latex-base/README.md

Initial Information

This is a LaTeX Template Repo to create other Documents. The contents include:

Filename	Description
main.tex	Main LaTeX File where the contents of the document belong into
bibliography.bib	Bibliography list for citing with BibTeX
titlepage.tex	Title-Page of the Document as an own Folder. So that it can be designed independently.

Use this Template to create your own repo with the starter-documents and an integrated Action to build and publish your LaTeX-Projects on Push.

Files

Here, the various contents and variables of the files get explained. This is especially important for the initial setup of your project.

Titlepage.tex

The Titlepage-File defines (as the name implies) the layout and contents of the titlepage. It gets imported into the main.tex document, that you only get one PDF with all the contents in it.

Placeholders

The File holds multiple placeholders, which should be replaced with the actual value.

Placeholder	Meaning
<TITLEPAGE_GRAPHICS_PATH>	Path to the image that is placed over the title/subtitle. Refer to the graphics-section for more information on graphic files.
<MAIN_TITLE>	Main title of the document
<SUBTITLE>	Subtitle of the document

Basic LaTeX formatting

LaTeX enables you to format your text as you wish, probably with much more flexibility than e.g. Microsoft Word. There are a few commands (explained below) which you should know before starting with your LaTeX file.

Creating titles

These commands are used to create different titles. The titles in this document are automatically numbered and are automatically styled correctly.

Command	Explanation
\section{<YOUR_TITLE>}	The biggest title of all. It is numbered with one number (e.g. 1 Title).
\subsection{<YOUR_TITLE>}	This is the first subtitle. It is numbered with two numbers (e.g. 1.1 Subtitle).
\subsubsection{<YOUR_TITLE>}	This is the second subtitle. It is numbered with three numbers (e.g. 1.1.1 Subsubtitle).
\subsubsubsection{<YOUR_TITLE>}	This is the third subtitle. It is not numbered at all and is also not showing up in the table of contents.

Formatting text

The following commands are used to format normal paragraphs. However, most commands can be used in other environments (e.g. tables) as well.

Command	Explanation
\\	Creates a new line. Its usage is only necessary, when you
\textbf{<TEXT>}
\textit{<TEXT>}
\underline{<TEXT>}

Bulletpoints and Enumerations

Bulletpoints

To create a list of bulletpoints, we use an itemized environment. Inside it, we can use \item to create a new point.

\begin{itemize}
    \item first point
    \item second point
    \item third point
\end{itemize}

Inside an itemized environment, you don't need to do line breaks manually. With each item, you start a new line.

Enumerations

Enumerations work nearly the same as bulletpoints. They just use the enumerate environment instead of the itemized environment. As with bulletpoints, you can use \item to create a new item in the list.

\begin{enumerate}
    \item first numbered item
    \item second numbered item
    \item third numbered item
\end{enumerate}

Specials

Here are some special options to format the text. ⚠️ In general, these commands should not be used. There are a few exceptions where it's okay to use them.⚠️

Command	Explanation
\noindent	Used before a paragraph. It disables the indentation of the whole paragraph, if there is no title before it.
\pagebreak	As the name of the command implies, it creates a new pagebreak. This is pretty useful, if you want to finally format your document. It does break the formatting which the compiler does and messes with the whole formatting in a way that you can't control. Only use with absolute caution!
\newline	This command creates a new line, on which the text is continued. So it does the same as \\ but just that it does not mess with some things (e.g. tables or escaping special characters instead of breaking).

Use of Graphics

Using graphics in LaTeX is not difficult. It's best practice to create a new subfolder (e.g. graphics) in your project to store all the graphics. To embed a graphic into your document, two steps are required. First, you need to insert the graphic with all information associated with it into the document. Idealy you position this part near the position in the real document.

⚠️ Attention:
If used correctly, the graphic is placed into the document by the compiler. You do not need to position the graphic yourself.

