General ⇒ Font in Footnotes, MLA Bibliography, Paragraphs...

[plx]

Hello,
I would like to write my university papers using Latex.
However, I cannot meet my university's requirements concerning the Layout.
I did consult Google, the KOMA-Script manual and more Latex-manuals; but I have not found anything useful.
What do I need to do anyway?
I have to:
-Change the font, size and spacing of footnotes into Times new Roman, 10pt, single spaced; whereas my document is Times new Roman, 12pt, 1,5-spaced.
-For every new paragraph, I will have to put five blanks at the beginning. How can I achieve that automatically? (I am using German Stylesheets (KOMA-Script), so Latex does not do that for me.)
-My bibliography has to meet MLA standards. However, due to the fact that my university does not apply these standards to the whole document, I cannot use the MLA class, but have to focus solely on the bibliography. How do I do that?
-And finally: I import another pdf, which I would like to modify using variables. Is that possible, or do I have to rebuild that pdf using Latex?

Thank you for reading and please try to explain why you are using that particular command in your answer, or at least what it does. (I am still learning!)

Edit: i am using texlive and Kile.

[phi]

I have to:
-Change the font, size and spacing of footnotes into Times new Roman, 10pt, single spaced; whereas my document is Times new Roman, 12pt, 1,5-spaced.

Here you can use the setspace package, which automatically resets spacing in footnotes. The footnote size for 12 pt documents is already 10 pt, so you only have to change the font family, preferably using the mathptmx package.

-For every new paragraph, I will have to put five blanks at the beginning. How can I achieve that automatically? (I am using German Stylesheets (KOMA-Script), so Latex does not do that for me.)

The paragraph indent is controlled by the parameter \parindent. You can change it in your document; the following sets it to the width of five spaces:

Code: Select all

\settowidth\parindent{\ \ \ \ \ }

This has to be done after \begin{document}, otherwise the Times font isn't selected yet.

-My bibliography has to meet MLA standards. However, due to the fact that my university does not apply these standards to the whole document, I cannot use the MLA class, but have to focus solely on the bibliography. How do I do that?

The appearance of the bibliography is controlled by a bibliography style file. Try to find out which bibliography style this class uses, and select it in your document using \bibliographystyle. Is this MLA class somewhere available? On CTAN I only find the MLA package which is not a class.

-And finally: I import another pdf, which I would like to modify using variables. Is that possible, or do I have to rebuild that pdf using Latex?

Normally you have to rebuild it, since PDF is indented as an output format and can generally only be edited using Adobe's commercial products.

[plx]

I have to:
-Change the font, size and spacing of footnotes into Times new Roman, 10pt, single spaced; whereas my document is Times new Roman, 12pt, 1,5-spaced.

Here you can use the setspace package, which automatically resets spacing in footnotes. The footnote size for 12 pt documents is already 10 pt, so you only have to change the font family, preferably using the mathptmx package.

-For every new paragraph, I will have to put five blanks at the beginning. How can I achieve that automatically? (I am using German Stylesheets (KOMA-Script), so Latex does not do that for me.)

The paragraph indent is controlled by the parameter \parindent. You can change it in your document; the following sets it to the width of five spaces:

Code: Select all

\settowidth\parindent{\ \ \ \ \ }

This has to be done after \begin{document}, otherwise the Times font isn't selected yet.

-My bibliography has to meet MLA standards. However, due to the fact that my university does not apply these standards to the whole document, I cannot use the MLA class, but have to focus solely on the bibliography. How do I do that?

The appearance of the bibliography is controlled by a bibliography style file. Try to find out which bibliography style this class uses, and select it in your document using \bibliographystyle. Is this MLA class somewhere available? On CTAN I only find the MLA package which is not a class.

-And finally: I import another pdf, which I would like to modify using variables. Is that possible, or do I have to rebuild that pdf using Latex?

Normally you have to rebuild it, since PDF is indented as an output format and can generally only be edited using Adobe's commercial products.

