Some Questions [Newbie]

Hello,

I'm trying to learn LaTeX by reading "The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX 2e". I've only read the first two chapters for now, but I've already collected lots of questions. :)

%%% From Chapter 1 %%%

0) Which is the minimal LaTeX document? What about the following one?

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Hello, world!
\end{document}

Are both the `documentclass' command and the `document' environment mandatory? (It seems yes to me)

1) Let's take commands which can have both optional and mandatory parameters. Which is the correct form?

\command[optional_parameters]{mandatory_parameters}
\command{mandatory_parameters}[optional_parameters]

2) In paragraph 1.3.3 the author says the curly braces after the name of a command as in \command{} should be used to avoid `command' from "eating" the following whitespace characters. But those curly braces are the same that are used for listing the mandatory parameters of a command or they are a different thing?

3) Where should I put the following commands: pagestyle, usepackage, syntaxonly, ... ? In the preamble or in the body? Is there a reference resource for this kind of doubt?

4) Is `\\' a "command"? What does it do exactly? I know it is used for starting a new line without starting a new paragraph, but how it behaves when there are one or more consecutive whitespace character before and/or after? Are they ignored?

%%% From Chapter 2 %%%

5) There are 3 kinds of hyphens/dashes in LaTeX (apart the "mathematical" one). When should i use each of them? For example:

* pages 32-54
* years 1986-2006
* daughter-in-law
* n-th
* 20-30 Kg

6) Is it possible to disable ligatures in all the document?

7) Paragraph 2.5. Do I really need the `ucs' package for using Unicode or it is enough to use the command \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} ?

8) What's wrong when using a different inputenc? The input-file may be unreadable by others? The output-file may be unreadable, too?

9) Paragraph 2.6. Is it possible to disable the extra-space at the end of a period?

10) What are the differences between commands paragraph and paragraph*? And between subparagraph and subparagraph*?

11) I read about flushleft, flushright and center environments. Is there an environment for justified text? I know justified text is the default behaviour, but I noticed two differences between the text in flushleft/flushright/center environments and the default one: a) the first line of a paragraph gets indented; b) words gets hyphenated.

12) The `verb' command has a very strange syntax. It seems to violate the "rules" stated in paragraph 1.3.3.

13) The command \begin{tabular}{something} seems to violate the syntax, too, because it seems to have two lists of mandatory parameters instead of one.

14) How can i put some space between a table and the previous and following text paragraphs?

Sorry for the long post.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Some Questions [Newbie]
    ... I'm trying to learn LaTeX by reading "The Not So Short Introduction to ... Are both the `documentclass' command and the `document' environment ... without ending the paragraph. ... There are 3 kinds of hyphens/dashes in LaTeX (apart the ...
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  • Re: Some Questions [Newbie]
    ... I'm trying to learn LaTeX by reading "The Not So Short Introduction to ... Are both the `documentclass' command and the `document' environment ... Paragraph 2.6. ... The `verb' command has a very strange syntax. ...
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  • Re: Using vi
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