The default setting of the article and
report options for the \documentstyle
are pretty good. They let you produce a not-too-bad-looking document.
But, of course, you'll want to change them eventually. Except for
the thesis settings, but that's another story all together.
Here's some things you can change:
[Table of Contents]
Each \documentstyle has its own default page set-up.
Everything can be changed, though. You just have to know the right
code words. Lengths are generally of the form \foo.
That is, when latex reads \foo, it replaces
it with whatever length \foo has been set to.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% \oddsidemargin 0.0in \evensidemargin 0.0in \textwidth 6.5in \headheight 0.0in \topmargin 0.0in \textheight=9.0in %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%You can use both
\textheight=9.0in or
\textheight 9.0in with just a space.
\oddsidemargin. You can set
\oddsidemargin negative to make margins smaller than one
inch. To change the right margin, just combine \oddsidemargin
and \textwidth. You can make a binding offset this way, leaving
some extra room for the binding, 3-holes, staples...
\evensidemargin and \oddsidemargin.
\topmargin=0in doesn't actually pull the text right up
to the top of the page, even if you have no obvious headers. Experiment
a bit...
The official word on headers comes from Lamport (p. 161). You can get
headers with the \pagestyle command:
\pagestyle{style}.
plain
empty
headings
\documentstyle. It usually
has the chapter or section name, and the page number. Empty footer. See
Lamport, p.162.
myheadings
myheadings,
you get whatever the default is, plus anything you add with
\markboth{left}{right}
(appears on left and right pages) or
\markright{right} (appears on right pages
only). Here are some example; modify them to suit your needs...
\documentstyle{article}
\pagestyle{myheadings} % Go for customized headings
\newcommand{\sekshun}[1] % In 'article' only the page
{ % number appears in the header.
\section{#1} % I want the section name AND
\markboth{#1 \hfill}{#1 \hfill} % the page, so I need a new kind
} % of '\sekshun' command.
\begin{document}
\sekshun{Introduction} % Start new section with custom \sekshun
Under closer scrutiny in the early 20th century, Newton's Theory of
Gravitation...
\today), and
page number. Notice the equal spacing around the
date and the use of \thechapter to get the number of
the chapter. (courtesy of
Susan Haigh)
\documentstyle{thesis}
\pagestyle{myheadings} % Go for customized headings
\newcommand{\newchap}[1] % Re-define the chaptering command to use
{ % THESE headers.
\chapter{#1}
\markboth{Chapter \thechapter. {#1}\hfill \today\hfill}{Chapter
\thechapter. {#1}\hfill \today \hfill}
}
\begin{document}
\newchap{Introduction} % Start new chapter with custom \newchap
...evolution of these instabilities since it is only valid when the
perturbation amplitudes are ...
No big mystery here. Everytime LaTeX hits
a blank line in the .tex source file, it starts a new
paragraph. By default, new paragraphs are indented, except for the
first paragraph of a new chapter, section, subsection...
You can force LaTeX to not indent
by starting the block of text with \noindent. This is good
to use after a displayed equation where you want to continue along, "where
x is the value of blah blah blah."
Of course, you can change the default indentation with
\parindent=1into set the indentation to, say, 1 inch. Setting
\parindent=0in
( don't forget the unit of measurement, even with 0) turns off
paragraph indentation all together.