Importing graphics into LaTeX

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{<YOUR_GRAPHICS_PATH>}
    \caption{<CAPTION_TEXT> (Quelle: \cite{<CITE_REFERENCE>})}
    \label{fig:<FIGURE_ID_NAME>}
\end{figure}  

The example places the Figure in the middle ( \centering).
It's width is defined as 80% of the linewidth (linewidth equals the width of a text-line). The percentage-value can be changed as needed. If the width should be 100% of the line, you just use \linewidth.

Referencing graphics in the text

It's important that the graphics that you use are referenced in the text, so that LaTeX can determine where the graphic should be positioned in the document. To reference a graphic in the text, use the following syntax:

\cref{fig:<FIGURE_ID_NAME>}  

Special graphic-options

⚠️USE THESE WITH EXTREME CAUTION⚠️

• \begin{figure} [h] ➡️ the [h] means that the figure should be placed exactly here in the document. You override the compiler with this setting, so you should only use it if really necessary.
• \captionof{figure}{<CAPTION>} ➡️ Sometimes you need to use \captionof instead of \caption to get the caption below a figure working.

Use of Tables

In this template some preparations are done, that creating tables is not that difficult.

Column width

There are five different widths defined for the table columns. The width gets calculated from the value m, so a column-width of m equals 100% relative width.

letter defining width	relative percentage to m
W	150%
w	125%
m	100%
S	75%
s	50%

Defining a basic table

To define a table, we start by defining a centred (you probably want your tables centred on the page) block. Then we define a tabularx environment, which gives us the functionality of the table itself. In there, we need to define our columns and can define the contents of the table. An example-definition of a table looks like this:

\begin{center}
    \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{| S | w |}
        \hline
        \textbf{Header 1} & \textbf{Header 2} \\ \hline
        Content 1.1       & Content 1.2       \\ \hline
        Content 2.1       & Content 2.2       \\ \hline
    \end{tabularx}
\end{center}  

In the example above, the table is defined with a S and a w column width. Due to the fact, that there are two columns defined, the sum of all width-percentage-values need to get to 200% (per defined column 100% width, so with two columns 200%).
In this case we have a 75% width column (defined with S) and a 125% width column (defined with w). In sum, we get to 200%. If this calculation is not done correctly, the table will not be shown correctly in the generated PDF.

Table width

The table width is determined by the first argument of tabularx. In the example above, the table-width is defined as the textwidth. If you want 80% of the textwidth, you can do that by typing 0.8\textwidth.

Defining columns

To define columns, we use the second argument of tabularx. To get vertical lines in the table, they need to be defined in this argument.
The left line (created by AltGR + 7) represents the left table-border.
Then there is a space, following the letter for the column width (as seen in the last chapter).
After another space, the seperator between the two columns follows.
The same is repeated for the second column and it's border to the right of it.

\\ \hline?

\\ creates a new line, as learned in the chapter Basic LaTeX formatting. It does the same in tables. Just that you only want to generate a new line in tables, when you're actually at the end of the line.

The command \hline creates a horizontal line. If you don't write that command (and just break the line to the next one) you don't get a delimiting line between the lines.

Separating column content

To separate the contents of two different columns, the & symbol is used. You can just place it wherever you need the seperation of the contents to happen.

Defining a table with all properties

In the previous chapter, you learned how to define a basic table. To define a full table (as probably needed in your documentation) you need to add a few lines of LaTeX.
The full table-definition defined with placeholders looks like this:

\begin{center}
    \begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{| S | w |}
        \hline
        \textbf{Header 1} & \textbf{Header 2} \\ \hline
        Content 1.1       & Content 1.2       \\ \hline
        Content 2.1       & Content 2.2       \\ \hline
    \end{tabularx}
    \captionof{table}{<TABLE_CAPTION>}
    \label{tab:<TABLE_ID_NAME}
\end{center}  

Here, we also have the table captioned (which enables us to create a table-directory) and we also gave the table a label. The label is (as with graphics) important to reference it in the text, that it can be placed correctly by the compiler.