Obtaining LaTeX

You can get LaTeX for many different platforms and can be obtained at the following locations:

TeXShop for Mac OSX
TeX Live is a distribution for any major Unix system and Windows.
MikTeX for Windows systems

Note that LaTeX is available by default on the student.physics.ucdavis.edu machines.

If you want to use presentation software such as Keynote or Powerpoint, but want to have LaTeX-quality equations, you should consider using

LaTeXIT: my preferred choice (PPC and Intel Macs). Very fancy.
LaTeX equation editor: Not as polished as LaTeXIt, but still does the job.

Extending LaTeX: Packages

The way to extend LaTeX is by adding packages to your system. To use these package mypackage to your document, write something similar to

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{article}

\usepackage{mypackage}   % Include the package
...
...

\begin{document}
% Carry on as normal

You can find many packages on the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN). Some packages and styles that are particularily useful for physics are listed below.

Howto install new packages

Installing new LaTeX packages is something of a pain &emdash it is done infrequently enough that you forget what you have to do! Depending on the permissions you have you may be able to install a package for everyone (typically on your own machine) or just for yourself.

I have written a small script that figures out where to install various files called install_tex. To use it, go to the directory where the style files are and type perl install_tex. install_tex will also need to be in the directory.

The directories that TeX uses are listed below, along with their usage. You can use this if you want to install the packages or styles yourself rather than relying on install_tex.

Path	Description
`/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf/`	Don't use! This gets overwritten when TeX is reinstalled.
`/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.tetex/`	Don't use! Official extentions only.
`/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.gwtex/`	Don't use! OS specific extension
`/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/`	Put TeX extensions here so they are available to all other users, and will survive upgrades.
`~/texmf/`	Put your TeX extensions here (will not be accessible to other users of the system).

Useful packages and styles for physics

Some packages that are particularly useful for physics are

Package	In standard distribution	Description
amsmath	Yes	Extends LaTeX's mathematics capabilities.
graphicx	Yes	Allows you to put either JPG or EPS graphics into your document.
psfrag	Yes	Allows you to edit EPS figures with LaTeX.
axodraw	No	Allows you to include Feynman diagrams. Use with Jaxodraw.
textpos	No	Place boxes of text at arbitrary positions in LaTeX documents
		(Useful for posters)

These are styles that are not included by default. Packages allow us to extend what we can put in the document. Styles change the entire layout of the document. Articles can have many different packages, but only one style. To use the style mystyle start the document with

    \document[options for style]{mystyle}

Style	Description
a0poster	Allows you to create a poster on an oversized piece of paper.
sciposter	An alternative poster style.
prosper	Create slideshows with LaTeX.
powerdot	Another style for creating slideshows with LaTeX. More information available here.