General ⇒ Modern Looking Latex Styles

[thrope]

Hi,

I just came across this:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/ ... blatex.pdf

and I really like the clean modern look to the style - I haven't seen anything like that in latex before. Unfortunately I couldn't find the source in the package so I was wondering if anyone knew how I could recreate this or a similar look.

On a related note - is there anywhere online a collection of styles - I'm particularly interested in more modern looking examples such as this, rather than the traditional 'article' type. Also examples of other documents like letters, CV's etc. again in modern styles would be really nice.

[localghost]

Take a look at the KOMA Script bundle. It contains document classes derived from the standard classes, a modern letter class and packages for setting the type area and the page layout. The documentation describes everything in detail.

For typesetting a CV there are classes like ecv or moderncv. Additional (postscript) font packages could in this context also be of interest. For more inspiration in any other direction refer to CTAN with an overview sorted by topic [1].

In case of occurring issues while realising your own idea of a document style with the above mentioned ways and means, feel free to ask.

[1] The TeX Catalogue OnLine, Topic Index


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten

[thrope]

Thanks very much for the prompt reply...

So do you think the biblatex documentation I linked was produced with KOMA Script?

Thanks

[localghost]

[...] So do you think the biblatex documentation I linked was produced with KOMA Script? [..]

That's something I can't tell you. But it seems not. From my experience I know that KOMA Script does another page layout (margins in particular), but there should be no big issues to get the desired output.

[balf]

You can change the layout at will using geometry, change likewise the aspect of chapters, sections, subsections and so on using titlesec. Usually people don't depart from the default style because they're not interested in spending some time doing so. That's why you can recognize at once a document composed with LaTeX. Another reason for the documentation of biblatex looking so 'modern' is that it doesn't use computer modern, but charter as the main font.

If you want an even more beautiful document, look at the 'Font Installation Guide' (same author): it uses Minion as main font.
http://www.dante.de/CTAN/info/Type1font ... nguide.pdf

B.A.

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi thrope,

for your information, here is the list of used fonts in biblatex.pdf:

CharterBT-Roman
CharterBT-Extension
CharterBT-SmallCap
CharterOSFBT-Roman
CharterOSFBT-Bold
CharterOSFBT-Italic
PrimaSansMonoBT-Roman
PrimaSansMonoBT-Bold
Frutiger-Roman
Frutiger-Bold
LetterGothic12PitchBT-Roman
LetterGothic12PitchBT-Bold
CMSY10
CMMI10

Found with the pdffonts tool.

Stefan

[thrope]

Thanks for the information folks.

I guess I'm not so interested in tweaking the layout - or even setting fonts and stuff manually myself. I had thought the point of latex was that that is left to professionals to set up and I just concern myself with the structure of the document.

So I was hoping to find prepared class or style files (I think I need to look up the difference) that I could just use, instead of 'article', to get something that looks like that, but I guess it's not so straightforward.

Thanks anyway,

[localghost]

[...] I guess I'm not so interested in tweaking the layout - or even setting fonts and stuff manually myself. I had thought the point of latex was that that is left to professionals to set up and I just concern myself with the structure of the document. [...]

You are right in that point. The author does the contents and LaTeX does the basic layout. Nevertheless, you can tune (with some restrictions) the layout so that it matches your ideas of a good looking document.

[...] So I was hoping to find prepared class or style files (I think I need to look up the difference) that I could just use, instead of 'article', to get something that looks like that, but I guess it's not so straightforward. [...]

Don't give up so fast. Setting up a complete layout is less complicated than it seems at first sight. Just begin and try it. In case of occurring issues, feel free to ask.

[propell]

On a related note - is there anywhere online a collection of styles - I'm particularly interested in more modern looking examples such as this, rather than the traditional 'article' type. Also examples of other documents like letters, CV's etc. again in modern styles would be really nice.

I like the Tufte-latex document style for creating hand-outs. It is inspired by Edward Tufte's books:
http://code.google.com/p/tufte-latex/

The class is still in development. I highly recommend using the SVN version :
http://code.google.com/p/tufte-latex/source/browse

Example/documentation:
http://tufte-latex.googlecode.com/svn/t ... andout.pdf

- Kjell Magne Fauske

[thrope]

Don't give up so fast. Setting up a complete layout is less complicated than it seems at first sight. Just begin and try it. In case of occurring issues, feel free to ask.

Thanks for the advice... After spending a bit of time I found this to be the case, and have got good results using Koma-script report class with helvet.sty and mathdesign (utopia).
If anyone else is interested the author of biblatex provided a very helpful reply to my query here:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.tex ... 46752aab63

which got me going.

So thanks for the help and suggestions... (The Tufte class also looks very nice, but unfortunately not so suitable for the document I am currently working on).