Getting and Using Latex

Software for Preparing LaTeX Documents

• If you work in a Windows environment, the combination of WinEdt and MikTex is hard to beat. I have worked in several other environments, and now I feel like I have found my true home.
• MikTex is free, and WinEdt is inexpensive shareware. Still, before you download WinEdt (or pay your $30 shareware fee), talk to Dan. We should have a departmental site license by now.
• There is an active WinEdit community that has created many add-ons, macros, GUIs, and so on for WinEdt. You can find out about these goodies at WinEdt.org.

IMS Latex Resources for Statistical Publication

• The journals of the Institute for Mathematical Statistics include The Annals of Applied Probability, The Annals of Probability, The Annals of Statistics, and Statistical Science. If you are writing for one of these journals you should take advantage of the document style files and other resources provided by the IMS. If you know exactly what your article will look like in print, you can make some formulas look much nicer than they would other wise.
• The American Statistical Association is a little behind in its latex support, but there is a semi-useful style guide .
• In general, for any journal you consider, you should look for latex support from its web page. It may not pay to do a lot of fiddling --- no referee thinks about this and not many editors do. Still, if you want your work to look its best, a little fiddling may be worthwhile.

General LaTeX Guides and Web Resources

• The best on-line resource for beginners is probably The LaTex Tutorials by the Indian Tex User Group (I-TUG).
• Best g general on-line resource. Probably Cambridge's Guide to LaTeX and LaTex resources.
• More details? Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e, which is (as one might guess) a bit lengthy.
• LaTeX: A Documentation Preparation System by Leslie Lamport. This is the original documentation by the creator of LaTex. It is not as instructive as one might hope, but everyone eventually gets a copy so you may as well get one now.

BibTex

• There is a useful BibTex Crash Course from the University of Chicago, Department of Statistics.
• More specialized resources, such as BibTex for Finance and Economics Journals.
• The natbib package provides citation styles that are more attractive than those one gets directly from BibTex.
• BibTex is usefully discussed in The LaTex Tutorials.

Pictures in a Latex Environment

• How to put PDF, PS, or JPG into Latex.
• Try out xfig under Widows for drawing your pictures? I use pstricks but xfig is widely used by Unix folks.
• A mathematician's guide to everything you ever wanted to know about postscript. Amusing and worth a look, but if you just want to make some pictures, this is definitely overkill.

Recycle Your Latex into PowerPoint Style Presentations?

Prosper gives you the presentation functionality of power point and the graceful formulas that you are used to from Latex. Moreover, you won't need to suffer through the painful resetting of your formulas. An alternative which may even be better is

Convert Latex Source to HTML?

I confess that I have yet to do this, but it does seem useful. The tool of choice is evidently Nikos Drakos' LaTeX2HTML converter. Someday soon (summer time?) I will give it a test drive.

Few Random Web Resources

Best Bullets