LaTeX

The LaTeX Scalebar Package

The scalebar package for LaTeX produces scalebars for maps, diagrams, electron microscope images and other uses. You can download a PDF file showing some examples here: scalebar_examples.pdf. The package is available at CTAN; search for "scalebar". You can view Graham Williams's TeX Catalogue entry for it here.

Books about LaTeX

Lots of people ask me what books are best for learning LaTeX.

A good small book is "Learning LaTeX" by David F. Griffiths and Desmond J. Higham, ISBN 0-89871-383-8, published by SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics). I think this is easy but you will quickly need Lamport's book. I'd rate it as very suitable for a non-technical user or someone just starting with LaTeX.

The most generally useful book for intermediate LaTeX'ers is "LaTeX: A Document Preparation System" by Leslie Lamport, Addison-Wesley, 2nd edition, 1994, ISBN 0-201-52983-1.

For a really in-depth reference book to LaTeX packages get "The LaTeX Companion" by Goossens, Mittelbach and Samarin, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-54199-8.

If you want to include lots of graphics in your documents, you will find "The LaTeX Graphics Companion" particularly useful. It's by Goossens, Rahtz and Mittelbach, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-291-85469-4.

My advice is start with "Learning LaTeX" and then if you like LaTeX get Lamport's book. Lamport covers just about everything at a good technical level but can be used as an intro for someone new. Rate it as 1st year uni level. The Goossens books are more technical, they presume you are not new to LaTeX and cover some very powerful things with contributed LaTeX packages.

Lots of very useful info can be found here:
LaTeX: A document preparation system; If you are a beginner read the "Introduction".
CTAN: The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. This site has a vast range of packages for LaTeX and links to helpful documents.

There is also the tex newsgroup comp.text.tex that you can subscribe to.

There is probably lots of local documentation about LaTeX and any installed packages on your computer already if you have installed LaTeX. If you are running Debian and have LaTeX installed just type `texdoc lshort' for "The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e".