FOSSMeet 2017

LaTeX is a document preparation system. It is widely used in preparing technical documents, though it is convenient and effective in typesetting any document, especially technical ones. It is widely used for preparing publications in science and technology, especially research publications, reports and journals. As LaTeX is similar to a programming language in many ways, this will be only an introductory workshop.

Outline

LaTeX is a language for formatting documents. In a way it is similar to a programming language in that you prepare a document with commands included and then compile it to get a formatted document in pdf or postscript format. It is also similar to html in that you include tags within the document that specifies how to typeset that part of the document. LaTeX is actually a set of macros for the TeX programming language created by Prof. Donald Knuth. It can be used to create all kinds of documents like article, report, book, thesis or even presentations. Many journals, especially in mathematics are published using TeX, and some of them accept only papers prepared in TeX. Being similar to a programming language, it takes time to learn it and one never learns it completely, finding features as one goes along and according to need. So, this can be only an introduction to TeX.

Requirements

Has to be in a computer lab except for the first hour or so. Will need multimedia projector and public address system.

Speaker bio

Have done workshops on LaTeX in several educational institutes in India, including several science colleges, engineering colleges, Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana, Pune and NITC, and in Asuncion, Paraguay.