Kris Bergstrom will give an introduction to the extremely powerful LaTeX
typesetting system and its application to real-world document production. He
will explain how he uses it in the creation of essays, books, and letters
incorporating graphics. He will also demonstrate the use of LaTeX in his
band's annual fund drive which requires the creation of personalized letters
(mail merge) and envelopes.
Initially designed to typeset mathematical formulae, the LaTeX system
incorporates world-class fonts with international symbols. The system
successfully handles the automatic typesetting of complicated textbooks with
thousands of images and internal page, chapter, and figure references. The
line-breaking algorithm used by LaTeX (or more accurately, by the more basic
TeX engine) is the industry leader (eventually adopted by Adobe for its
commercial program, InDesign).
About the presenter:
Kris Bergstrom was first exposed to GNU/Linux in electronic music courses at
Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. In 2000,
excited by the ideals of Free Software, he tried to switch his desktop from
Windows to Debian but with limited knowledge of networking and basic admin
tasks, was unable to get a basic system up and running. Soon after moving to
Los Angeles in 2002, he joined a Linux Users Group and found the support he
needed to do all his personal and business computer tasks with free software.
Date: Thursday October 11, 2007 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: Downs 107