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| 52 | |
| 53 | <H1><A NAME="SECTION000500000000000000000"></A><A NAME="latex-primer"></A> |
| 54 | <BR> |
| 55 | 4 <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> Primer |
| 56 | </H1> |
| 57 | |
| 58 | <P> |
| 59 | This section is a brief introduction to <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> concepts and |
| 60 | syntax, to provide authors enough information to author documents |
| 61 | productively without having to become ``<span class="TeX">TeX</span>nicians.'' This does |
| 62 | not teach everything needed to know about writing <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> for |
| 63 | Python documentation; many of the standard ``environments'' are not |
| 64 | described here (though you will learn how to mark something as an |
| 65 | environment). |
| 66 | |
| 67 | <P> |
| 68 | Perhaps the most important concept to keep in mind while marking up |
| 69 | Python documentation is that while <span class="TeX">TeX</span> is unstructured, <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> was |
| 70 | designed as a layer on top of <span class="TeX">TeX</span> which specifically supports |
| 71 | structured markup. The Python-specific markup is intended to extend |
| 72 | the structure provided by standard <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> document classes to |
| 73 | support additional information specific to Python. |
| 74 | |
| 75 | <P> |
| 76 | <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> documents contain two parts: the preamble and the body. |
| 77 | The preamble is used to specify certain metadata about the document |
| 78 | itself, such as the title, the list of authors, the date, and the |
| 79 | <em>class</em> the document belongs to. Additional information used |
| 80 | to control index generation and the use of bibliographic databases |
| 81 | can also be placed in the preamble. For most authors, the preamble |
| 82 | can be most easily created by copying it from an existing document |
| 83 | and modifying a few key pieces of information. |
| 84 | |
| 85 | <P> |
| 86 | The <i class="dfn">class</i> of a document is used to place a document within a |
| 87 | broad category of documents and set some fundamental formatting |
| 88 | properties. For Python documentation, two classes are used: the |
| 89 | <code>manual</code> class and the <code>howto</code> class. These classes also |
| 90 | define the additional markup used to document Python concepts and |
| 91 | structures. Specific information about these classes is provided in |
| 92 | section <A href="classes.html#classes">5</A>, ``Document Classes,'' below. The first thing |
| 93 | in the preamble is the declaration of the document's class. |
| 94 | |
| 95 | <P> |
| 96 | After the class declaration, a number of <em>macros</em> are used to |
| 97 | provide further information about the document and setup any |
| 98 | additional markup that is needed. No output is generated from the |
| 99 | preamble; it is an error to include free text in the preamble |
| 100 | because it would cause output. |
| 101 | |
| 102 | <P> |
| 103 | The document body follows the preamble. This contains all the |
| 104 | printed components of the document marked up structurally. Generic |
| 105 | <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> structures include hierarchical sections, numbered and |
| 106 | bulleted lists, and special structures for the document abstract and |
| 107 | indexes. |
| 108 | |
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| 114 | <A NAME="CHILD_LINKS"><STRONG>Subsections</STRONG></a> |
| 115 | |
| 116 | <UL CLASS="ChildLinks"> |
| 117 | <LI><A href="latex-syntax.html">4.1 Syntax</a> |
| 118 | <LI><A href="latex-structure.html">4.2 Hierarchical Structure</a> |
| 119 | <LI><A href="latex-environments.html">4.3 Common Environments</a> |
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| 157 | <span class="release-info">Release 2.4.2, documentation updated on 28 September 2005.</span> |
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