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LaTeX sits a little uneasily on SO as is shown by the repeated attempts to close questions as "not programming related" followed by responses about LaTeX being Turing-complete. Having a stand-alone LaTeX site might also attract more people as non-programmers may feel more comfortable and welcome. – Rob Hyndman Jun 3 '10 at 2:57

I suggest we broaden a bit the topic to include: TeX, LaTeX and friends And yes, the description is waay too long – Juan A. Navarro Jun 3 '10 at 17:09

@Rob @jalf The primary audience of SO is programmers - only a small percentage of whom use Tex or LaTeX. LaTeX will never be more than a fringe topic there. I would expect a site about Tex and LateX to be dominated by mathematicians, physicists and other scientists who are heavy users of LaTex in the course of their work. Many of these would not be likely to be members of SO, as programming is not a big part of their work. Of course there will be some overlap between these two communities: many mathematicians and scientists are also serious programmers. – Stephen C. Steel Jun 4 '10 at 20:53

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75 Example Questions (10 closed)

active newest votes

up vote 23 down vote

added by KennyTM Jun 3 '10 at 18:51

up vote 20 down vote

added by rlb.usa Jun 2 '10 at 22:17

the question is unclear, syntax highlighting when editing a LaTeX document, or in the pdf (or whatever) output? Either way it's on topic. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 3 '10 at 17:11

This question is quickly raising as one of the "best on-topic" examples, but still it's not clear what is it asking. Is there anyone with power able to edit it? People who voted for this question, what was your interpretation? – Juan A. Navarro Jun 8 '10 at 7:01

@Juan: Highlighting LaTeX code is an editor specific issue. I think that given the context of this proposal, the intention of this question is clear. – Julian Jun 8 '10 at 8:44

up vote 20 down vote

added by Rob Hyndman Jun 3 '10 at 2:59

Checking if ConTeXt is welcome here or strictly LaTeX only. – Rob Hyndman Jun 3 '10 at 3:00

Initially, this site would be centered around LaTeX, but if the community agrees, the topic could be changed to TeX, so any TeX macro package related question could be part of this site. Initially I established LaTeX as the main topic because it is the most extended and known macro package. In fact, this is the first time I hear about ConTeXt. Thank you :) – Julian Jun 3 '10 at 6:46

I think it'd be obvious to make it a site for all things TeX. Most of the questions will likely be LaTeX, but I see no reason to exclude other flavors. – jalf Jun 5 '10 at 13:55

I agree that it should be all things TeX. That is what the tagging system is for. – KeithB Jun 17 '10 at 21:57

up vote 20 down vote

added by Will Robertson Jun 3 '10 at 14:25

up vote 20 down vote

added by Simon Nickerson Jun 3 '10 at 19:13

up vote 14 down vote

added by Simon Nickerson Jun 3 '10 at 19:15

up vote 12 down vote

added by Juan A. Navarro Jun 3 '10 at 17:18

	use the setspace package and issue the command \doublespacing – lasselasse Jun 4 '10 at 9:01
	@lasselasse, I know :) but this is not the time to answer questions, just to propose them. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 8 '10 at 6:57
	Ooh, I didn't know. That's handy :) – jalf Jun 20 '10 at 23:06

up vote 10 down vote

added by Simon Nickerson Jun 3 '10 at 19:18

oo, that's a good question – jalf Jun 20 '10 at 20:10

up vote 10 down vote

added by Amir Rachum Jun 3 '10 at 23:20

based on stackoverflow.com/questions/2935731/… – Amir Rachum Jun 3 '10 at 23:20

I'd suggest saying "\pagebreak" and "\newpage" in the title, but it's a good question. – Ben Alpert Jun 18 '10 at 19:39

up vote 10 down vote

added by jalf Jun 11 '10 at 7:40

Seems to me that questions about typography in general, and not in a specific TeX context would be considered off-topic. – jalf Jun 11 '10 at 7:41

