LaTeX Formatting Worksheets
Instructions
These self-study worksheets, for use in a web browser, are part of the LaTeX formatting documentation and training materials created for producers of public-domain mathematical ebooks (such as at Distributed Proofreaders, a.k.a. DP). You may work with them online or download them to your own computer for offline use.
Each worksheet presents you with the scan of a page from a math book and proofread text, similar to output from the DP proofing rounds, just as if you were working in the F1 round at DP. At any time while working you may view:
- The page scan and your (editable) current work. Initially, your current work is the proofread text from the DP proofing rounds.
- The page scan and (non-editable) formatted text, i.e., the “answer key” to the worksheet.
- A color-coded diff between your current work and the answer key, i.e., the “corrections” to your current work.
Any changes you make to your current work will be saved until you visit another worksheet or close your browser. You may look at the answer or “check your work” incrementally as many times as you like, so long as you do not open a new worksheet in the same browser tab.
Three navigation links are visible near the upper left-hand corner of each worksheet. The navigation links are black triangles in rectangular frames. Each link takes you to a new page, and erases any changes you have made to the proofread text.
-
takes you to
the preceding worksheet. -
takes you to
the next worksheet. The worksheets are linked circularly, i.e., the
first worksheet “follows” the last worksheet. -
returns you to
this index page.
Two action buttons are visible near the upper right-hand corner of each worksheet. Recall that each worksheet has three possible “views”: your current work, the correctly formatted text (answer key), and the diff between your current work and the answer (the corrections). In each view, the two buttons will take you to the other two views. These buttons change their functions according to what you are currently viewing, but if you are viewing your current work, clicking either button twice returns you to your current work.
Not all diffs are errors. Do watch for missed markup including
“essential” ties, and for proper, semantic coding of
theorems, definitions, exercises, chapters, and other sectional units.
(Ties such as pg.~42 and Vol.~V are
essential, while page~42, Volume~V, or
$a$~and~$b$ are not. The answer keys contain only
essential ties.)
Don't worry about differences in the source code layout of displayed mathematics that don't affect the typographical output. (The volunteer who created the answer keys generally coded in order to make the result easy to read mathematically.)
Small text (the Remark environment) and italicized
passages (the Thm environment) should be noted and coded
semantically. Use an ordinary itemize environment and
\item commands for numbered exercises. Supply the
exercise number as an optional argument, e.g.,
\item[42.]; do not rely on LaTeX's auto-numbering.
Use an array environment and explicit braces to handle
matrices; this gives the post-processor more flexibility to align the
matrix extries than LaTeX's matrix environments.
