The TeX Frequently Asked Question List

Question Categories

• Background
• Bibliographies
• Concepts
• Documentation
• Errors
• Floats
• Fonts
• Formatting
• Graphics
• Installing
• Misc
• Programming
• Usage

Question Tags

Citations – Classes – Ctan – Deprecated – Figures – Footnotes – Hyphenation – Index – Labels – Latex – Latex3 – Layout – Lists – Luatex – Macros – Math – Metafont – Pdftex – References – Structure – Tables – Toc – Unicode – Xetex

Background

• Getting started
• How can I be sure it’s really TeX?
• How does LaTeX relate to Plain TeX?
• How should I pronounce “LaTeX(2_ε)”?
• How should I pronounce “TeX”?
• If TeX is so good, how come it’s free?
• Reading (La)TeX files
• Should I use Plain TeX or LaTeX?
• TeX User Groups
• The CTAN catalogue
• Things with “TeX” in the name
• What are XeTeX and LuaTeX?
• What are the AMS packages (amsmath, etc.)?
• What is ε-TeX?
• What is CTAN?
• What is ConTeXt?
• What is Eplain?
• What is LaTeX2e?
• What is LaTeX?
• What is MetaFont?
• What is MetaPost?
• What is TeX?
• What is Texinfo?
• What is pdfTeX?
• What is the future of TeX?
• What’s “writing in TeX”?
• Why is TeX not a WYSIWYG system?

Bibliographies

• Accents in bibliographies
• BibTeX doesn’t understand lists of names
• BibTeX sorting and name prefixes
• Capitalisation in BibTeX
• Choosing a bibliography style
• Creating a BibTeX bibliography file
• Creating a bibliography style
• Format of numbers in the bibliography
• Listing all your BibTeX entries
• Making HTML of your Bibliography
• Multi-letter initials in BibTeX
• Multiple bibliographies?
• Multiple citations
• Non-english bibliographies
• Normal use of BibTeX from LaTeX
• Putting bibliography entries in text
• Reconstructing bib files
• Reducing spacing in the bibliography
• References from the bibliography to the citation
• Separate bibliographies per chapter?
• Sorting and compressing citations
• Sorting lists of citations
• String too long in BibTeX
• Table of contents rearranges “unsrt” ordering
• URLs in BibTeX bibliographies
• Using BibTeX with Plain TeX

Concepts

• Adobe font formats
• Documented LaTeX sources (dtx files)
• How does hyphenation work in TeX?
• Spawning programs from (La)TeX: \write18
• Unicode and TeX
• What are “resolutions”?
• What are (TeX) macros
• What are LaTeX “environments”
• What are LaTeX classes and packages?
• What are PK files?
• What are TFM files?
• What are encodings?
• What are the EC fonts?
• What are virtual fonts?
• What is “Encapsulated PostScript” (“EPS”)?
• What is a DVI driver?
• What is a DVI file?
• What is the “Berry naming scheme”?
• What is the TDS?
• Writing (text) files from TeX
• \special commands

Documentation

• (La)TeX tutorials
• BibTeX Documentation
• Books on LaTeX
• Books on TeX, Plain TeX and relations
• Books on Type
• Books on other TeX-related matters
• Books relevant to TeX and friends
• Documentation of packages
• Freely available (La)TeX books
• Getting help online
• How to ask a question
• How to make a “minimum example”
• Learning to write LaTeX classes and packages
• MetaFont and MetaPost Tutorials
• Online introductions: LaTeX
• Online introductions: Plain TeX
• Reference documents
• Specialist mailing lists
• The PicTeX manual
• Tutorials, etc., for TeX-based systems
• Typography tutorials
• WIKI books for TeX and friends
• Where can I find the symbol for …
• Where to find FAQs

