I'm going to be joining you in learning LaTex Satchi. My hubby used it to produce his computer science thesis (pretty essential then for ease of handling the many equations). I'm not a science student any more, but I am still a computer science graduate, and can program, so I might as well have a bash at learning it. I'm not a fan of Word, though I battled with it to produce my PhD thesis.

Hubby has Lamport's book, but uses it at work. So I'm buying my own copy!

Hi Satchi, I use Texniccenter to compile my Latex code, I lloked at a few others but liked the operation of this the best. The only slight disadvantage I see of Latex (as opposed to Word) is that it isn't WYSIWIG so you have to compile it to a PDF before you can see what it looks like but I would rather that than spend the night pulling my hair out (I haven't got much as it is) trying to work out why Word insists in moving things or changing things I haven't told it to.
The book I downloaded is "the not so short introduction to Latex" by Tobias Oetiker, you can download it. This gives a good introduction to Latex, for any other problems I get stuck with I just search directly online and generally come up with an answer within a couple of minutes.
As others have said, if you in an engineering/ maths/science field you should see the benefits with equations and the likes , if not for me the formatting consistency still out weighs having to learn how to use some new software.
Give it a go and just shout if I can help with anything
Max

Thanks for that link. I'll try that first. Looks like chapter 2 should sort most things out.

hi DanB, Bilbobaggins, Nxsfan, Squiggles, GoodBoy, Maxipat, everyone
thank you so much for your replies. I've just come into the lab, I'm getting the latex download now!
Kisses to you too DanB! :-)

At first I thought I would be lost doing this all by myself. But now I am more confident because everyone is so helpful!!!
Hope you're doing ok with it too Bilbo!!!

love
satchi

Yay! :) I'm sure you'll be a Latex convert in no time!!

hi and help
its satchi again
I have got proTexT and Jabref; I'm a bit confused, so this means I can get started, I dont have to get the texnicenter download, right? It is enough with just protext and jabref for windows?

love
satchi

I think so :p Although that's not the programmes I use, from a quick google search it seems that proTexT contains everything you need (the Latex package plus something to view it in - I use winedt, which seems to be included as part of proTexT). And jabref is for your bibliography. I've only ever used bibtex, so can't say much about jabref.

I think that should be enough to get you started. If you have winedt as part of the proTexT package, you just need to open it up to start a new document. You need some preamble at the beginning, say

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\begin{document}

Document text here

\end{document}

Then you click the Latex button in the top panel. You'll be asked to save the document, then a black box appears and will run the programme. Any error messages will show up here. If all's ok, the box will disappear, and you then click the dvi button - the magnifying glass under the Latex button, and you should see your document.
To create a pdf, you click the pdflatex rather than the latex button, and then the red kind of triangle adobe symbol under the pdf latex button to see the document. You can also do all of this from the accessories menu.

I'll stop rambling - hope this makes some sort of sense, although if you're not using winedt, then just ignore what I've said! Two useful things:

- Clicking the capital Greek sigma button gives a nice set of shortcuts for all sorts of symbols, useful in equations and so on

- If you're using bibtex (and I presume the same will hold for jabref), you need to save the bibtex/jabref file in the same folder as your Latex file, otherwise Latex won't be able to find it.

Hope all goes well! :-)

So far so good, though I've only installed the Mac version so far, and quickly tried producing a "Hello world!" article ("Hello world!" anything is the traditional first thing computer programmers try!). And that generated fine. I'll have a proper look tonight, when I have my laptop out again.

hi everyone! I have just exported my references into a txt file to put inside Jabrefs.
Correct, right?
I'm going to look at the macTex tonight
love satchi

JabRef is a 'nice' frontend that will automatically generate your BibTeX code. It's sort of like Endnote I believe (although, having never used Endnote, I can't comment how similar!). Although I think Endnote also generates BibTeX code but I'm not sure. But Jabref is nice and free and platform independent (runs on Java).

It comes with a couple of front ends: TeXShop and TeXworks. I've been using TeXShop so far, and finding it very easy to use.

I've just LaTeX'd my Chapter 1 of my thesis. No footnotes, but will figure out how to do those next.

Eventually you'll become really sad like me and LaTeX letters instead of using word...

help! JabRef crashed after I tried to import a .txt file (my bibliography) what should I have done?
How do I save a database properly then
thanks
satchi

Satchi,

Have you tried LyX (www.lyx.org)? It is a latex frontend program which is rather easy to learn.

I have just looked at the lyx.org, thanks for this.
Also what is the difference between jabref and bibdesk?
If i use bibdesk I dont have to use jabref?

thanks
love
satchi