LATEX in 24 Hours

Abstract

The necessity for writing this book was felt long back, during my Ph.D. work, when I saw students and researchers struggling with L A TEX for preparing their articles and theses. A very limited number of books on L A TEX are available in markets. Of course, a lot of resources on this subject can be obtained freely from the internet. However, most of the books emphasize on detailed documentation of L A TEX, while the internet-based resources are topic-specific. But people are either unable or not interested to spare time, during their busy schedules of research works, to under- stand and learn the detailed genotype of L A TEX covered in books, or to collect materials from different websites. Instead, they prefer to get direct and concise applications of various L A TEX syntax in a single window, which they can modify easily, so as to get their works done in the least time and with the least effort. This is the motivation for writing the book. The book has been prepared by following a huge number of existing books and internet-based resources, as well as my personal experience with L A TEX (but the Bibliographic list has been shortened referring only to some famous resources). An attempt is made here to present materials in such a way that, at least, a similar book can be produced using only this book. Using only the raw version of this book, many of my students have already learned L A TEX successfully up to the level of preparing articles and dissertations. Hence, I am confident that the book would be able to cater to the needs of other students and professionals also, who want to learn and use L A TEX in a short time. Suggestions for any correction, modification, addition, or deletion will be highly appreciated (the same may be mailed to ddatta@tezu.ernet.in, datta_dilip@rediffmail.com or ddat- ta@iitkalumni.org