Thank you so much for your answer, I got the paragraphs the way I need them.
However, I made a mistake: I need the footnotes in 11pt and single-spaced.
I do know both of the packages you mentioned. However, I have no clue how to connect that with /footnote .
And yes, I was talking about the MLA package, sorry about the mistake.
What would be useful perhapst is the following:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,oneside,onecolumn]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}                              % Damit die Tastatur Umlaute tippen kann
\usepackage[english]{babel}                              % Damit Latex Umlaute setzen kann
\usepackage{graphicx}                                    % Damit Bilder eingefügt werden können
%\usepackage{bibgerm}                                     % Damit das Literaturverzeichnis deutsch ist (?)v
\usepackage{mla}
\usepackage{pdfpages}                                    % Damit man PDFs einbinden kann
%\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.5}                     % Zeilenabstand
\usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace}
%\onehalfspacing{}
%\usepackage{txfonts}
\usepackage{mathptmx}                                     % Times New Roman
\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}
\usepackage{courier}
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{a4paper,left=40mm,right=25mm, top=25mm, bottom=25mm}% Ränder
%\usepackage[small,compact]{titlesec}                       % macht section kleiner. wie kriege ich das ganz weg?
 \renewcommand{\footnotesize}{\fontsize{11pt}}


\begin{document}
\includepdf[page=1]{DeckblattSeminar.pdf}              % Titelseite; muss PDF sein.

\pagenumbering{arabic}                                 % Aufruf setzt Nummerierung zurück
\settowidth\parindent{\ \ \ \ \ }                      %Setzt automatisch fünf Leerzeichen Einzug für neuen Absatz
%\section{}  So kriege ich Section  ganz weg.

Thats my preamble.
Note that some things are commented out.

[localghost]

The redefinition of the \footnotesize command is not complete.

Code: Select all

\renewcommand{\footnotesize}{\fontsize{11}{13}\selectfont}

I suggest to replace courier by luximono. It just looks better.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten¹

[plx]

The redefinition of the \footnotesize command is not complete.

Code: Select all

\renewcommand{\footnotesize}{\fontsize{11}{13}\selectfont}

I suggest to replace courier by luximono. It just looks better.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten¹

Hello and thanks for the warm welcome,
could you explain what the command and the parameters you posted do, please?
I would really like to understand Latex, not only use it. I mean, I would like to understand how it works.

[localghost]

Hm. Since this is the last line of your preamble, I thought you would know its meaning. The first argument of \fontsize is the actual font size and the second one is the leading (in German this means "Durchschuss") in pt each. The \selectfont command activates these settings. Internally all switches to change the font size (\large, \small, ...) are done with this combination of commands.

[plx]

Hm. Since this is the last line of your preamble, I thought you would know its meaning. The first argument of \fontsize is the actual font size and the second one is the leading (in German this means "Durchschuss") in pt each. The \selectfont command activates these settings. Internally all switches to change the font size (\large, \small, ...) are done with this combination of commands.

Hehe, Im very sorry about that. I found that on the internet (maybe this forum) but I could not figure out what it does, so I just copy-and-pasted it. Does a documentation on that exist or better: Where would I find documentation on Latex-commands?
And furthermore, concerning the font used in the footnotes:

Code: Select all

\renewcommand{\footnotesize}{\fontsize{11}{13}\selectfont{mathpx}}

Is that how I would be able to use Times New Roman?
I know that i have put this

Code: Select all

\usepackage{mathptmx}                                     % Times New Roman
\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}
\usepackage{courier}

in the preamble.
However, I am under the impression that only the first package is necessary to use Times New Roman. What do the others do?
Use Helvetica and courier, yeah. But how can I use three fonts simultaneously?

[localghost]

Hehe, Im very sorry about that. I found that on the internet (maybe this forum) but I could not figure out what it does, so I just copy-and-pasted it. Does a documentation on that exist or better: Where would I find documentation on Latex-commands?
And furthermore, concerning the font used in the footnotes:

Code: Select all

\renewcommand{\footnotesize}{\fontsize{11}{13}\selectfont{mathpx}}

Is that how I would be able to use Times New Roman?

No, it's not. It only sets the font size, not the family, series or shape. Where did you get that line from? You should only use code where you exactly know from what it is doing. Use the redefinition command that I provided in my last reply. For basic LaTeX documentation there are many good books for beginners. And they are not very expensive. If money doesn't matter, then "The LaTeX Companion" (in German "Der LaTeX-Begleiter") is the first choice. Take a look at Amazon.de for german books related to LaTeX.

I know that i have put this

Code: Select all

\usepackage{mathptmx}                                     % Times New Roman
\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}
\usepackage{courier}

in the preamble.
However, I am under the impression that only the first package is necessary to use Times New Roman. What do the others do?
Use Helvetica and courier, yeah. But how can I use three fonts simultaneously?

