[OS X TeX] memoir class, Table questions, position of floats, line numbering
Will Robertson
will at mecheng.adelaide.edu.au
Thu Jun 10 22:57:28 EDT 2004
On 11 Jun 2004, at 11:39 AM, Denis Chabot wrote:
>
> One first question that comes to my mind is: why does the sample
> document use the memoir class, which is not described on most LaTeX
> guides? I found a 300 p document on memoir, but before digging into it
> (it is not light reading...), I'd like to know if there are
> significant advantages over the article class which would make this a
> good time investment.
>
The memoir class is like an amalgamation of the book class and the
article class and a bunch of often-used packages. The reason I
recommend it is *because* of the 300 page manual --- note that the
first half is typesetting fundamentals, and not specific to typesetting
in LaTeX.
It provides an *integrated* way of customising your document. Rather
than with the article class, if you want to change the section heading,
you go and find a package that does this, read its manual work out how
to use it. Repeat ad nauseum if you want to edit the headers/footers,
page margins, table of contents formatting, etc etc.
Your mileage may vary. If you just want a lightweight class that
provides the basics, but all means start off with the article class.
It's certainly more simple.
> I had to make a few tables. I noticed that if you choose the Table
> macros in TeXShop, you get the elements of a Table pasted into your
> document, and the first line is:
>
> \begin{table}[htdp]
>
> What does the d do? I only found the description for h, t, b and p,
> not d.
>
> To continue with Tables, is there a way to merge two cells vertically?
I didn't know TeXShop came with a table template! Anyway, that d is a
typo. You are correct, the only ones you can choose are h t b & p. You
can use ! to tell LaTeX to try really hard to do what you want, at a
slight expense to good looks.
Unfortunately, there's no way to merge cells vertically.
>
> I had to trim the column headings quite a bit to get a table to fit
> within the width of the text. Maybe I could have reduced the font size
> (maybe this will be ugly, but I'd like to try). Is there a way to
> reduce font size for a whole table? Maybe the same technique would
> allow me to make headings of a table bold, but the rest plain, when
> journals want this style?
To make everything smaller, you can use a \small command at the same
place as the \centering command. As for styled headers, I'd make a new
command in the preamble like \newcommand{\head}[1]{\textbf{#1}} and use
that for all of your table headings --- if you ever need to change them
all, just edit the command definition to however you like.
>
> I found how to center headings that happened to be multicolumn, but
> how do you center a column heading when you want the remainder of the
> column to be right aligned?
>
> Anyway, my tables worked quite well for a first attempt, but I must
> say it is slower to make a table this way versus a graphical
> interface.
There is probably a more elegant solution, but this came to mind
immediately: (it also shows the bold header thing)
\documentclass{article}
\newcommand{\head}[1]{\hfill\textbf{#1}\hfill}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[htbp]
\small
\centering
\begin{tabular}{@{} llr @{}} % Column formatting, @{} suppresses
leading/trailing space
\toprule
\multicolumn{2}{c}{Item} \\
\cmidrule(r){1-2}
\head{Animal} & Description & Price (\$)\\
\midrule
Gnat & per gram & 13.65 \\
& each & 0.01 \\
Gnu & stuffed & 92.50 \\
Emu & stuffed & 33.33 \\
Armadillo & frozen & 8.99 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\caption{An example of a table generated with the \textsf{booktabs}
package:}
\label{tab:booktabs}
\end{table}
\end{document}
> I love not having to worry about where my figures end up (one of my
> main beef with Word). But many ended up alone on a page, when I
> thought there was enough space for a few lines of text on the same
> page. I have a very small sample size, remember, but it looks to me
> that text will be placed with my floats only if whole paragraphs can
> fit. Is there a way to have parts of paragraph accompany floats on a
> page, or if this a behavior that insures better looking document and I
> should not mess with it?
To quote epslatex.pdf:
<<
1. Don’t handcuff LATEX. The more float placement options are given to
LATEX, the better it handles float placement. In particular, the [htbp]
and [tbp] work well. See Section 16.2.
2. Many people find the default float parameters are too restrictive.
The following commands
\renewcommand{\textfraction}{0.15}
\renewcommand{\topfraction}{0.85}
\renewcommand{\bottomfraction}{0.65}
\renewcommand{\floatpagefraction}{0.60}
set the float parameters to more-permissive values. See Section 17.2.
>>
>
> Finally, although I don't need this right now, in biology we often
> have to submit documents that have lots of space between the lines
> within paragraphs (double interligne in French). It is not pretty, but
> journals want the manuscripts that way. How would you do this? And if
> the journal also wants line numbers to appear in the left margin, can
> this be done with LaTeX?
For the first, look at
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=linespace
That something I think I forgot in my sample document. The TeX FAQ
*will* have answers to almost anything you have questions about. Find
it at the link about.
For the second:
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=linenos
Hope that helps!
Will
-----------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>
Please see <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/> for list
guidelines, information, and LaTeX/TeX resources.
More information about the MacOSX-TeX
mailing list