Errors

• Accents misbehave in tabbing
• Alignment tab changed to \cr
• An extra }?
• Capacity exceeded [semantic nest …]
• Capacity exceeded — input levels
• Checksum mismatch in font
• Controlling widows and orphans
• Enlarging TeX
• Entering compatibility mode
• Extra vertical space in floats
• Fatal format file error; I’m stymied
• Float(s) lost
• Graphics division by zero
• How to approach errors
• I asked for “empty”, but the page is numbered
• Illegal parameter number in definition
• Improper \hyphenation will be flushed
• LaTeX gets cross-references wrong
• LaTeX won’t include from other directories
• Link text doesn’t break at end line
• Mismatched mode ljfour and resolution 8000
• Missing $ inserted
• Missing \begin{document}
• Missing number, treated as zero
• Missing symbol commands
• My brackets don’t match
• No line here to end
• No room for a new “thing”
• Non-PDF special ignored!
• Not in outer par mode
• Old LaTeX font references such as \tenrm
• Option clash for package
• Package reports “command already defined”
• Page number is wrong at start of page
• Perhaps a missing \item?
• Please type a command or say \end
• Start of line goes awry
• Support package expl3 too old
• The font size command \normalsize is not defined
• The structure of TeX error messages
• Token not allowed in PDFDocEncoded string
• Too deeply nested
• Too many math alphabets
• Too many unprocessed floats
• Two-column float numbers out of order
• Unable to read an entire line
• Underlined text won’t break
• Unknown graphics extension
• Warning Font shape … not available
• What’s happened to initex?
• Where are the am fonts?
• Where are the msx and msy fonts?
• Why are my sections numbered 0.1 …?
• Why doesn’t verbatim work within …?
• Why is my table/figure/… not centred?
• \end occurred inside a group
• \spacefactor complaints
• epsf gives up after a bit
• pdfTeX destination … ignored

Floats

• Centring a very wide figure or table
• Diagonal separation in corner cells of tables
• Facing floats on 2-page spread
• Figure (or table) exactly where I want it
• Fixed-width tables
• Floats in multicolumn setting
• Floats on their own on float pages
• Flowing text around figures
• How to alter the alignment of tabular cells
• How to change a whole row of a table
• Merging cells in a column of a table
• Moving tables and figures in LaTeX
• Placing two-column floats at bottom of page
• Spacing lines in tables
• Tables longer than a single page
• The design of tables
• The thickness of rules in LaTeX tables
• Variable-width columns in tables
• Vertical layout of float pages
• What is the difference between array and tabular environments

Fonts

• Acquiring bitmap fonts
• Characters disappear from figures in pdfTeX
• Choice of Type 1 fonts for typesetting Maths
• Deploying Type 1 fonts
• Fonts go fuzzy when you switch to T1
• Fuzzy fonts because Ghostscript too old
• Getting “free” fonts not in your distribution
• Getting MetaFont to do what you want
• Previewing files using Type 1 fonts
• TeX font metric files for Type 1 fonts
• The wrong type of fonts in PDF
• Unicode Maths using OpenType fonts
• Using Adobe Type 1 fonts with TeX
• Using non-standard fonts in Plain TeX
• Using the “Concrete” fonts
• Using the Latin Modern fonts
• Weird characters in dvips output
• Which font files should be kept