Cf. area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2148/… for a typography qn I proposed, which has 1 on-topic and 2 NaGE votes. The case for being on topic is that a lot of people are attracted to Tex because they have heard about the ground-breaking work on typography of Knuth, but don't really have much idea about what this thing is that got them started. – Charles Stewart Jun 11 '10 at 7:57

The opposite of keming. :-P This seems like it could be saved by answers that discuss not only what it is, but how its used in TeX and how to control it. – derobert Jun 18 '10 at 18:24

Heh, shows what I know. I posted this because I figured it'd be a good off-topic question. Now it actually has enough on-topic votes to count towards the goal. :) – jalf Jun 20 '10 at 23:48

up vote 8 down vote

added by Loop Space Jun 4 '10 at 6:49

CW of course. This is an attempt to make a less argumentative version of "What are the best LaTeX editors for any OS?" since there are some people who still haven't learnt that NotePad is the absolute best for writing LaTeX and so may be disagreeable in the other question. – Loop Space Jun 4 '10 at 6:51

Definitely better. – Charles Stewart Jun 4 '10 at 17:24

I would still like to have OS-specific questions, as people using Windows don't care about the Mac editors and so on. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 8 '10 at 6:59

It's an alright example, but it stinks of "What's your favorite...!" – rlb.usa Jun 8 '10 at 20:05

@Juan: many editors are cross-platform (emacs, vim, and so forth). @rlb: I'm not sold on the question myself! As I said, it was an attempt to make a better version of a question that I really didn't like. – Loop Space Jun 17 '10 at 13:53

show 1 more improvement suggestion

up vote 7 down vote

added by Fabian Steeg Jun 4 '10 at 15:58

up vote 6 down vote

added by Rob Hyndman Jun 3 '10 at 3:02

up vote 6 down vote

added by Juan A. Navarro Jun 3 '10 at 17:17

up vote 6 down vote

added by Scott Morrison Jun 17 '10 at 5:07

up vote 5 down vote

added by Julian Jun 2 '10 at 14:44

up vote 5 down vote

added by Rob Hyndman Jun 3 '10 at 2:59

up vote 5 down vote

added by robin girard Jun 3 '10 at 17:59

	For the same sort of reason I argued in area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2148/…, I think this may be a good off-topic example, because the main expertise here is Eclipse, not Latex. – Charles Stewart Jun 13 '10 at 11:54
	Don't you think latex people may know this information better than Eclipse people ? Am I wrong ? – robin girard Jun 17 '10 at 15:05

up vote 5 down vote

added by KennyTM Jun 6 '10 at 19:10

	(For instance, sphinx.pocoo.org/sphinx.pdf.) – KennyTM Jun 6 '10 at 19:12
	@KennyTM: that's Palatino Linotype or URW Palladio L. mactex-wiki.tug.org/wiki/… . I used to have working TeX code to switch this on but I misplaced it. – Jared Updike Jun 10 '10 at 6:37
	Guys, it's not time to answer questions. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 13 '10 at 10:21

up vote 5 down vote

added by Egon Willighagen Jun 17 '10 at 14:24

up vote 4 down vote

added by rlb.usa Jun 2 '10 at 22:18

	I'm not keen on this question. This is already covered in the Not so short guide. I wouldn't like the expectation to be that this site is an alternative to reading the manual. – Loop Space Jun 4 '10 at 6:41
	On-topic, but not a good question: a macro to do what? I'd vote to close this on SO. – Charles Stewart Jun 4 '10 at 17:37
	@Charles: I agree. It is better to state what to do. – Gianluca Della Vedova Jun 19 '10 at 12:45

up vote 4 down vote

added by Charles Stewart Jun 4 '10 at 19:55

closed as off topic by Peter K., Simon Nickerson, Julian, Maxim Zaslavsky, Rob Hyndman Jun 11 '10 at 1:01

This question does not relate to the topic of the proposal.
It was closed as part of an automated migration of off-topic to close votes on September 29, 2011.

