Community talk ⇒ Best LaTeX Resources on YouTube?

[LaTexLearner]

I've really enjoyed Michelle Krummel's LaTeX introduction on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 31D3EBC449

Now that I know that beginner-level stuff, though, I'm ready to move on.

Can anybody suggest a YouTube playlist to follow up with? There are so many videos there I don't know where to go next.

Thanks!

[Johannes_B]

I picked one of the videos (the first on text formatting) and it started. My first thoughts were, you should never use those commands within the document. I skipped a bit and at minute four was cursing the video because what was told there is simply, excuse me, crap. Stuff like that promotes wrong bits and pieces that never stop floating around.

Nicola Talbot published some nice books for novices and advanced users, all of them reviewed by a large community of experienced LaTeX users. Please have a look at them, they are free. Dickimaw LaTeX books


btw: so, far, i haven't seen a single video on Youtube, that was 100 percent correct.

[LaTexLearner]

I picked one of the videos (the first on text formatting) and it started. My first thoughts were, you should never use those commands within the document. I skipped a bit and at minute four was cursing the video because what was told there is simply, excuse me, crap. Stuff like that promotes wrong bits and pieces that never stop floating around...

btw: so, far, i haven't seen a single video on Youtube, that was 100 percent correct.

What, exactly, was wrong with those videos?

[Johannes_B]

Commands like textbf and friends shoudl never be used with in the body of a document. Better to use semantic markup and user-defined commands.

Font size switches are simple commands, using them as an environment is a wide spread misunderstanding, distributed over generations and more generations to come. The thing is, that the LaTeX ekrnel defines that stuff, that this still works. But i would never recommend that.

Unfortunately, Nicola introduces that as well. Gotta talk to her about that.

[LaTexLearner]

Commands like textbf and friends shoudl never be used with in the body of a document. Better to use semantic markup and user-defined commands.

Font size switches are simple commands, using them as an environment is a wide spread misunderstanding, distributed over generations and more generations to come. The thing is, that the LaTeX ekrnel defines that stuff, that this still works. But i would never recommend that.

Unfortunately, Nicola introduces that as well. Gotta talk to her about that.

To be honest, I'm completely new to programming and LaTeX and didn't actually understand this message. What is "semantic markup"? I think (I know what user-defined commands are, though.)

Why is it so bad to use environments for font sizing?

[Johannes_B]

textbf makes something bold, but there is no reason given. You are using semantic markup at different places, you issue the section command instead of changing to a bigger fontsize, stepping the section number by one, typesetting the text, make a note for the toc, switch back to normalfont and normalsize ...

All this is hidden, you can later decide that sections shall be bigger, or use another font and all instances of section will change.

Now, suppose you have latin names of plants species, you are setting them using textbf. Later you decide to change it to italics. You have to redo every instance, which might be ok for 5 occurences, but is highly impractical for 1000 occurences.

Following some source code, please cpy it into your favourite LaTeX editor and view source and pdf side by side. You can also click on »Open in Writelatex« (which is now overleaf) to see everything.

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{parskip}%Just for this example
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\begin{document}
\section{Fragaria, the strawberry}
\begin{bfseries}Fragaria\end{bfseries}\par
\begingroup\bfseries Fragaria\endgroup\par
{\bfseries Fragaria}\par
All look the same, internally, they are the same as well, more or
less. 

From now on, we want to print species colored. We have used the
low-level \verb!\bfseries! for our species Fragaria exclusively,
we can just redefine it. 
{
\renewcommand{\bfseries}{\color{blue}}
{\bfseries Fragaria}\par
\section{This is a test section}
Suddenly, the section heading is blue as well. By default,
sections are typeset in bold.
}


\clearpage
\section{user defined commands}
We define a new command, that we use and that is not already
defined:\par
\newcommand{\species}[1]{\textbf{#1}}
\species{Fragaria}\par
From now on, we want to print species colored. If we want to do
this globally, we can mv the command to the preamble, or change
the initial definition in the preamble. \par
\renewcommand{\species}[1]{\textcolor{blue}{#1}}
\species{Fragaria}\par
\section{colored?}

\normalfont\Large\bfseries\refstepcounter{section}\thesection\hspace{2.3ex}No
section heading\par\normalfont\normalsize\noindent 
Some normal text

\clearpage\section{environments}

The environments business is better seen for font switches. As
has been pointed out at other places, a \verb!\end{bfseries}! or
\verb!\end{Large}! might be better seen in a document, but
beware. Does this look right? 

\begin{huge}\blindtext\end{huge}\par
\clearpage
We need a par break inside the group/environment, because it is
defined that way internally.\par
\begin{huge}\blindtext\par\end{huge}
\clearpage
Of course, we can define our own environment, since using the
low-level commands is not very \emph{LaTeXy} ($\leftarrow$ semantic markup to
emphasize something)
\newenvironment{unimportant}{\par\begingroup\scriptsize}{\par\endgroup}
\begin{unimportant}\blindtext\end{unimportant}
Please compare with the incorrect usage:\par
\begin{scriptsize}\blindtext\end{scriptsize}


\clearpage
\section{titlepages}
Let's consider an instance of constant failure, titlepages. Let's
simulate the title of a master thesis here: 
\bigbreak
\begin{center}
	\begin{minipage}{.6\textwidth}
	\begin{Huge}
		Dancing Pidgeons \\and their love \\[1ex]for green statues
	\end{Huge}
\end{minipage}
\end{center}

\bigbreak
People use the optional argument to somehow manage the bad
spacing, going into all sorts of trouble. When instead, things
are so simple:
\bigbreak
\begin{center}
	\begin{minipage}{.6\textwidth}
	\begin{Huge}
		Dancing Pidgeons \\and their love \\for green
		statues\par
	\end{Huge}
\end{minipage}
\end{center}
\end{document}

To put it in a nutshell, though placing the commands inuse of an environment with it working pretty well, there are situations where it terribly breaks down. Leaving an inexperienced user confused, looking for odd workarounds. That is why i am discouraging the use of commands as environments.

Please play around with the code above and ask if needed.