Text Formatting ⇒ Automatically format keywords (bold, italicize, etc)

[ptrcao]

Is there a command or package that will allow me to automatically format keywords (bold, italicize, etc)? How do I do this?

[Frits]

What do you mean with keywords?

I'm guessing you want certain words in your document having a specific format:

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\newcommand{\keyword}{\textit{keyword}}
\newcommand{\keyword}{\textbf{keyword}}

With the first command, LaTeX prints the word 'keyword' in italic when you insert the command \keyword (so with the slash). The latter one does the same, but then in boldface.

[localghost]

Is there a command or package that will allow me to automatically format keywords (bold, italicize, etc)? How do I do this?

Are we talking about a code listing or just about emphasis of words?


Thorsten

[ptrcao]

By keyword, I just mean words of my choice which I'd like to format, such as book titles, etc. which need to be italicised.

Isn't there a function that will search for all instances of the keyword and format it according to my desire?

This approach

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\newcommand{\keyword}{\textit{keyword}}
\newcommand{\keyword}{\textbf{keyword}}

works too, but LaTeX then ignores whitespaces after it for some reason. I'm not sure why. I can include a whitespace after the keyword such as:

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\newcommand{\keyword}{\textit{keyword }}

But I'm still curious to know if there is a search and format function in LaTeX.

[Frits]

Yep, the whitespace can be quite annoying. A possible fix would be:

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usepackage{xspace}
\newcommand{\keyword}{\textit{keyword\xspace}}

[ptrcao]

What about titles of books like "The Lord of The Rings", which have multiple words interrupted by spaces? You can't have

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\newcommand{\The Lord of The Rings}{\textit{The Lord of The Rings}}

because only the "The" in this instance would be included in the command.

[Frits]

I edited my post above for a fix on that whitespace at the end.

For your Lord of Rings question: That's a nasty one. Isn't it possible (and easier) to define:

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\newcommand{\lotr}{\textit{The Lord of The Rings}}

[ptrcao]

I edited my post above for a fix on that whitespace at the end.

For your Lord of Rings question: That's a nasty one. Isn't it possible (and easier) to define:

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\newcommand{\lotr}{\textit{The Lord of The Rings}}

Ah yes, how convenient, I see somebody came up with a function just for this very situation; it appears \xspace takes care of it all so you don't have to think about it.

I originally thought you could do

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\newcommand{\The-Lord-of-The-Rings}{\textit{The Lord of The Rings}}

or even

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\newcommand{\The_Lord_of_The_Rings}{\textit{The Lord of The Rings}}

but apparently these generate errors.

And right, your suggestion

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\newcommand{\lotr}{\textit{The Lord of The Rings}}

is definitely easier in this case, but I can think of some cases where I would like the LaTeX markup would more accurately resemble the typeset result.