How do you "skip lines" in LaTex
Ray
How do you "skip lines" in LaTex. Specifically, I would like to
include a blank line between a centered title (using \begin{center}...
\end{center}) and the first line of text. When I tried to do this
using the "\\" as a line skip, LaTex gave me an error indicating that
"there's no line here to end." What am I doing wrong?
Thank you,
Ray Levitt
Lars Madsen
in general \\ should NEVER be used in normal text (in most cases users
do not need to do manual line breaks in normal text)
\end{center} already adds blank space after its contents, do you need more?
--
/daleif (remove RTFSIGNATURE from email address)
LaTeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
LaTeX book: http://www.imf.au.dk/system/latex/bog/ (in Danish)
Remember to post minimal examples, see URL below
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=minxampl
http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/mini-en.html
Olive
To achieve your purpose, I have defined:
\def\wl{\par \vspace{\baselineskip}}
Then you just use \wl to have a blank line.
Olive
Zeissmann
LaTeX (and TeX for that matter) doesn't let you insert ,,blank lines''.
That's because it's a bad practice to separate the body of the text by
blanks. It's simply not the philosophy of TeX to do that and it's an
indicator of an MS Word user. To insert some space in between a title and
the underneath text you can do one of the following:
1. Insert a \smallskip, \medskip or \bigskip which basically are equal to
some default amount of glue, which is capable of streatch -- they differ
in the amount of glue.
2. Leave a blank line in the source (*.tex) file, which TeX should
interpret as some glue -- this is AFAIK the same as \medskip.
3. The most hideous way is to place a \vspace{} which lets you place
exactly the amount of glue you want -- but I wouldn't do that if I were
you.
There may be more methods, but they are less standard.
zappathustra
>
>> How do you "skip lines" in LaTex. Specifically, I would like to include
>> a blank line between a centered title (using \begin{center}...
>> \end{center}) and the first line of text. When I tried to do this using
>> the "\\" as a line skip, LaTex gave me an error indicating that "there's
>> no line here to end." What am I doing wrong?
> LaTeX (and TeX for that matter) doesn't let you insert ,,blank lines''.
> That's because it's a bad practice to separate the body of the text by
> blanks.
Where does that come from?
> It's simply not the philosophy of TeX to do that and it's an
> indicator of an MS Word user.
White space in the middle of a text? I didn't know MS Word was as old as
typography.
> To insert some space in between a title and
> the underneath text you can do one of the following:
>
> 1. Insert a \smallskip, \medskip or \bigskip which basically are equal to
> some default amount of glue, which is capable of streatch -- they differ
> in the amount of glue.
> 2. Leave a blank line in the source (*.tex) file, which TeX should
> interpret as some glue -- this is AFAIK the same as \medskip.
A blank line in the source is a paragraph, hence \parskip is inserted.
Which is not sure to produce any space, and if it does, the amount can
change from page to page.
> 3. The most hideous way is to place a \vspace{} which lets you place
> exactly the amount of glue you want -- but I wouldn't do that if I were
> you.
>
> There may be more methods, but they are less standard.
The \vspace method, i.e. \vskip method in TeX, is basically the best
one, if the user is asking for a blank line, which is an amount of glue
taking as much space as a line. Which is still one of the most used
methods (not only by MS Word users) to separate paragraphs if needed,
and the best (as far as I'm concerned), since it avoids unpredictable
space between paragraphs.
Of course, the \vskip\baselineskip is best wrapped in a macro, because
that makes life simpler.
Paul
Zeissmann
>> LaTeX (and TeX for that matter) doesn't let you insert ,,blank lines''.
>> That's because it's a bad practice to separate the body of the text by
>> blanks.
>
> Where does that come from?
From good practice I suppose? Placing empty lines isn't the right way to
have a vertical white space in a text. Lines are for writing not for
separating. That's why TeX doesn't give you an easy way to insert blank
lines in text. Of course you can do almost anything in TeX -- therefore
this as well -- but that doesn't make it the right thing to do.
