A reminder that there will be a (La)TeX training session at the UK Unix Users’ Group summer meeting in Birmingham on Friday. The session will be led by Jonathan Fine (UK-TUG Chairman), Joseph Wright (UK-TUG Webmaster) and Alun Moon (Senior Lecturer in Computing, Northumbria University). The half day workshop is designed to be flexible, and the content will be tailored to the needs of those attending.
Resources for TeX and LaTeX training
Tags: Birmingham, LaTeX, Training, Unix, Workshop
Planning is ongoing for a (La)TeX training session at the UK Unix Users’ Group Summer Meeting in Birmingham. Our earlier post gave initial details, but we are now making progress on the detail. The tutorial sessions are on Friday, the 7th of August. We are expecting to have a session in the morning (from 09:00 to about 13:30), and our abstract at the moment reads:
Introduction to LaTeX
A tutorial by given by members of the UK TeX Users Group. The tutorial will begin with an introduction to the fundamental concepts of TeX and LaTeX, and then move on to more advanced topics. The tutors are likely to include one or both of
- Jonathan Fine: UK-TUG chair and developer of MathTran
- Joseph Wright: UK-TUG webmaster and member of the LaTeX3 project
We are currently asking prominent UK TeX training experts if they can attend to help lead the session. We’re also keen to get the content right: please let us know if there is a topic we should include.
The Templates page sees a few changes. There is a new template for doing label printing, for mail-shots and so on. At the same time, the letter mail merge and directory templates have been updated to use the latest version of the datatool package. As always, feedback and new template ideas are always welcome.
For those in search of good quality LaTeX resources on-line, the LaTeX Wikibook is currently a “featured” title on the Wikibooks site. To quote the site:
LaTeX is a featured book on Wikibooks because it contains substantial content, it is well-formatted, and the Wikibooks community has decided to feature it on the main page or in other places.
The University of Manchester course for beginners with TeX and LaTeX is schedules to take place on the 7th of May 2009. The course booking form indicates that the course is availble to outsiders, for a fee of £275.
The templates page now includes a simple compliment slip design. Thanks very much to Dr Dick Nickalls for the original design from which this template has been created.
Writing a thesis in LaTeX is an area that many people seek help with. The UK-TUG Committee is keen to help students, particularly those in the UK, find the resources they need. The training pages include a lot of useful links. In particular, the thesis page includes links to various thesis templates for UK universities. A couple of general sites deserve a highlight, as both include very good general advice on LaTeX in general and writing a thesis in particular:
- Nicola Talbot’s Using LaTeX to Write a PhD Thesis
- Sunil Patel’s LaTeX Thesis Template
The University of Cambridge has a LaTeX course for beginners in February (10th and 11th) and a practical session (13th); the course is aimed at students and staff at the university. Thanks to LaTeX for Humans for this information.
Writing multiple letters using mail merge is a common task. The templates page now includes a simple letter template for mail merge, including an example CSV database.
The templates page now contains several links to Ph.D. thesis templates and advice. Many of these are generally useful, although every university has its own rules on laying out a thesis.