LaTeX Tips
Here are some tips for users of the typsetting software LaTeX.
Using EMACS as your latex editor
A Precompiled up-to-date (cvs) emacs with AUCTEX and Preview-LaTeX installed and preconfigured to work with MikTeX is availabe here. Although the learning curve is a little steeper than other editors, the power of Auctex makes the time investment very worthwhile.
Include a plot legend in the caption of a figure
This is a way of replacing legends in plots (for example from Matlab) with small graphic representations of the curves in the caption of the figure. This labeling style is required by some journals (eg: those from Elsevier), where the plots should be kept as free from text as possible. The idea is best explained with a picture.
This can be achieved using the package pstricks, and the definition of a new command for each curve graphic in the preamble of the latex document.
\usepackage{pst-all}
\newcommand{\CircleLine}{%
\begin{pspicture}(-0.1,0)(1.1,0.5)
\psline{-}(0,0.1)(1,0.1)
\pscircle(0.5,0.1){0.1}
\end{pspicture}%
}
\newcommand{\CrossLine}{%
\begin{pspicture}(-0.1,0)(1.1,0.5)
\psline{-}(0,0.1)(1,0.1)
\rput(0.5,0.1){
\psline(-0.1,-0.1)(0.1,0.1)
\psline(-0.1,0.1)(0.1,-0.1)}
\end{pspicture}}
Create the figure captions like this:
\begin{figure}[htbp]
\centering
\includegraphics{image.eps}
\caption%
{this is a crossed line (\protect \CircleLine)
and this is a circle line (\protect \CircleLine)
some more text}
\end{figure}
The "\protect" is required, otherwise the legend lines will not be included in the table of contents.
A number of other symbols, corresponding to some of the common plotting styles used in Matlab, are defined in this file. To use, copy the file into the same directory as your latex source file and add the following line to the preamble of your document
\input{crl_symbols}
To add other line types (dotted, diamond, dashed etc), consult the pstricks manual. If you add other types, please send them to me for inclusion in the file.