> White space in the middle of a text? I didn't know MS Word was as old as
> typography.
It's not. That's why it lets you use a BLANK LINE as a white space. For
inserting WHITE SPACE TeX has different tools.
>> 2. Leave a blank line in the source (*.tex) file, which TeX should
>> interpret as some glue -- this is AFAIK the same as \medskip.
>
> A blank line in the source is a paragraph, hence \parskip is inserted.
> Which is not sure to produce any space, and if it does, the amount can
> change from page to page.
I admit, I got a little confused on this one.
> The \vspace method, i.e. \vskip method in TeX, is basically the best
> one, if the user is asking for a blank line, which is an amount of glue
> taking as much space as a line. Which is still one of the most used
> methods (not only by MS Word users) to separate paragraphs if needed,
> and the best (as far as I'm concerned), since it avoids unpredictable
> space between paragraphs.
OK, so maybe \vspace isn't the most hideous way, but still it's not the
tool for a standard white space because it takes any amount of glue you
feed it with. It's intended for non-standard spaces, like a reservation
for something to be added later in it's place. Of course Ray may want a
strange effect, like text starting halfway through the page...
> Of course, the \vskip\baselineskip is best wrapped in a macro, because
> that makes life simpler.
I agree, macros are useful...
Zeissmann
Dan Luecking
<Zeis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Dnia Fri, 10 Dec 2010 07:13:03 -0800, Ray napisa?(a):
>
>> How do you "skip lines" in LaTex. Specifically, I would like to include
>> a blank line between a centered title (using \begin{center}...
>> \end{center}) and the first line of text. When I tried to do this using
>> the "\\" as a line skip, LaTex gave me an error indicating that "there's
>> no line here to end." What am I doing wrong?
>
>LaTeX (and TeX for that matter) doesn't let you insert ,,blank lines''.
>That's because it's a bad practice to separate the body of the text by
>blanks. It's simply not the philosophy of TeX to do that and it's an
>indicator of an MS Word user. To insert some space in between a title and
>the underneath text you can do one of the following:
>
>1. Insert a \smallskip, \medskip or \bigskip which basically are equal to
>some default amount of glue, which is capable of streatch -- they differ
>in the amount of glue.
Most article and chapter titles are separated from the
text by considerably more than \bigskip. I hold in my
hand a math text from Springer-Verlag that puts 1cm
space below each chapter title. And now another that
puts 2cm below chapter titles (and 1cm below even
section titles).
>2. Leave a blank line in the source (*.tex) file, which TeX should
>interpret as some glue -- this is AFAIK the same as \medskip.
It adds \parskip of space, which is 0pt plus 1pt by
default. Much less than \medskip.
>3. The most hideous way is to place a \vspace{} which lets you place
>exactly the amount of glue you want -- but I wouldn't do that if I were
>you.
This is actually THE way (the only way) to put space
after a title. Most LaTeX document classes have a
\maketitle command which, as expected, contains the
relevant \vspace as part of its definition.
Dan
To reply by email, change LookInSig to luecking
Dan Luecking
<dal...@RTFMSIGNATUREimf.au.dk> wrote:
>Ray wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> How do you "skip lines" in LaTex. Specifically, I would like to
>> include a blank line between a centered title (using \begin{center}...
>> \end{center}) and the first line of text. When I tried to do this
>> using the "\\" as a line skip, LaTex gave me an error indicating that
>> "there's no line here to end." What am I doing wrong?
>>
>> Thank you,
>> Ray Levitt
>
>in general \\ should NEVER be used in normal text (in most cases users
>do not need to do manual line breaks in normal text)
He is talking about a "centered title", which almost
always *requires* a user to use \\ for best appearance.
Of course, \\ is for breaking lines, not adding space.
Between paragraphs it doesn't work. At the end of a
paragraph it works, but creates an "underfull hbox"
warning.
zappathustra
>
>>> LaTeX (and TeX for that matter) doesn't let you insert ,,blank lines''.
