TITLE: Custom .sty files in LaTeX
DATE: 2019-10-05
AUTHOR: John L. Godlee
====================================================================
Note, I updated this post on 2021-07-31, as my LaTeX template has
developed.
I've been slowly developing a nice looking generic LaTeX template
which I can use for notes and short reports. Up to now I've been
copying and pasting a chunk of preamble between documents and
tweaking it if I need to add anything particular for the document.
I thought it was time I experimented with modular document building
in advance of me writing my thesis next year, so I made a .sty
style file which holds the basic configuration. The .sty file
doesn't actually change very much of the formatting of a basic
article class document, but it does keep the packages I use
consistent. The difficult bit turned out not to be making the file
itself, but knowing where to put it and making sure that latexmk
knew where to find it. The file mynotes.sty looks like this:
% Declare package name
\ProvidesPackage{mynotes} % Give same name as .sty file
% Page geometry
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{left=2.54cm,
right=2.54cm,
top=2.54cm,
bottom=2.54cm}
\parskip 0.15cm
\setlength{\parindent}{0cm}
\usepackage{pdflscape}
% Font
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
% English language
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[UKenglish]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
% Image handling
\usepackage{graphicx} % Extended image support
\usepackage{float} % Graphics placement [H] [H!] arguments
\usepackage{caption} % Custom captions
\usepackage{subcaption} % Compound figures
\makeatletter
\g@addto@macro\@floatboxreset\centering % Automatically
centre images (floats)
\makeatother
% Tables
\usepackage{booktabs} % Sensible horizontal rules
\usepackage{multirow} % Tables with cells split over multiple
rows
\usepackage{longtable} % Tables spanning multiple pages
% Bibliography
\usepackage[natbib,
style=authoryear,
uniquename=false,
uniquelist=false,
giveninits=true,
dashed=false,
maxcitenames=2,
mincitenames=1,
minbibnames=10,
maxbibnames=10,
backend=biber]{biblatex}
\renewcommand*\finalnamedelim{\addspace\&\space}
% Text formatting
\usepackage{url} % Allow nice formatting of URLs in text
\usepackage{enumerate} % Enumerated lists
\usepackage{lineno} % Line numbers
\newcommand{\textapprox}{\raisebox{0.5ex}{\texttildelow}} %
Better tilde
\usepackage{siunitx} % Units
\usepackage{amsmath} % Math symbols
\usepackage[table]{xcolor} % text colours
\newcommand{\todo}[1]{\textcolor{red}{\textbf{#1}}} %
\todo{NOTE IN RED}
\usepackage{framed} % Framed boxes
\usepackage{microtype} % Improved text justification
\usepackage{listings} % Code input
\input{code_format} % Code styling
% Custom title formatting
\let\oldtitle\title
\renewcommand{\title}[1]{\oldtitle{\vspace{-1.5cm}#1}}
% Links
\usepackage[breaklinks]{hyperref}
\definecolor{links}{RGB}{191,59,72}
\hypersetup{
breaklinks,
colorlinks,
allcolors=links,
linktoc=section,
pdfauthor={John L. Godlee}
}
% Rename sections when cross-linking
\def\subsectionautorefname{section}
\def\subsubsectionautorefname{section}
Some potentially non-obvious bits of the code:
- \Providespackage{mynotes} gives the name of the package, which
can then be called in any document with \usepackage{mynotes}.
- \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} is a little tip I learned while
looking up LaTeX typefaces. I learned it from this SO question
- \g@addto@macro\@floatboxreset\centering globally centres
floats, without having to add \centering
- \newcommand{\textapprox}{\raisebox{0.5ex}{\texttildelow}}
provides a sensible tilde in text.
- \input{code_format} imports a style sheet for the lstlisting
environment
- \renewcommand{\title}[1]{\oldtitle{\vspace{-1.5cm}#1}} moves
the title created by \maketitle up a bit, to make the document more
compact.
- \def\subsectionautorefname{section} makes sure that
cross-references to subsections are just called "Section 5.1",
rather than "Subsection 5.1".
[this SO question]:
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/664/why-should-i-use-usepack
aget1fontenc
I found that I could make a custom ~/.latexmkrc with the following
contents, to tell latexmk where my custom templates folder was, in
this case ~/.texmf/:
ensure_path( 'TEXINPUTS', '~/.texmf//' );
