Mostly Dec. 2016 to Jan. 2017
This repo backs up TEX templates, configuration files, Bash scripts I use personally, and several related explanatory notes.
The .vimrc is a plain text file that holds desired settings to be initialized in Vim. (Here rc means "run commands", a phrase originated in Unix-like systems.) It specifies read-and-write settings, search-and-replace options, self-defined shortcuts, user-implemented functions, and more. If saved in the current user's home, it is read in runtime, and applied by, Vim.
The .bash_profile consists only one line, namely one that sources .bashrc if the latter exists.
The .bashrc includes all my custom appearances, shortcuts, functions, variables, and more, for the Bash shell.
The template-Latin.tex is the LaTeX template I use for my writings, either personal or scholastic, but without Chinese. It contains custom abbreviations, the load of important packages, preferred appearances, self-implemented functions and more.
The LaTeX documents based on this template is intended to be compiled into .pdf format by the pdflatex script, which is a wrapper of the compiler pdftex. The pdflatex is already included in MacTeX distribution, which I installed on my MacBook Air.
I set another alias Pdflatex to call a short script I wrote with specification of options. To compile with that, enter Pdflatex <file-name>.
The template-CJK.tex is the LaTeX template I use for Chinese writings. It is mostly taken from the above mentioned template of Latin languages, but rid of unnecessary packages or what packages I observed to have resulted conflict. The xeCJK package is included to facilitate typesetting of Chinese.
The XeLaTeX documents based on this template is intended to be compiled into .pdf format by the xelatex script, which is a wrapper of the compiler xetex. The xelatex is already included in MacTeX distribution, which I installed on my MacBook Air.
I set another alias Xelatex to call a short script I wrote with specification of options. To compile with that, enter Xelatex <file-name>.
The pandoc is a versatile document converter. For my purpose, I let pandoc generate a .pdf from a .md (Markdown). Here actually an intermediate LaTeX file was first prepared, and then one LaTeX engine is called; valid options are either pdflatex, lualatex, and xelatex. (Thus pandoc requires that engine be installed in advance).
The pandoc has a default LaTeX template for that. We can cat that in the console output, with a prewritten command:
pandoc -D latex > copy_default.latex
In case one need include other packages or define other commands, he or she only has to revise the template and specify its location. I have copied the modified template into this repo, by which anyone are able to re-compile my writings.
To reduce potential conflicts between packages and enhance portability, I have only included those absolutely necessary. For example, the \mathscr is commonly used, which requires mathrsfs package, and is thus called. And, as I write in Chinese, which requires xelatex engine, the xeCJK package is called.
I set another alias Pandoc to call a short script I wrote with specification of options. To compile with that, enter Pandoc <file-name>.
Some scripts build Markdown and TeX formats. Other scripts organize and automate these tasks, and avoid repeating unnecessary steps. In fact, I wrote them with the intention of playing the same role as makefiles.
To enhance code reuse, I have saved the specification of compilers and the building process in different files. When compiling from a particular directory, I shall simply include the maker scripts in this repo.
Many points I suddenly grasp while preparing all these materials, are too long to be included in this README. I have made each a self-containing note. Many information is not easily found in Google (at least at first glance), and I wish to share with others what I have comprehended by making them public.