That's right. But it makes no sense only to use a postscript font only as main font. That's a matter of quality for the resulting document. mathptmx sets the main font, the Roman family. helvet sets the sans serif font to Helvetica (\sffamily) and courier is for a mono spaced font (\ttfamily). To get familiar with that, I suggest to refer to our topic about LaTeX resources for beginners. You can find it on the top of this subforum. To your information, the txfonts also provide a Times style typeface.

[phi]

Thank you so much for your answer, I got the paragraphs the way I need them.
However, I made a mistake: I need the footnotes in 11pt and single-spaced.
I do know both of the packages you mentioned. However, I have no clue how to connect that with /footnote .

The mathptmx package globally switches to a Times font. setspace (instead of \linespread) restores single spacing in footnotes.

And yes, I was talking about the MLA package, sorry about the mistake.

I've looked at it, it seems to be quite simple. You can just copy the parts you want and adjust them to your needs. For example, the following code contains the definition of the "Works Cited" environment:

Code: Select all

\newcommand{\bibent}{\noindent \hangindent 40pt}
\newenvironment{workscited}{\newpage \begin{center} Works Cited \end{center}}{\newpage }

(I would suggest changing \newpage to \clearpage, because the latter takes unplaced floats into account)

What would be useful perhapst is the following:

Code: Select all

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,oneside,onecolumn]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}                              % Damit die Tastatur Umlaute tippen kann
\usepackage[english]{babel}                              % Damit Latex Umlaute setzen kann
%%% This has nothing to do with babel. babel allows you to switch between different languages. So if you want English and German (new spelling), use "english, ngerman" (the last one is the default language). It is better to put the languages in the class option list to allow other packages to see them. What is more important for non-ASCII characters is a font encoding declaration: \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{graphicx}                                    % Damit Bilder eingefügt werden können
%\usepackage{bibgerm}                                     % Damit das Literaturverzeichnis deutsch ist (?)v
\usepackage{mla}
\usepackage{pdfpages}                                    % Damit man PDFs einbinden kann
%\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.5}                     % Zeilenabstand
\usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace}
%\onehalfspacing{}
%\usepackage{txfonts}
\usepackage{mathptmx}                                     % Times New Roman
\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}
\usepackage{courier}
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{a4paper,left=40mm,right=25mm, top=25mm, bottom=25mm}% Ränder
%\usepackage[small,compact]{titlesec}                       % macht section kleiner. wie kriege ich das ganz weg?
%%% What do you mean? If you don't want sections, just don't use a \section command ;-)
 \renewcommand{\footnotesize}{\fontsize{11pt}}


\begin{document}
\includepdf[page=1]{DeckblattSeminar.pdf}              % Titelseite; muss PDF sein.

\pagenumbering{arabic}                                 % Aufruf setzt Nummerierung zurück
\settowidth\parindent{\ \ \ \ \ }                      %Setzt automatisch fünf Leerzeichen Einzug für neuen Absatz
%\section{}  So kriege ich Section  ganz weg.

I added a few comments (starting with %%%).

[phi]

Code: Select all

\renewcommand{\footnotesize}{\fontsize{11}{13}\selectfont}

Actually, the original command for \footnotesize (in scrsize12pt.clo or size12.clo) is a bit more complex:

Code: Select all

\def\footnotesize{%
   \@setfontsize\footnotesize\@xpt\@xiipt
   \abovedisplayskip 10\p@ \@plus2\p@ \@minus5\p@
   \abovedisplayshortskip \z@ \@plus3\p@
   \belowdisplayshortskip 6\p@ \@plus3\p@ \@minus3\p@
   \def\@listi{\leftmargin\leftmargini
               \topsep 6\p@ \@plus2\p@ \@minus2\p@
               \parsep 3\p@ \@plus2\p@ \@minus\p@
               \itemsep \parsep}%
  \belowdisplayskip \abovedisplayskip
}

This sets, apart from the font size and baseline skip, various parameters regarding distances between paragraphs and displayed equations, and list environments.
For KOMA-Script, I would suggest to use the included font mechanism:

Code: Select all

\addtokomafont{footnote}{\small}

("\small" is 11 pt, with 13.6 pt baseline skip)