LaTeX: Creating, Saving, and Converting

Creating and Saving a LaTeX Document

Before really getting started, making and saving a test document is a good way to recheck your skills and the system you're using.

To make your document in LaTeX, open Emacs.
Begin by including all the parts of your document that you know you will need. (See the sample document structure).
You can always add components and packages later, but this will save time and confusion.
Once the basic structure is in place, add some simple text to make sure that no problems already exist (like missing brackets).
Make sure your document is saved as a .tex file.
Then run LaTeX on your input file by typing:
latex filename.tex
LaTeX will output a .dvi file if it succeeds.
Now you should have yourfile.tex and yourfile.dvi. To view the LaTeX file, from a shell type:
xdvi filename.dvi &
(The above only works with Unix, for Windows try yap, which is another previewer.)

Converting Your Document

Once you have your basic document created and you successfully get a .dvi file, it's time to convert your document to one of the many formats LaTeX supports.

Postscript

To convert the file above to PostScript for printing or viewing with GhostScript, (from a shell) type:
dvips -Pcmz filename.dvi -o filename.ps

PDF

To convert the file to PDF, type:
dvipdf filename.dvi

HTML

To convert the file to HTML, in the shell, type:
latex2html filename.tex

Or, to convert the file to HTML, type the following in the shell:
tth filename.tex

Remember that LaTeX2HTML does not make the best code, so you will need to go through and clean it up a bit - like adding a background color to the body tag and other basic bits. As long as you use LaTeX2HTML properly, you will simply need to edit the code and LaTeX2HTML will save you time. With that, remember to only use LaTeX2HTML for works that would benefit from being in HTML. HTML is not the best choice for highly controlled documents like letterhead. If you use LaTeX2HTML for extremely difficult textual design and then port that to HTML, you will most likely end up with a number of images instead of text.

RTF

To convert the file to RTF, from the shell, type:
latex2rtf filename.tex

Using BIBTeX

Please see the BIBTeX Basics page for how to use and run BIBTeX.

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