This is a reusable template for latex projects. Download the tarball
and unpack it with e.g.
tar xvfz latex.proj-0.4.1.tgz cd latex.proj-0.4.1Place it under e.g. Subversion control so that you can back off any changes you make to it.
Look over the Makefile to familiarize yourself with the various targets. Not all of them are guaranteed to work, and some may not work for you without some editing, at least. Do not modify the Makefile yet, though -- work at first on a copy created as below and then backport the changes to the original Makefile carefully when you are sure they work.
In this directory, run the "newproject" command:
./newproject projectname cd ../projectname
Place the new project under your choice of version control -- subversion is currently supported by a couple of targets in the Makefile that will require a bit of editing to make work for you but CVS is equally possible with a bit more editing.
Note that newproject SHOULD have changed all the basic filenames around so that they correspond to your project name. Only make changes in the template itself if you want to make them permanent features of a new latex project!
You should be able to type "make" in the new project directory at any
time and have it just work to build dvi, pdf, and a4pdf (a pdf for A4
sized paper commonly used in Europe). Bring up the dvi file for preview
with a command such as:
xdvi projectname &Then start up your favorite editor on the projectname.tex source file. If it is emacs or jove (or any editor that permits you to invoke make from inside the editor) you should be able to make simple changes to the latex source, invoke make via e.g. ^x ^e, and bring the preview screen to the foreground, where it will automatically refresh to the current/new dvi file! This makes the edit, make/debug, view/debug, edit cycle quite painless and generally faster than most latex IDE GUI tools.
Good luck! Feel free to contact me with e.g. bug reports or problems.