LaTeX
is a document preparation system, which provides
the general public with the means of generating
professional-quality typeset documents.
It is not a word processor but rather a compiler.
All documents available on this site have been compiled using
pdfLaTeX,
a variant of LaTeX, which generates PDF output.
Because of my long history with LaTeX and my fortune
of working with creative writers, programmers, and engineers,
I have well-developed resources for generating and compiling LaTeX.
I'm happy to share these resources with you, provided that
you are a Unix user (including MacOS X) and are comfortable
with a "
Makefile".
Thesis LaTeX Source Code
File contents of the University of Colorado LaTeX source-code archive:
0-preface.tex 4-ka-meas.tex 8-future.tex README thesis.tex
1-intro.tex 5-tr-prev.tex 9-appendix.tex bin/ tmp/
2-ka-prev.tex 6-tr-design.tex Makefile figures/
3-ka-design.tex 7-tr-meas.tex RCS/ lib/
Start by reading the "
README" file and
finish by reading the "
Makefile".
In summary, the LaTeX files are kept in the root directory and
the figures in the "
figures" directory.
The "
Makefile" copies all files to the
"
tmp" directory and performs the
build of the PDF file there.
Upon completion, the PDF file is linked to the root directory.
The use of a
"
Makefile"
with LaTeX emerged from discussions at
UnixOps
at the
University of Colorado
in 1992, while I was a systems administrator simultaneously
working on documentation for a senior project.
It makes perfect sense, of course, once you realize that
LaTeX is a compiler.
Since then I've met only one other maintainer of a LaTeX
distribution that takes advantage of a
Makefile
just recently at Sandia.
