To supplement your skill you must also cook up small documents in the interim, such as letters, invoices, birthday cards, one-off proofs and satirical pieces.
Stefan Kottwitz’ Cookbook was of good help for these tasks, and in doing these things you will keep touching up your knife’s blade.
Here are some silly rookie challenges I opted to do in \(\TeX\):
This was my first voyeur into splitting my source code up into multiple files, much in the way we do for any good computer program.
I produced a pocket version of the easy-to-forget rules in Ultimate Frisbee
Here is the directory structure
[rpi@rpi treatises]$ tree frisbee
frisbee
├── 0-field.tex
├── 1-summary.tex
├── 2-definitions.tex
├── 3a-pull.tex
├── 3b-stall.tex
├── 3c-stoppages.tex
├── 3d-misc.tex
├── 4-fouls.tex
├── 4-turnovers.tex
├── 5-fouls.tex
├── 5-infractions.tex
├── 6-infractions.tex
├── 6-violations.tex
├── 7-violations.tex
├── 8-handsignals.tex
├── rules.aux
├── rules.log
├── rules.pdf
└── rules.tex
\documentclass[twoside]{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{rotating}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[UTF8]{ctex}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage[top=0mm,bottom=0mm,right=0mm,left=0mm]{geometry}
\newcommand\tab[1][1cm]{\hspace*{#1}}
\newcommand{\rom}[1]{\uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral #1\relax}}
\newfontfamily\greekfont[Scale=MatchUppercase,Ligatures=TeX]{Kerkis}
\newcommand{\textgreek}[1]
{\bgroup\greekfont{#1}\egroup} % Greek text
\fancyhf{}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\fancyfoot[RE]{
\begin{minipage}{0.25\textwidth}
\centering
為而不恃，功成而弗居。
\end{minipage}
}
\fancyfoot[LE]{
\begin{minipage}{0.1\textwidth}
\small
\raggedleft
\rom{1} / \rom{10}
\end{minipage}
}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\begin{document}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.49\paperheight]{0.94\textwidth}
\vspace*{1em}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\hspace*{-0.5cm}
\begin{minipage}[b]{0.52\textwidth}
\input{2-definitions}
\end{minipage}
\hspace*{0.6cm}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.48\textheight]{0.45\textwidth}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.22\textheight]{\textwidth}
\input{0-field}
\end{minipage}
\vspace*{3cm}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.22\textheight]{\textwidth}
\input{1-summary}
\end{minipage}
\end{minipage}
\end{multicols}
\end{minipage}
\begin{turn}{180}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.49\paperheight]{0.94\textwidth}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.45\textheight]{0.46\textwidth}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.22\textheight]{\textwidth}
\input{3a-pull}
\end{minipage}
\vspace*{1.5cm}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.22\textheight]{\textwidth}
\input{3c-stoppages}
\end{minipage}
\end{minipage}
\hspace*{0.35cm}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.45\textheight]{0.46\textwidth}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.22\textheight]{\textwidth}
\input{3b-stall}
\end{minipage}
\vspace*{2.2cm}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.22\textheight]{\textwidth}
\input{3d-misc}
\end{minipage}
\end{minipage}
\end{multicols}
\begin{center}[4]\end{center}
\end{minipage}
\end{turn}
\newpage
\newgeometry{top=0mm,bottom=10mm,right=0mm,left=0mm,includeheadfoot}
\begin{multicols}{3}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.95\paperheight]{1in}
\input{8-handsignals}
\end{minipage}
\hspace*{-5cm}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.9\textheight]{0.38\textwidth}
\input{4-fouls}
\end{minipage}
\hspace*{-3.5cm}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.9\textheight]{0.38\textwidth}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.45\textheight]{\textwidth}
\input{5-infractions}
\end{minipage}
\vspace*{5cm}
\begin{minipage}[t][0.45\textheight]{\textwidth}
\input{6-violations}
\end{minipage}
\end{minipage}
\end{multicols}
\end{document}
In an attempt to continue producing increasingly sophisticated \(\TeX\) I produced some Mathematics booklets for Year 7’s and 8’s that mimicked the Cambridge ICE-EM NSW Mathematics series.
In essence, I was fleshing out entire textbooks into interactive booklets with space to write. As a result I learned to effectively produce figures and leverage the exam class.
I also learned how to produce far larger documents, with some booklets nearing 50 pages in length to satisfy 3 hours of tuition.
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