Creating LaTeX documents

latex
(the Unix command)

bibtex
pdflatex

On Unix computers, the command you type to compile and format your LaTeX source file is latex;
ucsub>  latex MyDoc.tex
If there are crossreferences or bibliographic references or footnotes in your document, they will not all get matched up on the first pass; it may take up to three times. Additionally, if you are generating a bibliography from a bibtex database, you must also run the bibtex command, followed by the latex command again.

So, for example, to compile document used as an example on these web pages, the typed Unix commands would be

ucsub>  latex MyDoc.tex
ucsub>  bibtex MyDoc
ucsub>  latex MyDoc.tex
ucsub>  latex MyDoc.tex
Not shown above is the outpouring of messages from each latex/bibtex process to the terminal, as well as to the files MyDoc.log and MyDoc.blg. If there are errors in the source files, latex will actually pause, give some information about the error and its line number, and ask you how to proceed.

The sample files used on these web pages to illustrate the process are

MyDoc.tex   (the main LaTeX file)
chapt2.tex   (chapter 2 stuff in a separate file)
chapt3.tex   (chapter 3 stuff in a separate file)
appendix.tex   (appendix A stuff in a separate file)
biblio.bib   (the bibliographic database)

Creating LaTeX documents

bibtex -- generating a bibliography

You can save yourself the tiresome process of formatting each bibliographic reference in the appropriate manner by letting bibtex do the work. You do have to have the basic information about each reference in the form of a bibliographic database file, whose entries are standardized -- not bound to any particular style -- and often available online. One need only specify the desired bibliographic style, and bibtex will then do all the work of selecting, re-ordering, and formatting each entry. The command bibtex extracts only the cited references from the *.bib file(s) mentioned in the \bibliography{} macro. (Non-cited references can be included in the bibliography by using the macro \nocite{...}.) These references are formatted according to the bibliographic style indicated in the \bibliographystyle{...} macro, and placed in an auxiliary file named with the suffix bbl, which LaTeX can later use. (Compare file MyDoc.bbl with original database file biblio.bib.)

The full sequence of Unix commands to compile the document including bibliography is thus

  1. latex MyDoc.tex     (``first pass'')
  2. bibtex MyDoc   (extracts reference data)
  3. latex MyDoc.tex     (matches citations/references)
  4. latex MyDoc.tex     (finishes all cross-referencing)

Creating LaTeX documents

pdflatex -- compiling straight to PDF

The command pdflatex compiles LaTeX source and converts it immediately to PDF without using intermediate DVI or PostScript files or otherwise using a ghostscript interpreter. It almost always gives better quality results and smaller PDF files.

Another benefit of using pdflatex is that you can insert JPEG, PNG and PDF graphics into your document. On the other hand, PostScript images and commands cannot be inserted, so if you want to insert an Encapsulated Postscript figure it must first be converted to Encapsulated PDF. This can be done using epstopdf. PDF, PNG and JPEG image files can then be incorporated into your document using the LaTeX macro \includegraphics{}. So, for example, the image included in section 3 must first be converted to PDF, then the inclusion command is \includegraphics{diagram.pdf}.

So for the sample document ``MyDoc.tex'', the steps to compiling the document straight to PDF, including the use of the bibliographic database file, would be

  1. epstopdf diagram.eps     (convert image to new file diagram.pdf)
  2. pdflatex MyDoc.tex       (``first pass'')
  3. bibtex MyDoc               (extracts reference data)
  4. pdflatex MyDoc.tex       (matches citations/references)
  5. pdflatex MyDoc.tex       (finishes all cross-referencing, final form of file MyDoc.pdf)