4 Herramientas básicas de formato - estructuras más grandes

While the previous chapter was concerned with micro-typography, this chapter now looks at commands and environments for formatting larger chunks of text.

Typesetting lists is the subject of the first part. We start with a discussion of the various parameters and commands controlling the standard LaTEX lists, enumerate, itemize, and description, followed by a brief look at LaTEX’s generic list capabilities. Then, the important enumitem package is discussed, which we recommend as a basis for many documents. The production of horizontally oriented lists is covered by the tasks package, the concept of “headed lists” is exemplified with the amsthm and thmtools packages and typed-checklist, helps you write and maintain check lists of various kinds. Together these should satisfy the structure and layout requirements of most readers.

The second part then explains how to simulate “verbatim” text. In particular, we take a detailed look at the powerful packages fancyvrb and listings.

The third part presents packages that deal with line numbering (lineno); handling of columns, such as parallel text in two columns (paracol); or solving the problem of producing multiple columns with multicol.

At the end we take a brief look at packages for generating sample texts. They are useful for testing layouts or for reporting bugs when you are asked to produce a so-called Minimal Working Example (MWE) to show your problem.