These are the book and the practice files for a LaTeX introduction that I gave several times at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. This is a getting-started style introduction, with pointers to further resources, and with advice for getting a TeX system up and running. BUILDING THE BOOK The master file, latexcourse_rug.tex, is suitable for screen viewing, with pdf bookmarks and hyperlinks. The pdf should print just fine. But if you do not want (colored) hyperlinks or your setup has trouble with non-standard paper sizes, then you can add a document option a4 or letter, e.g.: \documentclass[a4]{coursebook} The samples are already included as pdfs, with cropped margins where appropriate. Therefore, you only have to compile latexcourse_rug itself, with pdflatex and with a biber (not bibtex) run for bibliographic references. RECOMPILING AND CROPPING SAMPLE FILES All sample sources are also included as pdfs. - Most samples can be compiled with one or two runs of pdflatex. - The font_* samples which use the fontspec package need xelatex or luatex and some system fonts. - The bib[la]tex samples in the bibsamples directory naturally require a bibtex- or biber run. - For cropping, I used epspdf with a -b option for cropping and sometimes a -p option for page selection. pdfcrop should do as well (not tested). - Beamer_* and nobeamer samples do not need cropping. The scripts subdirectory contains a bash script compile_samples which does all this. OCTOBER 2014 VERSION Compared to the original release from July 2014, there have been some minor textual changes, mainly to de-emphasize the RUG installation. Also, the book got a new, more compact layout. DECEMBER 2015 VERSION Information on external software, screenshots and references have been updated. Scripts for compiling samples and for packing for CTAN have been added. Small changes in the samples and some rephrasings. LICENSE Copyright (C) 2014, 2015 Siep Kroonenberg Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved. This file is offered as-is, without any warranty. The sample- and practice files are released into the public domain. Groningen, December 6 2015 Siep Kroonenberg, n_dot_s_dot_kroonenberg_at_rug_dot_nl