LaTeX tutorial in the iX Magazine

The iX, magazine for professional IT in German language, started a tutorial about LaTeX. The current issue 1/2018 deals with it at an advanced level: Marei Peischl introduces LaTeX based on newest features.

(German blog post: on TeXwelt.de)

The first part starts with a new package, that even old hands often did not use yet: scrlayer, for page layouts based on layers. The concise summary with examples quickly shows how it can be used as a layout tool, and almost imperceptibly I tried something new, instead of the proven scrpage2 or good old fancyhdr. The article deals with the task of implementing a specific corporate design within LaTeX.

Marei Peischl

• explains the scrlayer package and working with layers
• uses TikZ as tool for positioning content
• shows page headers with dynamic content built with scrlayer-scrpage
• uses the crop package for crop marks in print
• demonstrates separation lines above and below header and footer area
• changes type area dimensions within the document whenever required (\newgeometry)
• chooses system fonts with modern tools (fontspec etc.) so one can easily use corporate fonts

Just a few pages provide a time saving overview about modern tools to meet challenges of layout and design requirements. After reading this article, one can directly implement a corporate design, with the help of the packages reference manuals. I just think it would have been good idea to add an explicit hint how to access package manuals and documentation, such as locally by texdoc, or online at http://texdoc.net or http://ctan.org by entering the package name in the search field. On the other hand, a user should already know this, and the tutorial aims at broadening the skills of proficient users.

In that sense the next parts will also deal with advanced topics:

• Programming LaTeX3 (expl3) – the advanced world for LaTeX developers
• Generating PDF documents with import of external data

The iX 1/2018 is available for just a few days, if not sold out already, as it appeared Dec 21 last year. So, of interested, take a quick view at the newspaper kiosk. In addition, one can download the whole article (or the whole iX issue) here: Textsatz: Automatisierte Dokumentenverarbeitung mit LaTeX, Teil 1: Corporate Design erstellen (direct link: the shop). In a few days (I guess Jan 21) the new issue will arrive in the newspaper kiosk – then with a LaTeX3 article.