Why is this off topic? having that kind of information would probably be quite useful to LaTeX users – Juan A. Navarro Jun 13 '10 at 9:51

@Juan: It's pure typography: an Xpress/InDesign site should do as good an job -if not better- as here, and a typesetters' & printers' forum should have much more of the right sort of expertise. It's not got anything in the way of specialised TeX knowldege: nothing about organising fonts, or configuring texmf.cnf. – Charles Stewart Jun 13 '10 at 12:12

I still think it’s a great on-topic question: it’s one of those questions that regularly crop up when working with LaTeX, one that is intimately linked to working with LaTeX and hence LaTeX related in all but name. Furthermore (and opposed to what Charles said), the expertise has a large intersection; i.e. there’s a much higher than average chance that someone with expertise in LaTeX also knows the answer to this question. The LaTeX community fosters a typography-friendly climate. – Konrad Rudolph Jun 15 '10 at 7:52

@Juan, @Konrad: What would you make of a straw poll of comment votes? Up vote Konrad's comment if you think it's on topic, my previous comment if off topic, and we will see what where the followers who are paying attention to comments stand on this issue. – Charles Stewart Jun 15 '10 at 9:47

@Charles: That seems pointless. It's what the "official" off-topic/on-topic votes are for. I don't think we need nested polls. If this is such a contentious issue, discussion would be a better idea than another layer of polls. – jalf Jun 20 '10 at 14:16

show 5 more improvement suggestions

up vote 4 down vote

added by Egon Willighagen Jun 20 '10 at 20:37

up vote 3 down vote

added by Julian Jun 2 '10 at 16:13

I do not know if this would qualify since the description lists "expert users" and hence they should probably already know what BibTeX is. But then again, I do not know what BibTeX is, but I feel fairly comfortable in general LaTeX. – earlNameless Jun 18 '10 at 15:15

up vote 3 down vote

added by Rob Hyndman Jun 3 '10 at 3:01

Wouldn't the answer to this be simply "Check the journal's website?". – Loop Space Jun 4 '10 at 6:44

No. Most journals don't hand out a bst file, but they often exist on other sites. – Rob Hyndman Jun 4 '10 at 7:24

In which case, there's the danger that it's not an official one and so may not actually conform to the journal's style. I would prefer "X doesn't supply it's own bst but has a definite style (which is Y). Is there an unofficial bst for this journal, or can anyone recommend a closest match?" (particularly thinking that these are meant to be "ideal" questions) – Loop Space Jun 4 '10 at 11:11

A good question would also be "... for [language]?", e.g. spanish, french, etc. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 8 '10 at 7:02

up vote 2 down vote

added by rlb.usa Jun 2 '10 at 22:17

this is a good on-topic question, but we've already got enough examples of great on-topic examples. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 13 '10 at 9:58

@Juan: Einstein is a great scientist, but we've already got Newton, so let's vote him as "not a good representative". – KennyTM Jun 13 '10 at 15:28

up vote 2 down vote

added by Yossi Farjoun Jun 20 '10 at 15:24

This is a question I asked on stackoverflow and failed to get a good answer. Actually, what I need is to control the margins within the \notes[itemize] and \notes[enumarate] commands, but it was too long for the sample question. I still don't know the answer! – Yossi Farjoun Jun 21 '10 at 0:21

up vote 2 down vote

added by Yossi Farjoun Jun 20 '10 at 15:35

up vote 1 down vote

added by Scott Morrison Jun 3 '10 at 19:46

	this is a good on-topic question, but we've already got enough examples of great on-topic examples. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 13 '10 at 9:54
	Apparently not -- as of today the site still needs 5 more "on-topic" questions. – Scott Morrison Jun 17 '10 at 16:03
	@Scott: Questions are counted as on/off-topic only if it has >20 such votes. – KennyTM Jun 18 '10 at 7:02

up vote 1 down vote

added by Fabian Steeg Jun 4 '10 at 16:04

up vote 1 down vote

added by Charles Stewart Jun 4 '10 at 17:20

closed as off topic by Peter K., Rob Hyndman, Julian, Simon Nickerson, ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Jun 10 '10 at 11:31

This question does not relate to the topic of the proposal.
It was closed as part of an automated migration of off-topic to close votes on September 29, 2011.

