer Modern sans serif font. Fonts can be magnified in steps from 0 to 5. Each step provides and additional 120 percent magnification.
As mentioned above, TeX typesets text in 10-point Computer Modern
Roman by default. The length of a line is the value of
\hsize, which defaults to 6.5 in. If you want to change
the value of \hsize to 5.5 in. for example, use this
command.
\hsize=5.5in
In TeX a dimension is an adjustable unit of length, either
horizontal or vertical. The amount by which a dimension can be
increased or decreased can be specified in its definition. Closely
related to a dimension is a skip, which is a dimension that
is placed in one of TeX's internal registers. Skips are defined with
the \newskip command. The \smallskip
dimension, as defined by TeX is:
\newskip\smallskipamount \smallskipamount=3pt plus 1pt minus 1ptThe
\smallskip command is shorthand for:
\vskip\smallskipamount
There are a number of dimensions that control the page layout. They are summarized in Section Page layout.
TeX formats paragraphs with justified left and right margins. If you want the text to be left justified only, use this command:
\raggedright
To typeset a line that is justified to the right margin, use the
\rightline command:
\rightline{This is the line to be typeset.}
The \line command typesets the text of its argument to
fill the entire line.
\line{This text will be spaced to fit the entire line.}
The \hfil command adds space to fill out the line where
it occurs. So, for example, the \rightline command is
equivalent to:
\line{\hfilThis line will be right justified.}
To typeset a line that is centered, use the \centerline
command.
\centerline{This is the line to be centered.}
To change the left margin, set the value of \hoffset, as
in this example:
\hoffset=1.5in
The \parindent command specifies the amount that the
first line of every paragraph is indented.
\parindent=.5in
Two other dimensions, \leftskip and
\rightskip, will indent the right and left margins,
respectively, of the paragraphs that come after them.
\leftskip=.5in \rightskip=.5inThe control word
\narrower is equivalent to:
\leftskip=\parindent \rightskip=\parindentThat is,
\narrower narrows the paragraph margins by the
value of \parindent
As mentioned in the previous section, the \baselineskip
specifies the distance between lines. The default is 12 pt. To
approximate double-spaced text, use the following command.
\baselineskip=\baselineskip*1.6
The \parskip command specifies the distance in addition
to \baselineskip between paragraphs. By default, no
extra space is added, but the distance between paragraphs can stretch
as much as 1 pt. to fill the page correctly. To put a blank line
between paragraphs, use this command:
\parskip=\baselineskip
TeX normally formats text to strict tolerances. If, for some reason,
text cannot be formatted to within those tolerances, TeX produces a
warning message and formats the text the best it can. If the text
must be stretched too much to fit the line, TeX warns you that the
\hbox is underfull. Text that must be squeezed to fit
in the line produces an overfull \hbox warning.
For each overfull \hbox, TeX places a slug, a
black rectangle, after the line. The slug indicates that the line
could not be formatted to within the specifications set by the
\hbadness parameter.
The fit of the text within its specified dimensions is measured by its
badness, which is a number between 0 and 10000. A badness of
0 is a perfect fit, and a badness of 10000 means that the line
probably will never fit. The default value of \hbadness
is 1000. If you set \hbadness to 10000, TeX does not
report underfull lines.
Sometimes TeX allows a line to extend past the right margin. This is
an aesthetic decision on the part of TeX's author. The amount is
determined by the \hfuzz parameter, which defaults to
0.1 pt. If the text does not fit within the line, the
\tolerance parameter determines how TeX will handle the
overfull \hbox. The default value of
\tolerance is 200. Setting \tolerance to
1000 suppresses overfull \hbox warnings and the printing
of slugs.
In addition to the left margin and line length dimensions that are described in the previous section, TeX also lets you specify top and bottom margins, and vertical spacing.
Like the \hsize and \hoffset dimensions
described in the previous section, TeX also provides the
\vsize and \voffset commands. The default
for \vsize is 8.9 in., and \voffset defaults
to 0.
Normally, teTeX places the beginning of the first line of text 1 in. below the top of the paper and 1 in. from the left edge. You can start the text closer to the top of the page with the command:
\voffset=-0.5in
If you want to add vertical space in a document, the commands
\smallskip, \medskip, and
\bigskip will add approximately 3, 6, and 12 points of
blank vertical space. These measurements are approximate; TeX will
adjust them by as much as 1 pt. so the page is filled correctly.