Formatting

• 1-column abstract in 2-column document
• A “report” from lots of ‘article’s
• Adobe Reader messing with print size
• Alternative head- and footlines in LaTeX
• Appendixes
• Balancing columns at the end of a document
• Better script fonts for maths
• Bibliography, index, etc., in TOC
• Big letters at the start of a paragraph
• Breaking boxes of text
• Cancelling \ragged commands
• Changing margins “on the fly”
• Changing the margins in LaTeX
• Changing the space between letters
• Code listings in LaTeX
• Creating posters with LaTeX
• Double-spaced documents in LaTeX
• Formatting a thesis in LaTeX
• Generating an index in (La)TeX
• Getting the right paper geometry from (La)TeX
• How to create a \subsubsubsection
• How to create crop marks
• How to get copyright, trademark, etc.
• How to get rid of page numbers
• How to set up page layout “by hand”
• How to type an “@” sign?
• How to typeset an underscore character
• Including a file verbatim in LaTeX
• Including line numbers in typeset output
• Indent after section headings
• Letters and the like
• Multiple indexes
• My section title is too wide for the page header
• Other “document font” sizes?
• Overstriking characters
• Packages to set up page designs
• Page numbering “‹n› of ‹m›”
• Page numbering by chapter
• Parallel setting of text
• Preventing a ligature
• Preventing page breaks between lines
• Printing the time
• Producing presentations (including slides)
• Putting things at fixed positions on the page
• Realistic quotes for verbatim listings
• Really blank pages between chapters
• Referring to labels in other documents
• Referring to things by their name
• Replacing the standard classes
• Setting bold Greek letters in LaTeX maths
• Setting papers for journals
• Setting text ragged right
• Symbols for the number sets
• Table of contents, etc., per chapter
• The Principal Value Integral symbol
• The format of the Table of Contents, etc.
• The size of printed output
• The style of captions
• The style of document titles
• The style of section headings
• Typesetting URLs
• Typesetting epigraphs
• Typesetting music in TeX
• Typesetting pseudocode in LaTeX
• Typesetting the Euro sign
• Typesetting things in landscape orientation
• Unnumbered sections in the Table of Contents
• Using “old-style” figures
• Using symbols
• Watermarks on every page
• Wide figures in two-column documents
• Zero paragraph indent
• Curriculum Vitae (Résumé)

Graphics

• Displaying MetaPost output in ghostscript
• Drawing Feynman diagrams in LaTeX
• Drawing a rule
• Drawing with TeX
• Imported graphics in dvipdfm
• Imported graphics in dvips
• Imported graphics in pdfLaTeX
• Importing graphics from “somewhere else”
• Importing graphics into (La)TeX documents
• In-line source for graphics applications
• Labelling graphics
• Limit the width of imported graphics
• Modern graphics file names
• Portable imported graphics
• Repeated graphics in a document
• Top-aligning imported graphics

Installing

• (La)TeX for different machines
• (Modern) Windows systems
• Commercial TeX implementations
• Contributing a file to the archives
• Finding (La)TeX files
• Finding new fonts
• Finding packages to install
• Generating package documentation
• Installation using MiKTeX package manager
• Installation using TeX Live manager
• Installing a PostScript printer built-in font
• Installing a Type 1 font
• Installing a font provided as MetaFont source
• Installing a new font
• Installing files “where (La)TeX can find them”
• Installing the Type 1 versions of the CM fonts
• Installing things on a (La)TeX system
• Installing using ready-built ZIP files
• Macintosh systems
• Other systems’ TeX availability
• Preparing a Type 1 font
• Private installations of files
• Ready-built installation files on the archive
• Repositories of TeX material
• Shortcuts to installing files
• TeX-friendly editors and shells
• Temporary installation of (La)TeX files
• The TeX collection
• Tidying up after installation
• Unix and GNU Linux systems
• Unpacking LaTeX packages
• What was the CTAN nonfree tree?
• Where to install packages
• Which tree to use

Misc

• (La)TeX-friendly drawing packages
• Alternatives to TeX
• Automatic sizing of minipage
• Conversion from (La)TeX to HTML
• Conversion from (La)TeX to plain text
• Conversion from SGML or HTML to TeX
• DVI previewers
• DVI to PostScript conversion programs
• Drawing packages for LaTeX
• Generating bitmaps from DVI
• How many words have you written?
• Making outline fonts from MetaFont
• Math on the Web
• Other conversions to and from (La)TeX
• Output to “other” printers
• Quality of PDF from PostScript
• Redefining counters’ \the-commands
• Replacing the BibTeX–LaTeX mechanism
• Reporting a LaTeX bug
• Retrieving (La)TeX from DVI, etc.
• Spelling checkers for work with TeX
• Submitting new material for the FAQ
• TeX Engine development
• The LaTeX project
• The TeX document preparation environment
• Translating LaTeX to Plain TeX
• Typesetting all those TeX-related logos
• Using TeX to read SGML or XML directly
• WEB systems for various languages
• What is Literate Programming?
• What to do if you find a bug
• You don’t understand the answer

