The LaTeX Companion, Second Edition

Appendix A. A LaTeX Overview for Preamble, Package, and Class Writers

This appendix gives an overview of the basic programming concepts underlying the LaTeX formatter. We explain how to define new commands and environments, including those with an optional argument. We discuss how LaTeX handles counters and their representation; we also introduce horizontal and vertical space parameters and explain how they are handled. The second section reviews the important subject of (La)TeX boxes and their use. A good understanding of this topic is very important to fully appreciate and exploit the information presented in this book. The third section is devoted to two package files, calc and ifthen, that make calculations and building control structures ...