Why i came upon this post?
Before jumping into the topic, first i want to tell you person behind is Swagat Sir (Ex. IIT Rajasthan Professor). Ohh sorry i did not use Dr. actually his name is DR. SWAGAT KUMAR and presently he is working in TCS. Extremely talented, contributor and a great motivator. He is my guide and guiding me on my masters thesis.
So, he mailed and said that send your progress report, whatever the work you have done in this summer May-June,2012, Hence I was busy in making my reports essentially i was making it in Open-Office. I sent him back the report of my work. I included everything relevant and not relevant (i mean not relevant to the research topic on which i am working but still good as far as the knowledge and learning is concerned), though it was brief and i did not arrange it nicely in terms of arranging index and contents also i did not draw proper figures. I sent him my report.
He is very responsive and within a day i got his reply (The thing i like most about him :-) ... ) He replied me with review of my report, his comments were something like this, I am taking his exact words only because his words are having more impact than mine...
Saurabh,
"I am happy with your progress. Please take note of the following:
First start learning LaTeX and write all your documents using LaTeX.
Any other format for technical writing is simply not acceptable. It is
very easy to learn. Sooner you start, better it is for you. There are
enough tools on Linux to create graphs, diagrams etc. Please ask me if
you are looking for a particular tool on Linux. But please write all
your reports in LaTeX."
I took his comments seriously (I always take it...), the day i got his mail i started searching around LaTeX. I got to know lot of stuff about LaTeX.
I too recommend that if you are making your technical report please give it a try and try to learn it. It is very technical and make you realize that you are working on something which is worthy and you feel yeah you are an engineer. When you compile your tex file it gives you the feeling of compiling a program :).
The other benefit is preserving your documents, tex files are much more important to me now. Before, i use to write a lot but this was like writing something and tore it and throw it in dustbin :) .
Presently i am having only Linux operating systems on my Laptop :), i can't say that i will not work on windows in my future but i really really believe that as far as possible i will try to do my all work on Linux. In this way i definitely discourage "Windows". I don't have personal enmity with "Windows". But the work done by Linux developer is for social cause. The aim of the FSF (Free Software Foundation please do a google search on FSF, Linux, and Richard Stallman) is to provide free softwares to the users. We should not waste their efforts, suppose no one use their softwares then it would be discouraging for whole FSF community, in effect we should use free softwares only and try to make it better no matter whether they are comparable with the commercial softwares or not.
"How can we compare a free product with a commercial product?"
Ohh i distracted from my topic (i always), only thing i want to tell you is that i know how to install LaTeX on linux only, I don't know how you to do it on Windows :). For windows you have to search around on internet, i know it would be easy.. ......
Installation of LaTeX:
On linux using command line
sudo apt-get install texlive-full
This would install a full version of tex live on your computer it is around 1.5GB in size.
some of the commands used to compile tex files-
pdflatex filename.tex
latex filename.tex
Tips:
I am not providing you detailed help on LaTeX, i will do it on my web page (soon i am gonna prepare it..) there i will provide support on LaTeX.
But atleast i can provide you some tips to sort out your problems with LaTeX.
1. Rule of Thumb- Internet is a big source of information and if there is no one to help you google it... (you will say ohhh we know, it is a very obvious, this guy is worthless :), very common solution)
2. Templates are best thing to start with. I would not recommend you to make from scratch, just search some of the nice templates available on web and try to edit them and change them according to your need.
3. For example if you want to make your programming report then on google search, LaTeX templates for making programming reports, Similarly for thesis you can search templates for thesis etc.
4. Try to understand those templates and try to change them according to your need, and learning starts from here.
5. Understand the commands and try to apply them somewhere else.
6. One of the difficult part is adjusting your images and figures. Use scaling, height and width to adjust them.
As i will come up with more tips i will edit this post and make it better...
But the thing is use LaTeX, soon you will be able to make your own template and support others by providing it to others.
