Adding a new environment for code listings in LaTeX

Documentation of code in LaTeX is easy: Just use the package listings. To be able to refer to those code snippets, you can define a new environment as follows:

The name of the environment is {listing} and the name used for the caption is [Listing]. It was not necessary to add the name as the default is to take the name of the environment with the first character capitalized. … Read the rest “Adding a new environment for code listings in LaTeX”

LaTeX equations in sans-serif font

I write most of my text using a sans-serif font using the following code in my preamble:

Text looks than like this:

However, the equations are shown in a serif-font:

Although no big issue for me, I looked for a solution that produces my equations also in sans-serif format. There is a package for this called newtxsf that does exactly that:

Just add the package in your preamble:

Producing stand-alone figures with TikZ in LaTeX

With TikZ (the abbreviation for This is not a drawing program in German) you can produce beautiful figures for your papers (look here for some examples). One problem that often arises is that having the TikZ-code in your LaTeX file is not very efficient when working on the figure: You don’t want to regenerate your paper every time you change something in your figure. Another problem arises when your TikZ code is very long. LaTeX might complain and will not generate the figure.

The easiest way to circumvent these problems is by using a stand-alone file that generates a pdf-file … Read the rest “Producing stand-alone figures with TikZ in LaTeX”

Automatic line breaks in LaTeX tables

Tables with lots of text in LaTeX often lead to tables that do not fit on a page. This post shows how to produce tables with automatic line breaks. Here is a simple example of a badly formatted table:

The tabularx package has the possibility to break lines automatically by using the column specifier X:

Read the rest “Automatic line breaks in LaTeX tables”

Showing a beamer presentation with preview of next slide

If you use LaTeX with the package Beamer instead of Powerpoint to make presentations, you will probably miss the possibility to present a slide and at the same time have a quick glance on the next slide (Powerpoint has this great feature).

Searching the internet, I found the following solution: pympress:

“It is designed to be a dual-screen reader used for presentations and public talks, with  two displays: the Content window for a projector, and the Presenter window for your laptop. It is portable and has been tested on various Mac, Windows, and Linux systems.”

You can download it … Read the rest “Showing a beamer presentation with preview of next slide”