	Why is this considered off-topic? – Amir Rachum Jun 12 '10 at 8:09
	@Amir: Beats me. I thought that my microtypography question would be off-topic/NaGE, and this would be the on-topic version. – Charles Stewart Jun 12 '10 at 9:08

up vote 1 down vote

added by rlb.usa Jun 8 '10 at 20:04

	this is a good on-topic question, but we've already got enough examples of great on-topic examples. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 13 '10 at 9:57
	@Juan: I wouldn't say that we have 10 really excellent on-top examples, but 3 of our highest rated are of the form "How do I achieve [output effect]?" I don't think we should have more than two, and this isn't better than any of these, so I'm NaGEing it too. – Charles Stewart Jun 13 '10 at 12:02
	Quote: @Juan: Einstein is a great scientist, but we've already got Newton, so let's vote him as "not a good representative". – KennyTM yesterday – rlb.usa Jun 14 '10 at 21:18

up vote 1 down vote

added by Vortico Jun 11 '10 at 21:28

this is a good on-topic question, but we've already got enough examples of great on-topic examples. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 13 '10 at 9:58

up vote 1 down vote

added by ananth.p Jun 17 '10 at 4:18

up vote 1 down vote

added by badp Jun 17 '10 at 11:29

	"I mean, LaTeX has Helvetica!" – badp Jun 17 '10 at 11:29
	Do you mean "Can I use the Computer Modern font in other applications?" – KennyTM Jun 17 '10 at 11:44
	That and Palatino and Times Roman and Helvetica and all the fonts that come with various distibutions of LaTeX/TeX/LyX/etc. – badp Jun 17 '10 at 12:56
	@b p: I don't think anybody will have problem finding Times (New) Roman in other apps. – KennyTM Jun 18 '10 at 6:59
	This strikes me as off-topic; do we really want questions about how to install a font in Word? Now, if the other application were a part of a TeX toolchain (say, LyX), that strikes me as OK, because that's part of "and friends" – derobert Jun 18 '10 at 18:18

show 1 more improvement suggestion

up vote 1 down vote

added by Yossi Farjoun Jun 20 '10 at 15:27

up vote 1 down vote

added by Yossi Farjoun Jun 20 '10 at 15:33

up vote 1 down vote

added by radius Jun 21 '10 at 1:37

up vote 1 down vote

added by axiomsofchoice Jun 21 '10 at 19:45

up vote 0 down vote

added by ire_and_curses Jun 3 '10 at 16:15

closed as off topic by Rob Hyndman, jalf, Peter K., Simon Nickerson, deterb Jun 17 '10 at 0:42

This question does not relate to the topic of the proposal.
It was closed as part of an automated migration of off-topic to close votes on September 29, 2011.

This is more likely to be a stackoverflow.com question, but now I'm curious to know :) – Julian Jun 3 '10 at 16:49

@Julian: I decided to ask it on SO. ;) – ire_and_curses Jun 3 '10 at 17:42

I think this is on-topic. If we are to attract the experts on TeX/LaTeX, discussion about programming in LaTeX (e.g. to design new templates that require some more algorithmic processing or whatever) should be allowed. – Juan A. Navarro Jun 5 '10 at 9:46

@Stephen: I don't understand that logic. The boundary is still being defined. Clearly off-topic questions are easy, and only serve to reinforce what everyone already knows. Whether this question is ultimately decided to be on or off-topic, that says something important. Without this question, the theoretical side of the site (if it exists at all) is simply not as well defined. The fact this is contentious is a good sign - a community ruling for a line in the sand can eventually be made. – ire_and_curses Jun 10 '10 at 14:39

@Ire I pretty much agree with you, but I think this particular question will likely define the eventual border by continuing to straddle it. The subject matter (the capabilities of LaTex) is solidly on topic, but the specific question asked about those capabilities (is it Turing complete) is really about computer science and has little to do with the use of LaTeX. Maybe area51 needs another category besides great on-topic, great off-topic and not a good example: straddles the boundary and will be a perpetual source of meta-discussion! – Stephen C. Steel Jun 10 '10 at 16:27

show 9 more improvement suggestions