org-mode

Only headlines can become TODO items. By adding the word TODO to the beginning of the headline, it becomes a TODO item. E.g.,

*** TODO Write letter to Sam Fortune

In contrast, by adding the word DONE to the beginning, the headline becomes a DONE item.

C-c C-t (M-x org-todo): Rotate the TODO state cycle, TODO -> DONE -> (unmarked).

Progress Logging

C-u C-c C-t (org-mode with a C-u prefix): When called at an unmarked or TODO headline, change it to the next state, prompt a interactive buffer for a note of this change, and record the time. The note and time is inserted as a list below the head line.

Automatic logging: See

• Closing items: automatically log time, etc.

Plain lists item can be made into a checkbox by starting it with the string [ ]. Done checkbox starts with [X]. Note that X is in capital letter. Intermediate checkbox starts with [-].

C-c C-c (org-toggle-checkbox): Rotate the cycle [ ] -> [X] (Note no unmarked status).

• With a single prefix argument, change unmarked item to [ ], or marked item to unmarked one.
• With two single prefix arguments, set it to intermediate state.

By adding [/] or [%] anywhere in the parent headline, it can capture the fraction or percentage of DONE items in the children headlines. The parent headline itself can be a TODO/DONE item or an unmarked item. The statistics is updated each time the TODO status of a child is changed through C-c C-t, or when pressing C-c C-c at the parent headline.

This can be applied to checkboxes too. By adding [/] or [%] anywhere in the text, it can track the checkboxes in the lists below that position.

To use xelatex: Add

#+LATEX_COMPILER: xelatex

or set it through org-latex-compiler.

Reference:

• https://orgmode.org/manual/Previewing-LaTeX-fragments.html

The preview is based on the LaTeX configuration specified by the variables

• org-format-latex-options: Appearance and math delimiters.
• org-format-latex-header: LaTeX preamble used. Packages used (a placeholder in this variable) are specified by org-latex-default-packages-alist and org-latex-packages-alist (these two define packages used in every file).
  • Editting these packages-alist allows you to introduce packages, but to use macros you still need to modify org-format-latex-header.
  • Alternatively, you could create your own sty file (in which both packages and macros are specified) and put them in the registered directory (for MacTeX, general answer). My practice is to put my sty file under ~/Library/texmf/tex/latex.

C-c C-x C-l (org-latex-preview) to preview the fragment at point. If there is no fragment at point, process all fragments in the current entry—between two headlines.

The preview process to convert LaTeX fragments to image files is defined by org-preview-latex-default-process (dvipng by default). The preview images are located at org-preview-latex-image-directory.

Suggestions on markup language conversion:

• org-mode to LaTeX:
  • The org-mode export back-end:
    • Good: Tidy and elegant LaTeX code, by default using very basic packages only.
    • Bad: The labels are by default random indices. (can be adjusted by org-latex-prefer-user-labels).
  • Pandoc: Requires extra packages. E.g., longtable for tables, \tightlist in itemize.
  • The org-mode back-end is in general better (more specialized and native).
• between lightweight languages like org-mode and markdown, or from heavyweight languages to lightweight ones: Pandoc does a great job. E.g., from markdown to org-mode, the custom ids of headlines will be automatically generated from the headline words.
• With this in mind, a better way to convert markdown to LaTeX might be (1) markdown to org-mode using pandoc, and (2) org-mode to LaTeX using org-mode.

Org options:

• org-html-with-latex controls the exporter used to process LaTeX fragments. By default, it uses MathJax, whose rendering effect cannot compete with LaTeX generated images. Otherwise, it can use any symbol defined in the following variable:
• org-preview-latex-process-alist:

  • the :image-size-adjust attribute controls image size. The docstring reads “users should use variable org-format-latex-options instead.” Adjust the html-scale property in that variable. E.g.,

    (setq org-format-latex-options (plist-put org-format-latex-options ':html-scale 0.8))
    

  • the :latex-header controls the header used to generate images. Leave it as nil, so that the fallback value is used instead, which is controlled by org-format-latex-header, org-latex-default-packages-alist and org-latex-packages-alist. Basically, these are the same configurations for previewing LaTeX. See the LaTeX section.

• I experimented and found that using the dvisvgm option for org-html-with-latex, i.e.,

  (setq org-html-with-latex 'dvisvgm)
  

  achieves the best quality, but the rendering speed is much slower than mathjax.

HTML Rendering:

• Vertical alignment of LaTeX-generated SVG with the surrounding text can be a problem: Wikipedia
• Wikipedia’s work-around

Reference:

• https://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucahjde/blog/thm-and-proof.html/thm-and-proof.html
• https://drz.ac/2013/01/17/latex-theorem-like-environments-for-the-web/