Using LaTeX

LaTeX Installation

Since the many of the problems for previous conferences seem to have come from LaTeX installations, authors and system support personnel are encouraged to create suitable installations using the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) or by purchasing the CD-ROM described below. CTAN consists of anonymous ftp servers which can deliver all of the TeX/LaTeX sources. Information about how to make an installation with the appropriate facilities can be found in Appendix B of `The LaTeX Companion', by Goossens, Mittelbach and Samarin, published by Addison-Wesley, 1994. Alternatively, see the help available on the CTAN servers, for example ftp.shsu.edu (Sam Houston State University, Texas) or ftp.tex.ac.uk (Cambridge University, England). Michel Goossens presented a paper describing the use of the TeX Live CD-ROM at a workshop on electronic publishing for accelerator conferences. In this paper he describes the way in which fonts like Times are made available to dvips. The default setup for most LaTeX installations uses type 3 computer modern fonts. In order to use type 1 computer modern fonts (e.g. the BlueSky fonts which are available on the CD-ROM) for text and math it is sufficient to add the names of two more map files to the config.ps file distributed on the CD-ROM (the comments in the file tell you what to do). These additional map files define the mapping for computer modern fonts to the BlueSky Type 1 fonts and because the BlueSky fonts do not cover the whole AMS set, the second file tells dvips how to fill the gaps by using the closest available size or even find a direct substitute. Using this type of setup is the best possible configuration for accelerator conferences. A simple alternative to use only Type 1 fonts for individual users can be to generate a .dvipsrc file, to be placed in the home directory, containing the two lines which have to be un-commented in the config.ps file, i.e.       p +bsr.map       p +bsr-interpolated.map In May, 1996, the TeX Users Group, the UK TeX Users Group and the French TeX Users Group (GUTenberg), in collaboration with members of other groups and helpful individuals, produced a plug-and-play CD-ROM of Thomas Esser's teTeX, based on Karl Berry's Web2c. A new (second) edition of TeX Live is now available. It contains the complete LaTeX December, 1996, patch level 1 release, all tools, and most of the contributed packages on CTAN; format files are provided with the appropriate hyphenation patterns for around 20 languages; other formats include amstex, blue, eplain, lollipop, physsx, psizzl, and text1. Complementary sets of miscellaneous macros are also included. Font families include CM (including the Blue Sky/Y&Y Type 1 versions of the fonts), EC, TC, AMS, Euler, Concrete, and the complete set of PostScript metrics from CTAN. Source material for all packages, fonts and programs is on the CD. Documentation is available in at least one (and sometimes all) of dvi, HTML and PDF. More information on the CD-ROM is available at TUG's TeX Live Page.

Things to Avoid

PCX format (PC figures) - use EPS. Documents prepared using Textures have a much higher failure rate than other LaTeX prepared documents and it is therefore not recommended. EPS figures from Photoshop or Illustrator can be very difficult to incorporate in LaTeX documents.

Font Selection

Use of the standard fonts (Computer Modern) has been the single biggest problem area for LaTeX because these fonts are bit-mapped. We ask people to use LaTeX2e together with the times package. This solves most of the problems, although maths fonts are still set in Computer Modern, but this already produces a reasonable result and has the advantage that times is a narrower font and therefore one can get more into the paper. Since early 1997 it has been possible to obtain non bit mapped versions of Computer Modern fonts in the public domain which means that it is possible to obtain excellent results even for papers with a high percentage of maths in them (see above for more details). Where LaTeX2e has not yet been installed we would recommend that laboratories install it, together with the appropriate packages which should include psnfss, psfonts etc. It is possible to use slightly older versions of LaTeX/TeX but they must support the New Font Selection Scheme (which has been available since 1989) and Times fonts should be available.

Including JPEG Figures

There is an efficient technique for the inclusion of JPEG files in a LaTeX document. The method uses an application called jpeg2ps which wraps the JPEG file with a PostScript header and tail, producing an eps file which is much smaller than would have been obtained using XV. The jpeg2ps application is available in the public domain for UNIX and DOS/Windows.

Tables and Figures

Use relative pathnames when referring to external files, this makes the source more portable. e.g. "../graphs/jp104-f1.eps" and not the complete path to the file. Full page width tables and figures can be obtained by using the figure* and table* environments. Graphics can be incorporated using the includegraphics command available in the graphics package of LaTeX2e . This package will allow re-sizing and rotation of the graphics, which should be in encapsulated postscript format. Authors using older versions of LaTeX can use the epsfig or psfig styles.

Lists

New dense list environments Itemize, Enumerate and Description are available with the JACoW class file. These allow a much more economical use of the space whilst the original versions itemize, enumerate and description remain available.

Making the Postscript

Please use the -j0 option with dvips to avoid sub-setting fonts which makes compilation of the book version of the proceedings very difficult. he version of dvips in use varies across the laboratories but in general one should use the switch which limits the output resolution to 600dpi (-D600) and watch out for the -K option which concerns the removal of document structuring comments from included graphics (these can sometimes confuse the printer and prevent printing). For papers with a high mathematical content it is recommended to include type 1 Computer Modern fonts in the postscript file. Such fonts are available on the TeX Live CD-ROM mentioned below. The postscript file should be made with first-page first, not reverse order.