LaTeX Quick Reference
Special Characters
- Punctuation Characters
- . : ; , ? ! ` ' ( ) [ ] - / * @
- Special Characters
- # $ % & ~ _ ^ \ { }
- Formula Characters
- + = | < >
+ and = can be used in ordinary text.
An empty line describes an end of paragraph.
Typesetting Commands
- \,
- Short Space
- \
- Interword space - for example "etc.\ was it?"
- \@
- The next punctuation mark ends a sentence.
- \$ \& \% \# \_ \{ \}
- Gives the special characters.
- \TeX \LaTeX
- Produces TeX and LaTeX logos.
- \today
- Current date.
- \ldots
- Produces en ellipsis (...)
- \/
- Add space when switching from italic (emphasized) to roman text.
- ~
- Hard space
- \mbox{}
- An unsplittable name.
- \footnote{}
- Procuces footnotes.
- \( \) or \begin{math} \end{math} or $ $
- Encloses mathematical formula. Line breaks only at certain points.
- _{}
- Subscript command - only inside formula
- ^{}
- Superscript command - only inside formula
- %
- Ignores rest of the line.
- \\
- Forces line break.
- \\*
- Forces line break, but no page break.
Styles
Curly braces define style scopes.
For example {\em } produces emphasized text.
You can also use \begin{em} \end{em} instead.
- \em
- Emphasized - depends on the previous style
- \rm
- Roman
- \it
- Italics
- \bf
- Bold
- \tt
- Typewriter
- \sf
- Sans Serif
- \sl
- Slanted
- \sc
- Small caps
Document Commands
- \documentstyle[style]{type}
- Defines document style. type is one of article,
report and book. style define
other options, 11pt, 12pt, twoside,
twocolumn.
- \part
- Defines major parts of the document
- \chapter
- Defines chapters.
- \section
- Defines sections.
- \subsection
- Must be part of a section.
- \subsubsection
- Must be part of a subsection.
- \paragraph
-
- \subparagraph
-
- \appendix
-
Environments
Environments are contained between \begin{name} and
\end{name}. Different environments are available.
- quote
- For a short quotation or a sequence of short quotations separated
by blank lines.
- quotation
- For quotations of more than one paragraph. Paragraphs are
separated by blank lines.
- itemize
- Build itemized lists. Items begin with \item.
- enumerate
- Build enumerated lists. Items begin with \item.
- description
- Build labeled lists. Items begin with \item{item label}.
- verse
- For poetry
- displaymath
- Displays formula separately.
- equation
- As displaymath, but numbers the equation.
- tabbing
- Aligns text in columns. Set tabs with \= and use
\> to move to the next tab stop.
- tabular
-
- verbatim
- Add text as-is, with not formatting.