The \vfill command adds an adjustable vertical space
between paragraphs on a page. It is infinitely stretchable, so it
will add vertical space to fill as much of the rest of the page as
possible. If you want to specify a dimension, use
\vskip as in:
\vskip 10pt
The commands \hss and \vss are similar to
\hfil and \vfill, but they provide
dimensions that are infinitely shrinkable as well as infinitely
stretchable.
The \vskip and \vfill commands produce
flexible lengths. They do not add space where no text exists; for
example, at the top of a page. Use \vglue if you want
to add an absolute space.
TeX fills the \vsize dimension with as much text as
possible before it starts a new page. To force a page break, use the
\vfill \eject sequence. If \vfill is
not used, the text before the \break will be spaced to
fill the page.
If you want TeX to be more flexible about its vertical page sizing,
place the \raggedbottom command in your document. TeX
will then adjust the bottom margin of each page slightly to make
vertical spacing more consistent.
teTeX by default places the page number at the bottom center of the
page. If you want to change the location and style of the page
number, you can specify alternate headers and footers by changing
definitions of \headline and \footline.
The default value for \footline contains the
\folio command, which prints the page number. The
default value for \headline is \hfil, so
a blank line is printed.
The \pageno command is a synonym for TeX's internal page
counter. You can change the page number by changing the value of
\pageno. If \pageno is negative, the
numbers are printed as Roman numerals.
\pageno=10 \pageno=-1
The command \nopagenumbers is shorthand for:
\headline={\hfil}
\footline={\hfil}
The default footline also contains the font command
\tenrm, which sets the page number's font to 10-point
Roman. If you want to print the page number in 12-point Roman, for
example, you would first define a 12-point Roman font, and use that in
the definition of \footline. Font commands are
discussed in Section
Font commands.
\font\twelvrm=cmr12
\footline={\hss\twelvrm\folio\hss}
You can put a rule, a horizontal line, at the top of each
page by redefining \headline as:
\headline={\hrulefill}
To specify different headers for even and odd pages use the
\ifoddcommand, which has the form:
\ifodd[condition][true-action]\else[false-actionAn example
\headline that uses different headers for
even and odd pages would be:
\headline={\ifodd\pageno odd-page-header \else even-page-header}
The \ifodd statement uses the first argument if the page
number is odd, and the second argument otherwise.
TeX provides only the \beginsection macro for section
headings. It leaves a space above its argument, prints the text of
the heading in bold type, adds a \smallskip after the
text of the heading, and starts the next paragraph with no indent.
The LaTeX chapter and section commands described below add section numbering, and will print the section names and numbers in the page headings, and automatically add the sections to the Table of Contents.
In plain TeX, you must write these functions yourself. The
\def command allows you to define new commands. Suppose
you want to print a chapter title. First you define the font that you
want to use. A large, sans serif font for chapter titles would be
defined like this:
\font\chapterfontsans=cmss12 scaled \magstep 4You can use the
\chapterfontsans command anywhere you want
to switch to this font, which is approximately 24 points in height.
However, in this example, it will be used primarily in the command
\chaptertitlesans. Here is its definition:
\def\chaptertitlesans#1{\hbox{}\bigskip\bigskip
\noindent{\leftline{\chapterfontsans#1}}
\par\bigskip\bigskip\noindent}
The first line, \hbox{}\bigskip, anchors a 12-point
space at the top of the page by placing an empty \hbox{}
there. The line with the chapter title is not indented, nor is the
paragraph which immediately follows it. If you place a blank line
between the \sschaptertitle macro and the next
paragraph, the final \noindent applies to the blank
line, not the text of the following paragraph. To format correctly,
use the \sschaptertitle as in this example:
The #1 statement in the definition is replaced by the first
argument to \chaptertitlesans; that is, the title of the
chapter. Parameters TeX definitions are declared with #1,
#2, #3, and so on. An example usage of
\chaptertitlesans would be:
\chaptertitlesans{Chapter 1}
This is the starting text of the first paragraph of the chapter.
The paragraph will not be indented. The chapter's title is
"Chapter 1."