A small collection of latex tidbits that I've either contributed to,
or have found especially useful for dissertation writing and job
applications.
Latex Templates
While working on job applications, I picked up this template based
on a customizable perl+latex setup
by Matt Miller.
It uses
the newlfm (letter/fax/memo) latex style.
I modified it slightly, added some UH-specific graphics, and included
a signature file for my own use.
See a pdf preview, or download the whole set, with images.
BibTeX Related Files
In my view, the only way to do citation management in latex is
through the BibTeX system.
This is an indispensible tool for
writing scientific papers in latex. To get the most out of it, you
need to combine it with a reference management system. I
like BibDesk (Mac
freeware), but I hear good things
about Papers, too (Mac,$42).
The following are some style files that I've modified to fix small
citation annoyances.
Updated ApJ style file apj.bst
If you use bibtex for your latex document preparation, then you may
have encountered the frustration of having too many authors appearing
in your reference lists. According to the ApJ style:
"For papers with more than eight authors, the last name and initials
of the first author only should be listed, followed by a comma and et
al."
You could trim down those long author lists by hand in your bibtex
.bib file, but the bibliography style file should be able to do the
trimming for you. This feature wasn't in any of the versions of the
apj.bst style file that I have found floating around the web, so I
hacked one up and added it.
For most astronomical journals, you want the very abbreviated version
of journal names in your reference list (i.e. ApJ, AJ, PASP) but
sometimes you want the longer abbreviations (i.e. Ap. J., Astron. J.,
Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific). This is a modified version of the
aas-macros.sty file to provide those.
Links
hyperref
: Automatically turn your bibliographic citations, sections, and
chapters into in-document hypertext links. Great for dissertations or
preprint publications.
Research Statement
A nice latex template for a job application research statement, by Sundar Iyer.