This week please read 127–160, 185–219. Math mode is the reason TEX was created and it is very important, however, most of it is just learning which commands do what in math mode. This week the conceptual focus is on chapter 20 and the exercises and pro ject will emphasize this, however, Appendix F and chapters 16–19 will probably be the ones which you will reference most when using TEX to typeset documents, please spend more time on them at your leisure. Further, in the macro chapter you should read everything this includes the double dangerous curve sections.
• What is a macro.
• Why is it called a macro.
• When should we use macros.
• How should you handle a macro that should have different text in the middle of it.
• What if there are multiple parameters.
• How do we use conditionals (if statements) in macros.
Exercise 1 (Exercises from the Reading)
• Chapter 20: 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4
Exercise 2 (Writing a letter head with Macros)
We are going to take the letter template we made last week, and turn it into a series of macros that specify correct spacing, but allow us to input the variable information—name, address, body, etc—as we choose. Basically we want to create a general form that people can use to correctly typeset letters so that all letters typeset in this way will look the same. It makes sense to define some simpler lower level macros, for the address for example, and then define a larger macro to typeset a whole letter. |