>>> That's because it's a bad practice to separate the body of the text by
>>> blanks.
>> Where does that come from?
> From good practice I suppose? Placing empty lines isn't the right way to
> have a vertical white space in a text. Lines are for writing not for
> separating. That's why TeX doesn't give you an easy way to insert blank
> lines in text. Of course you can do almost anything in TeX -- therefore
> this as well -- but that doesn't make it the right thing to do.
>
>> White space in the middle of a text? I didn't know MS Word was as old as
>> typography.
> It's not. That's why it lets you use a BLANK LINE as a white space. For
> inserting WHITE SPACE TeX has different tools.
Ok, let's say we got confused over white space/blank line. For me blank
line is an accurate description of a white space when it is supposed to
take the space of a line.
>>> 2. Leave a blank line in the source (*.tex) file, which TeX should
>>> interpret as some glue -- this is AFAIK the same as \medskip.
>> A blank line in the source is a paragraph, hence \parskip is inserted.
>> Which is not sure to produce any space, and if it does, the amount can
>> change from page to page.
> I admit, I got a little confused on this one.
>
>> The \vspace method, i.e. \vskip method in TeX, is basically the best
>> one, if the user is asking for a blank line, which is an amount of glue
>> taking as much space as a line. Which is still one of the most used
>> methods (not only by MS Word users) to separate paragraphs if needed,
>> and the best (as far as I'm concerned), since it avoids unpredictable
>> space between paragraphs.
> OK, so maybe \vspace isn't the most hideous way, but still it's not the
> tool for a standard white space because it takes any amount of glue you
> feed it with. It's intended for non-standard spaces, like a reservation
> for something to be added later in it's place. Of course Ray may want a
> strange effect, like text starting halfway through the page...
No, \vspace is used to add vertical space. The \bigskip, etc., you
mentionned, are nothing but \vspace's with fixed values (if \vspace is
just a wrapper for \vskip, that is, which I think it is). And you don't
need non-standard space to use it. There are three ways to add vertical
space: an empty box, a kern, or a vskip. An empty box doesn't make
sense, a kern makes sense in some situations, and a vskip is used
anywhere else. Again, \bigskip and others are just \vskip with
predefined lengths.
Paul
Zeissmann
> No, \vspace is used to add vertical space. The \bigskip, etc., you
> mentionned, are nothing but \vspace's with fixed values (if \vspace is
> just a wrapper for \vskip, that is, which I think it is). And you don't
> need non-standard space to use it. There are three ways to add vertical
> space: an empty box, a kern, or a vskip. An empty box doesn't make
> sense, a kern makes sense in some situations, and a vskip is used
> anywhere else. Again, \bigskip and others are just \vskip with
> predefined lengths.
That's true, \bigskip et al. are the same as \vskip to Xpt, etc. What I
mean to say is they were defined to use them for white spaces in the
first place. Their intended for the job. So of course you can put a \vskip
or \vspace. Still I consider putting a blank LINE something
unprofessional -- and that's precisely why the command "\\" doesn't work
on its own. Come to think of it, it's really more the question of
understanding what you're doing.
And an empty box does make sense. In fact \strut is an empty box.
Yours,
Zeissmann
Peter Flynn
> Hello,
>
> How do you "skip lines" in LaTex.
You specify them as part of a macro.
> Specifically, I would like to
> include a blank line between a centered title (using \begin{center}...
> \end{center}) and the first line of text.
A title for what? A section or subsection? Table? Figure? All of these
have their own special names, and packages to let you adjust the spacing
underneath them. Don't try to do it by hand...use a package.
> When I tried to do this
> using the "\\" as a line skip, LaTex gave me an error indicating that
> "there's no line here to end." What am I doing wrong?
Using \\. This is for prematurely ending a line in mid-paragraph, not
for inserting vertical white-space between paragraphs.
Tell us what kind of title it is, as there is probably a prewritten answer.
///Peter