"LET US CONTRIBUTE "
Before jumping into the topic, first i want to tell you person behind is Swagat Sir (Ex. IIT Rajasthan Professor). Ohh sorry i did not use Dr. actually his name is DR. SWAGAT KUMAR and presently he is working in TCS. Extremely talented, contributor and a great motivator. He is my guide and guiding me on my masters thesis.
So, he mailed and said that send your progress report, whatever the work you have done in this summer May-June,2012, Hence I was busy in making my reports essentially i was making it in Open-Office. I sent him back the report of my work. I included everything relevant and not relevant (i mean not relevant to the research topic on which i am working but still good as far as the knowledge and learning is concerned), though it was brief and i did not arrange it nicely in terms of arranging index and contents also i did not draw proper figures. I sent him my report.
He is very responsive and within a day i got his reply (The thing i like most about him :-) ... ) He replied me with review of my report, his comments were something like this, I am taking his exact words only because his words are having more impact than mine...
Saurabh,
"I am happy with your progress. Please take note of the following:
First start learning LaTeX and write all your documents using LaTeX.
Any other format for technical writing is simply not acceptable. It is
very easy to learn. Sooner you start, better it is for you. There are
enough tools on Linux to create graphs, diagrams etc. Please ask me if
you are looking for a particular tool on Linux. But please write all
your reports in LaTeX."
I took his comments seriously (I always take it...), the day i got his mail i started searching around LaTeX. I got to know lot of stuff about LaTeX.
I too recommend that if you are making your technical report please give it a try and try to learn it. It is very technical and make you realize that you are working on something which is worthy and you feel yeah you are an engineer. When you compile your tex file it gives you the feeling of compiling a program :).
The other benefit is preserving your documents, tex files are much more important to me now. Before, i use to write a lot but this was like writing something and tore it and throw it in dustbin :) .
Presently i am having only Linux operating systems on my Laptop :), i can't say that i will not work on windows in my future but i really really believe that as far as possible i will try to do my all work on Linux. In this way i definitely discourage "Windows". I don't have personal enmity with "Windows". But the work done by Linux developer is for social cause. The aim of the FSF (Free Software Foundation please do a google search on FSF, Linux, and Richard Stallman) is to provide free softwares to the users. We should not waste their efforts, suppose no one use their softwares then it would be discouraging for whole FSF community, in effect we should use free softwares only and try to make it better no matter whether they are comparable with the commercial softwares or not.
"How can we compare a free product with a commercial product?"
Ohh i distracted from my topic (i always), only thing i want to tell you is that i know how to install LaTeX on linux only, I don't know how you to do it on Windows :). For windows you have to search around on internet, i know it would be easy.. ......
Installation of LaTeX:
On linux using command line
sudo apt-get install texlive-full
This would install a full version of tex live on your computer it is around 1.5GB in size.
some of the commands used to compile tex files-
pdflatex filename.tex
latex filename.tex
Tips:
I am not providing you detailed help on LaTeX, i will do it on my web page (soon i am gonna prepare it..) there i will provide support on LaTeX.
But atleast i can provide you some tips to sort out your problems with LaTeX.
1. Rule of Thumb- Internet is a big source of information and if there is no one to help you google it... (you will say ohhh we know, it is a very obvious, this guy is worthless :), very common solution)
2. Templates are best thing to start with. I would not recommend you to make from scratch, just search some of the nice templates available on web and try to edit them and change them according to your need.
3. For example if you want to make your programming report then on google search, LaTeX templates for making programming reports, Similarly for thesis you can search templates for thesis etc.
4. Try to understand those templates and try to change them according to your need, and learning starts from here.
5. Understand the commands and try to apply them somewhere else.
6. One of the difficult part is adjusting your images and figures. Use scaling, height and width to adjust them.
As i will come up with more tips i will edit this post and make it better...
But the thing is use LaTeX, soon you will be able to make your own template and support others by providing it to others.
"LET US CONTRIBUTE "
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