Write prettier LaTeX

Some LaTeX templates and base classes for university, formal letters, legal things, etc. You can find the documentation here.

Also, have a look at the provided templates.

Usage

In almost all cases, use an article base document, like so:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{prettytex/base}
\usepackage{prettytex/math}

% or rather, if you use another language:
\usepackage[de]{prettytex/base}
\usepackage[de]{prettytex/math}

This package uses a modular approach, you may want to load some of the following packages. Keep in mind that prettytex/base always comes first.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{prettytex/base}  % You always want this
\usepackage{prettytex/boxes}  % thmbox and leftbar (box environments), also wrapthm
\usepackage{prettytex/math}  % standard math tools (requires base)
\usepackage{prettytex/mathematicians}  % hyperrefs to wikipedia to common mathematicians
\usepackage{prettytex/shortcuts}  % shortcuts for vectors and matrices
\usepackage{prettytex/math-sigtrans}  % utilities for signal transforms (requires math)
\usepackage{prettytex/code}  % configuration for the minted package for including code
\usepackage{prettytex/contract}  % useful commands for contracts and legal stuff
\usepackage{prettytex/gfx}  % base class for grapics related work
\usepackage{prettytex/gfx-components}  % control flow shortcuts
\usepackage{prettytex/gfx-circuits}  % shortcuts for electrical circuits
\usepackage{prettytex/thesis}  % scientific thesis options (pre-defined bibliography, typing)

Please be curious about the source code, you will find all answers inside.

Have fun! If you find a problem, please open a corresponding issue.

Global installation on your Unix-based system

In the future, you might be able to install the package from CTAN.

For now, on Debian-based distributions, you need to clone this repository, link it and have tex know that something changed:

git clone git@github.com:MrP01/prettytex.git /path/to/your/repo
sudo ln -s /path/to/your/repo /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/prettytex
sudo texhash

Getting minted to work

Based on a sample-size of two (Kubuntu and Arch Linux) operating systems, the minted package can cause some problems when compiling, usually with the package pygmentize being missing on your system. You may install it with

sudo apt-get install pygmentize

on Debian based systems or:

sudo pacman -S pygmentize

on Arch Linux based systems. Now you only need to pass the -shell-escape flag to your latex-compiler. If you are using the VSCode extension Latex Workshop, you need to edit the settings.json and add the flag to the args of the recipe you are using. For example:

"latex-workshop.latex.tools": [
        {
            "name": "latexmk",
            "command": "latexmk",
            "args": [
                "-shell-escape", // <-- added the flag here
                "-synctex=1",
                "-interaction=nonstopmode",
                "-file-line-error",
                "-pdf",
                "-outdir=%OUTDIR%",
                "%DOC%"
            ],
            "env": {}
        },
        {
            "name": "pdflatex",
            "command": "pdflatex",
            "args": [
                "-shell-escape", // <-- added the flag here
                "-synctex=1",
                "-interaction=nonstopmode",
                "-file-line-error",
                "%DOC%"
            ],
            "env": {}
        }
    ]

Keep in mind, that you have to pass -shell-escape before the %DOC% argument.

math-theorems

If you already used prettytex in the past, then you probably remember the tcolorbox-theorems. These have been deprecated (they are still present in math-theorems.sty for legacy reasons) in favour of a more Tex-aligned approach. Tcolorbox allows to wrap common ams-math theorems with styles. Hence we provide the simple \wrapthm{<env>}{<colour>} command, which allows you to specify a theorem-environment and a colour to wrap said environment in. Then you may use the environment as usual. An example for your preamble:

\newtheorem{theorem}{Theorem}
\wrapthm{theorem}{blue}

VSCode Snippets

The file vscode_snippets.json provides valid snippets for vscode for use in latex-documents. Just copy the contents into your snippets file, or save it under ~/.config/Code/User/snippets/ with the name latex.json.