latex-template

This is a template for latex documents. While common mathematics-related latex commands and packages are used, the makefile will be of use for any type of document.

If you just want to easily compile latex documents and aren't interested in the draft version capabilities (see below), you may wish to try latexmk instead. In terms of simply compiling documents, the primary difference between this project and latexmk is that I don't know how to use latexmk.

Make

Included are several make targets:

• final: Simply builds the document.
• finalbib: Build the bibliography.
• finalre: Forcibly rebuilds the document, and if it doesn't exist, builds it twice. This handles changing of labels.
• finalall: Performs a complete build (equivalent to finalbib + finalre).

In short: use make final after normal changes, use make finalre after changes involving labels, and use make finalall after modifying the bibliography.

There are also the targets draft, draftbib, draftre, and draftall, which do the same but build draft versions (see below). Finally, there is the all target, which will build both the draft and final versions.

The default build target is draft, though this is easily modifiable. This is for convenience, as it will be by far the most used target when writing documents.

Draft and final versions

If the document is built as a draft, it is built with the macro isdraft defined as 1. This triggers the following effects:

1. The document class is set with the parameter draft, for use with the ifdraft package.
2. Labels are shown on the left side of the page
3. The \todo notes are displayed.
4. The command \noref will produce a red question mark.
5. The current git revision is displayed below the title.

On final builds, the above are all hidden.

Bibliography

The makefile contains all the information required for configuring it. Take note of how to build a document with no bibliography; you must remove the BIBDEPENDENCIES line and uncomment the .IGNORE: $(BIBTARGETS) line. If you do this, you can perform full builds using finalre and draftre (though all will still work, performing redundant steps).

Git

By default, when in draft mode, the generated document will display the most recent git commit short SHA1 and message. This is done by writing to .revisioninfo inside the makefile. The filename used can be modified by changing it once Makefile and once in template.tex (you will probably want to change it in .gitignore too). To disable the output all together (for example if you aren't using git), simply delete these sections.

Build explanation

A full build (eg finalall) consists of the following steps:

1. Use pdflatex to build the .aux file, containing all used citations
2. Use bibtex to build the .bbl file using the .aux file. This contains the required bibliography entries.
3. Use pdflatex to rebuild the .aux file by adding the found citations from the .bbl file.
4. Use pdflatex to produce the final .pdf file from the .aux file.