The L A TEX distribution

12.3 The L A TEX distribution

The L A TEX distribution contains a number of document classes and packages, most of which you have probably received with your TEX software. If you find that you are

missing some files, see Section E.1 on how to get them. The files of the L A TEX distribution on CTAN are grouped in the directory

/pub/tex/macros/latex into four subdirectories.

12.3 The L A TEX distribution 311

base contains all the files necessary to install the system. As a rule, for every package, say, exscale, it contains two files, exscale.ins and exscale.dtx. Typeset- ting the first gives you exscale.sty and typesetting the second produces the

user guide and the commented source code. Since most L A TEX implementations install the content of the unpacked directory, this directory is not for the average user.

doc contains L A TEX documentation in PDF files and also the L A TEX News. required contains the directories amslatex, babel, cyrillic, graphics, psnfss,

tools. unpacked contains the unpacked L A TEX distribution. Since most L A TEX implementa-

tions install this, you may never need it. Of the packages and tex files included in the unpacked folder, the following

should be of special interest to readers of this book. latexsym Some symbol definitions (see the tables in Appendix B). alltt The alltt environment, which is like the verbatim environment except that

\, and {, } retain their usual meanings. exscale Scaled versions of the math extension font. makeidx Commands for producing indexes (see Chapter 17). showidx A package to allow you to typeset the index entries in the margin of your

typeset document (see Section 17.1). nfssfont.tex Generates font tables for use with the \symbol command (see Sec-

tion 5.4.4). There is also the file fixltx2e.sty in the unpacked directory (and the corre-

sponding fixltx2e.dtx and fixltx2e.ins in the base directory). This file contains fixes to latex.ltx, the main L A TEX file, and also some new commands that did not make it into the current release. The last fixltx2e.sty (Dec. 2005) contains two im- portant additions. It complements the \textsuperscript command (see Section C.4) with a \textsubscript command.

More importantly, it introduces a very useful new command \TextOrMath. This command has two arguments and it typesets the first in text and the second in math. For instance, if in newlattice.sty (see 15.3 ) you define

\newcommand{\Gra}{\TextOrMath{$\alpha$\xspace}{\alpha}} then you can type \Gra in both test and math. Indeed. this is \Gra in text, and this is $\Gra - x^2$ in math

312 Chapter 12 Legacy document classes

typesets as

this is α in text, and this is α

−x 2 in math

If you want to use these commands, include the line \usepackage{fixltx2e}

in the preamble. In the required folder there are some major software distributions related to L A TEX.

amslatex Discussed in detail in this book, this directory contains the AMS math packages and document classes, while the font-related AMS files are in the di- rectory

/tex-archive/fonts/amsfonts/latex/ babel For typesetting languages other than American English. cyrillic For typesetting Cyrillic characters. graphicx For the inclusion and transformation of graphics and for typesetting in color

(see Section 10.4.3). This package requires that you have a suitable printer driver. psnfss For typesetting with a wide range of PostScript fonts (see Section F.1). tools A range of tools for managing document production discussed in the next sec-

tion. Each of these packages comes with its own documentation. They are also de-

scribed in The L A TEX Companion, 2nd edition [46].

12.3.1 Tools

Some of these packages are so important that they could well have been incorporated into L A TEX proper. Here is a brief listing.

afterpage Implements the \afterpage command. The commands specified in its argument are expanded after the current page is output.

array Contains extended versions of the array and tabular environments with many extra features.

bm Gives access to bold math symbols. calc Allows algebraic manipulation of lengths and counter values when specifying

lengths and counters.

12.3 The L A TEX distribution 313

dcolumn Provides alignment on decimal points in tabular entries. It requires the array package.

delarray Adds “large delimiters” around arrays. It requires the array package. enumerate Provides customized enumerate environments (see Sections 6.2.4 and

also Sections 15.2.1, 15.3, 15.4). fileerr Helps with missing files. fontsmpl Produces a test file for displaying “font samples”. ftnright Places all footnotes in the right-hand column of documents typeset with the

twocolumn document class option. hhline Provides control over horizontal lines in tables. indentfirst Indents the first paragraph of each section. layout Shows the page layout defined by a document class (see Section 10.6). longtable Helps to create multipage tables. It does not require the array package,

but it uses array’s extended features if both packages are loaded. multicol Provides multicolumn typesetting with some advanced features. rawfonts Preloads fonts using the old font names of L A TEX 2.09. showkeys Selectively prints the labels used by \label, \ref, \cite, and so forth, in

the margin (see Section 10.4.2). somedefs Elective handling of package options. It is used by the rawfonts package. tabularx Defines a variant of the tabular environment where all the columns are

the same width. It requires the array package. theorem Allows the definition of proclamations in flexible formats. The AMS variant,

the amsthm package, is discussed in Section 6.4.2. trace Tracing help for macro writers.

varioref Provides smart as well as multilingual handling of page references. verbatim Extends the verbatim environment and provides the comment environ-

ment (see Sections 5.5.1 and 6.8). xr Creates cross-references among documents. xspace Provides a “smart space” command that helps you avoid the common mistake

of missing space after commands. It is mainly used in commands that expand to some text (see Section 15.1.1).

All of these packages are discussed in The L A TEX Companion, 2nd edition [46].

CHAPTER

PDF documents