Programming

• Active characters in command arguments
• Adjusting the presentation of section numbers
• Am I using pdfTeX, XeTeX or LuaTeX?
• Changing the words babel uses
• Commands defined with * options
• Comparing the “job name”
• Defining LaTeX commands within other commands
• Defining a macro from an argument
• Defining characters as macros
• Defining macros within macros
• Detecting that something is empty
• Finding if a label is undefined
• Finding if you’re on an odd or an even page
• Finding the width of a letter, word, or phrase
• Fonts at arbitrary sizes
• How to break the 9-argument limit
• How to change LaTeX’s “fixed names”
• How to change the format of labels
• How to print contents of variables?
• Is the argument a number?
• Is this command defined?
• Key-value input for macros and package options
• LaTeX internal “abbreviations”, etc.
• LaTeX3 programming
• Making labels from a counter
• Master and slave counters
• More than one optional argument
• Non-letters in macro names
• Optional arguments like \section
• Patching existing commands
• Preferring \newcommand* over \newcommand
• Process a CSV file in LaTeX
• Repeating a command n times
• Repeating something for each ‘thing’ in a set
• Spaces in macros
• Subverting a token register
• The definitions of LaTeX commands
• The quality of your LaTeX
• There’s a space added after my environment
• Transcribing LaTeX command definitions
• Using Plain or primitive commands in LaTeX
• Using labels as counter values
• What’s the reason for “protection”?
• \@ and @ in macro names
• \edef does not work with \protect

Usage

• (La)TeX makes overfull lines
• (Merely) peculiar hyphenation
• Accented words aren’t hyphenated
• Adjusting maths font sizes
• All the files used by this document
• Bits of document from other directories
• Cancelling terms in maths expressions
• Case-changing oddities
• Characters missing from PDF output
• Commands gobble following space
• Conditional compilation and “comments”
• Copy-paste-able/searchable PDF files
• Defining a new log-like function in LaTeX
• Ellipses
• Even subscript height
• Fancy enumeration lists
• Finding “8-bit” Type 1 fonts
• Footnotes in LaTeX section headings
• Footnotes in captions
• Footnotes in tables
• Footnotes numbered “per page”
• Footnotes whose texts are identical
• Getting \marginpar on the right side
• How many pages are there in my document?
• How to adjust list spacing
• How to do bold-tt or bold-sc
• Hyperref and repeated page numbers
• Hyphenation exceptions
• Including Plain TeX files in LaTeX
• Interrupting enumerated lists
• Line-breaking in in-line maths
• Makefiles for LaTeX documents
• Making PDF documents from (La)TeX
• Making hypertext documents from TeX
• Marking changed parts of your document
• Maths symbols don’t scale up
• More than one sequence of footnotes
• My words aren’t being hyphenated
• Not resetting footnote numbers per chapter
• Numbers for referenced equations only
• Numbers too large in table of contents, etc.
• Only one \baselineskip per paragraph
• Preventing hyphenation of a particular word
• Proof environment
• Re-using an equation
• Replacing Type 3 fonts in PostScript
• Rerun messages won't go away
• Running equation, figure and table numbering
• Set specifications and Dirac brackets
• Stopping all hyphenation
• Sub- and superscript positioning for operators
• Text inside maths
• The comma as a decimal separator
• Theorem bodies printed in a roman font
• Using a new language with Babel
• Version control using RCS, CVS or the like
• Weird hyphenation of words
• What’s going on in my \include commands?
• What’s the name of this file
• What’s wrong with \bf, \it, etc.?
• What’s wrong with \newfont?
• Where have my characters gone?
• Why bother with inputenc and fontenc?
• Why does LaTeX split footnotes across pages?
• Why does it ignore paragraph parameters?
• Why doesn’t \linespread work?
• Why is the inside margin so narrow?
• Why not use eqnarray?
• Why use \[ …\] in place of $$ … $$?