Normally you use the \enumerate command in LaTeX to create enumerated lists like this: I use lots of space! If you prefer your enumeration “inline”, you could do that: ... \newcommand{\inlineEnum}[1]{ \ifcsname c@#1\endcsname \addtocounter{#1}{1} \textbf{\arabic{#1})~} \else \newcounter{#1} \setcounter{#1}{1} \textbf{\arabic{#1})~} \fi } ... \begin{document} \inlineEnum{counter} Here is some text. \inlineEnum{counter} Here is some more text. \inlineEnum{counter} And another sentence! ... \end{document} Much better: … Here is some text. Read more

My workflow for LaTeX documents with figures is that I typically first draw the figures in MS Visio, then export the drawing to PDF and finally crop the PDF file so that there is no white margin anymore. This is a little tedious when you have lots of figures and lots of updates on these figures… I changed my workflow a bit. Meanwhile I draw all figures in the same Visio file. Read more

I created a simple Latex template for a standard 85x55mm visiting card and some add-ons. The template features the standard elements of a visiting card plus a PGP/GPG fingerprint and some space for an (optional) portrait, logo or QR Code. As I wanted to use a specific font not available in MacTeX, I used XeLaTeX. XeLaTeX gives access to fonts installed on the Mac, such as Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica, etc. Read more

I spend a lot of my time at work with typing. Mostly these texts have the nature of simple notes that help me to keep track of my different projects, coordinate my students, etc. So things like Latex or Word, OpenOffice or Pages are overkill. For notes I have been using DokuWiki on a private server for some time. But I am not (never was) really happy with this because a browser is not the best editor in my opinion. Read more

Aspell is a handy-dandy tool for the command line for spell checking text documents. When you’re editing Tex documents, Aspell is something you really want to have. However, as a German, installing Aspell on a Mac has one big pitfall: it won’t install German per default. What I (foolishly) did up to now is brew install aspell --all which installs all languages Aspell knows. This is quite a lot. So installation takes days. Read more