LaTeX Help

Inclusion of graphics, e.g., figures in abstracts, is becoming more popular. Our compiler supports 3 packages to make it easier to include graphics. They are eps, graphics, and wrapfig, which respectively allow the inclusion of encapsulated postscript (eps) files, postscript (ps) files, and to wrap text about a figure. You may view an example of an abstract including a figure by clicking here and going to abstract 6. Please note that all abstracts must end with at least one line of text (not graphics); otherwise they cannot be processed correctly by the algorithm that produces the spacing in the abstract book.

The information given below is adapted from the American Physics Society web site. It contains the information needed to produce many, if not most, of the special symbols used in spectroscopy; however, it is by no means all inclusive.

LaTeX Commands for Selected Special Symbols

Greek letters and most mathematical symbols must be identified descriptively in an electronic submission. Here is a list of some of the most commonly used symbols. These commands must all be given in LaTeX's "math" mode, i.e., between dollars signs ($); see the LaTeX user manual for additional information about math mode.

Non-English Characters

Greek letters:

To obtain a Greek letter in your abstract, type a backslash (\) followed by the name of the letter.

Lower-case Greek letters. Note omicron is simply lower-case "o".

     $\alpha$    $\eta$     $\nu$       $\tau$
     $\beta$     $\theta$   $\xi$       $\upsilon$
     $\gamma$    $\iota$                $\phi$
     $\delta$    $\kappa$   $\pi$       $\chi$
     $\epsilon$  $\lambda$  $\rho$      $\psi$
     $\zeta$     $\mu$      $\sigma$    $\omega$

Upper-case Greek letters.

     $\Gamma$    $\Lambda$  $\Sigma$    $\Psi$
     $\Delta$    $\Xi$      $\Upsilon$  $\Omega$
     $\Theta$    $\Pi$      $\Phi$

Other non-English characters:

The following accents may be placed on letters. Although "o" is used in most of the example, the accents may be placed on any letter. Accents may even be placed above a "missing" letter; for example, \~{} produces a tilde over a blank space.

The following commands may be used only in paragraph or LR mode.

\`{o} produces a grave accent, ò
\'{o} produces an acute accent, ó
\^{o} produces a circumflex, ô
\"{o} produces an umlaut or dieresis, ö
\H{o} produces a long Hungarian umlaut
\~{o} produces a tilde, õ
\c{c} produces a cedilla, ç
\={o} produces a macron accent (a bar over the letter)
\b{o} produces a bar under the letter
\.{o} produces a dot over the letter
\d{o} produces a dot under the letter
\u{o} produces a breve over the letter
\v{o} produces a "v" over the letter
\t{oo} produces a "tie" (inverted u) over the two letters

Note that the letters "i" and "j" require special treatment when they are given accents because it is often desirable to replace the dot with the accent. For this purpose, the commands \i and \j can be used to produce dotless letters.

For example,

\^{\i} should be used for i, circumflex, î
\"{\i} should be used for i, umlaut, ï

\ae small ae ligature (diphthong), æ
\AE capital ae ligature, Æ
\oe small oe ligature
\OE capital OE ligature
\aa small a, ring, å
\AA capital A, ring, Å
\o small o, slash, ø
\O capital O, slash, Ø
\ss German sz ligature, ß

Other useful characters and commands

Superscripts are indicated by a caret (shift-6): ^{SCRIPT}, e.g., $\pi r^{2}$. The example shown here is the formula for the area of a circle. LaTeX math mode (necessary for equations and super- and subscripts) is specified with the dollar signs; the lower case pi ($\pi$) and radius variable r have a space between them in the markup (it would not appear in the output), and the superscript 2 is the "argument" (enclosed in curly braces) to the superscript operator ^.

Subscripts are indicated by an underscore: _{SCRIPT}, e.g., $J_{\nu}$.

The abbreviation for Angstroms is indicated by \AA.

Circular degrees can be specified with $^{\circ}$, e.g., $45^{\circ}$.

We have also defined three special commands for symbols often encountered in Symposium abstracts.

COMMAND USE               LATEX FORMULATION
\wn     wavenumbers       \newcommand{\wn}{\ensuremath{\mathrm{cm}^{-1}}}
\nub{}  vibrational level \newcommand{\nub}[1]{\ensuremath{\nu_{#1}}}
\chem{} chemical formula  \newcommand{\chem}[1]{}\ensuremath{mathrm{#1}}

Use as follows:

INSERT                         SPECTROSCOPIC NOTATION FOR
19800\wn                       19800 wavenumbers (cm to the (-1))
\nub{1} and \nub{3} levels     nu sub 1 and nu sub 3 levels
\chem{CH-4}                    correct chemical formula for methane

These references are also useful:

  1. Leslie Lamport. LaTeX - A Document Preparation System -
     User's Guide and Reference Manual. 2nd edition
     Addison-Wesley, Reading, 1994.
  2. Michel Goossens, Frank Mittelbach and Alexander Samarin.
     The LaTeX Companion. Addison-Wesley, Reading, 1994.
  3. Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly,
     A Guide to LaTeX2e: Document Preparation for Beginners and
     Avanced Users, 2nd Edition Addison-Wesley, 1995. ISBN:
     0-201-42777-X

Problems To Be Aware Of, So You Can Avoid Them

For the most part, automatic abstract processing is very successful. However, here is a list of some of the problems that sometimes occur, but can be easily avoided.


     1. Word processors cause the largest share of troubles. If you
        use Word, WordPerfect, or another word processor, please be sure to
        save the file as an ASCII file (plain text) DO
        NOT send abstracts as attachments.

     2. Some punctuation marks are special characters to LaTeX, and you
        must put a backslash (\) in front of them so the proper mark is
        placed in the text.  You should specify them like so:

        \&       \$       \{     \}
        \%       \#       \_

     3. Make sure you use only upper case in the title and author
        names, except for special cases, e.g., He, Al, McDONALD, the
	conjunction "and" before the the last author in a series,
	etc. Your abstract will be checked and automatically rejected
	for failure to observe this convention.

     4. Be careful not to add extra "{" or "}".  Keep them in pairs.

     5. Please note that some lines in the template are not to be removed,
        edited, commented out, or otherwise trifled with. Please
	follow the associated instructions.

Thank you for your cooperation, and good luck!