Lightsey Research Group LaTeX Help

This page is intended to provide tips and help for using LaTeX for theses, dissertations and research papers for our research group.

Getting Started with TeX and LaTeX
The TeX User's Group has a page containing links for people getting started in TeX and LaTeX: http://www.tug.org/begin.html

UT Thesis and Dissertation Style Files
There are at least 3 different sets of style files that have been created by UT students in different departments for creating theses and dissertations. Here is a link to them: UT's Dissertation and LaTeX Resources Page at http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/etd/LaTeX/index.html

LaTeX Tools
Here are some links to some useful tools:

• MiKTeX - a complete TeX system for Windows (free): http://www.miktex.org
• WinEdit - a text editor specifically designed to edit LaTeX files (not free): http://www.winedt.com.
• WinEdt.org - plug-ins, macros, configuration components, dictionaries and help for WinEdt: http://www.winedt.org.
• Ghostscript, GSView - a postscript interpreter (free): http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
• TeXaide - a version of Word's Equation Editor that generates TeX output (free): http://www.dessci.com/features/taform.stm.
• Scientific Word - a word processor that acts as a WYSIWYG front end for LaTeX (not free): http://www.mackichan.com/.
• Word2TeX - a plug-in for Microsoft Word that converts Word (including Equation Editor or MathType equations) documents to LaTeX (not free): http://www.word2tex.com.
• LyX - a WYSIWYM front end for LaTeX (free): http://www.lyx.org

Setting up a Windows PC

1. Download and install Ghostscript.
2. Download and install GSView.
3. Download and install MiKTeX. Must be installed into a directory whose name contains no spaces.
4. Download and install WinEdt.
5. If you are doing a thesis or dissertation, download one of the UT style packages. Place the .sty file with your document or somewhere in your MiKTeX search path.

Getting Matlab Plots into LaTeX
There is more than one way to do this but here is a way to do it using the LaTeX graphicx package:
1. When creating plots in Matlab use the following command: print -depsc2 filename.eps Do not use the -tiff option for generating a tiff preview.
2. In your main .tex file, put the following command near the beginning: \usepackage{graphicx}
3. In the .tex file where you want to insert your plot: \begin{figure}[H]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=5.5in]{filename.eps}
\caption{Figure Title.} \label{fig:1}
\end{center}
\end{figure}
4. To refer to the figure in your text: Figure \ref{fig:1} shows ...
5. For more details, see: http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/etd/LaTeX/index.html

LaTeX Examples
Tak's ION GPS 2002 Conference Paper including the gps-ion.cls LaTeX class file. AIAA Paper Style Files including the user guide and example.