A quick question on typesetting in LaTeX ...

[SlimJim]

Anyone in here know how to get the "degree -sign"
in LaTeX? You know that small mini-circle you put
after an angle value or after a temperature. I haven't
been able to find it in any of the LaTeX reference
manuals or command lists. I know it must be there -  
but it isn't, or I haven't looked at the right place.
 
Help?
.
SlimJim

[gnarly]

Could you use a lower case 'o' in superscript?

Or...  Google for degree sign LaTeX - http://web.mit.edu/rsi/www/2000/help/faq/latex/#faq7 - ^\circ (in math mode).

[SlimJim]

I just figured it out - and just noticed gnarly
suggested the same thing (thanks anyway!)-
 
$ ^\circ   $
 
really does the trick. It feels somewhat less than
optimal, I would have thought this to have a unique
command ... oh well.  :-)
.
SlimJim

[gnarly]

Blimey.

I dont have a flippin' clue what LaTeX is - just goes to show the magic of Google I suppose ;-)

[hagar]

@Slimjim

Maybe you will find the following link interesting (it's a little bit outdated but...)

Check out:
http://www.efd.lth.se/perf/handledning

[SlimJim]

@hagar
 
Thanks!
 
More of an introduction I guess, but there were
indeed some inspiration to be found.
 
@gnarly
 
LaTeX is a fontsetting engine based on TeX.
Basically you write your document in a normal
text-editor and lines your text with command
sequences (sort of like creating a script only much
simpler). You then run an interpreter called "latex"
on your textfile and out comes a beautiful dvi - file
(easily converted to postscript or pdf) of your work,
perfectly formatted and hard to differentiate from
any professional, report or book (probably because
many publishers use LaTeX too ;-) )
 You can do anything typesetting-wise with LaTeX
and many things you simply cannot do in FW97 (or
Word for that matter). You can create tables, insert
pictures etc. Most notably you can write
mathematical formulas in you text as fast as you
write any normal text (once you learn the commands
of course). Nowadays I write everything in LaTeX.
LaTeX (or TeX) is used for a substantial amount of
scientific publications in the world. And if there is a
function that is not available in the basic system,
you can be sure a third party programmer created a
"package" for it.
 
The only drawback is that it is not WYSIWYG. But
running the interpreter and viewing software on
another screen (or desktop if on linux) it almost
feels like simultaneous updating to the output-file.
It's really very easy to get used to, once you try it.

If you have any normal Linux installation going,
LaTeX is almost always installed by default. The
latest version is also available for Amiga (to be fair,
the latest version is in itself quite old- this system
(TeX) has been around a loong time (since 1970's)
so there aren't many bugs to sort out anymore).
You can find it on Aminet. It works nicely but it can
be a little tricky to install extra stuff that is not
included in the Amiga-archive (like Swedish
characters, spelling and hyphenation for example).
 
There is an excellent guide on Aminet describing
the installation process though.
.
SlimJim