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Welcome to TeX.SX, the free, community driven Questions and Answers site for users of TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and related typesetting systems.

Here is some information to help you get started and to make your work with this site a pleasant experience for you and all other users.

  • This site is for Questions and answers and is not a forum. This means that there is a quite strict format enforced here. Please post an answerable question using the Ask Question button (after searching for existing similar questions first of course) or post a solution for an existing question as an answer post. Please do not start discussions or ask off-topic questions. You can also post comments to questions and answers to provide feedback. At first you can only comment on your own questions and their answers, but after you have gained a reputation of 50 you can comment everywhere. There is also chat for more casual posts.

  • Questions and answers can receive positive and negative votes to indicate their quality. Answers are sorted after the number of votes so that the better ones appear first. The votes that answers and questions receive also increase or decrease the reputation of the author of the post. With increasing reputation users will receive more and more privileges to do more things on the site.

  • The most useful answer that solved your problem should be accepted by clicking the tick/checkmark symbol to the left of the answer. This shows other people that this is "the correct answer" in your opinion and assigns points to the answerer and also you. The question will then be handled as "done" which is important for the housekeeping of the site. However, new answers can still be added and the question asker can accept a different answer at any time.

  • It is highly recommended to add a compilable, but minimal working example (MWE) that illustrates your problem. This way other users can compile it themselves, analyze error messages more closely and also easily implement and test their solutions before posting them. This allows also for full, compilable examples to be posted in the answers which are very helpful for the question asker and all other people with the same problem. Note that in (La)TeX, issues are often dependent on the packages used, and other people won't be able to provide much help if they don't know which packages you are using. Another reason for constructing a MWE is that you will often discover the source of your problem yourself just by trying to construct the example.

  • Post should be formatted correctly using the simple Markdown format. This ensures that the posts are easy to read. Here the most important formatting styles used on this site:

    • Format (La)TeX code as code blocks by indenting them with four spaces. The {} button (shortcut: CTRL+K) will do this for you.
    • Format inline code using backticks, e.g. write `\somecode` to produce \somecode. Instead of typing the backticks, you can also highlight \somecode and use the {} button (shortcut: CTRL+K).
      This format should also be used for single macro and environment names, package and class names as well as command line executables.
    • Please do not use "here" and "this" links to other questions and answers but insert the link directly. The site will format it automatically.
    • Error messages should be formatted as code blocks, not as quotations because they usually contain (La)TeX code which is more readable in this format.
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  • Please avoid opening and closing lines like "Hi" (already automatically removed) and "Thanks". Salutations, greetings and expressions of gratitude are already implied and only distract from the real question. Also the first two lines of the post will be displayed below the question title in the overview page and such lines will reduce the amount of useful information being displayed there. The author name is already displayed on the right site below the post, so there is no need for an extra signature line.

  • This is a serious, international site for high quality content. Please write in English and avoid leetspeak or similar things even if they are common in other places of the Internet. Non-native English speakers are very welcome and your English doesn't have to be perfect, but posts should show some basic effort. This will make your post readable to most people and greatly improves the chance of getting good answers. The fact that all posts are editable also means that other users may correct your English for you if necessary.

  • Please post rough ideas, suggestions and similar material as comments and reserve answers for actual solutions. You can edit your posts anytime to e.g. add more details to your question or to adjust your answer. Do not use long comment threads for longer or even medium sized discussions. Use chat instead. You can even open your own chat room if you want. Please note that everything here is open and all your chat messages will be archived and accessible to others (as long the room is not restricted by a moderator).

  • You can notify other users by adding comments to their posts or by adding their names after an @, i.e. @username in your comment. Note this only works for the first user mentioned this way and only if that user wrote a previous comment for the same post. The post author is always notified. Notifications also work in chat if the user posted a message there not too long ago. See When writing a comment, how do I ensure that the person it is addressed to gets notified? for more details.

  • There are three democratically elected moderators for this site. They can be notified about issues by flagging posts using the flag link below each post.

  • While you can post questions and answers as unregistered user, please consider registering your account. Otherwise you might create a new, different unregistered account with the same name and icon. Then you will not be able to edit your old posts or add comments to them. You can ask a moderator to merge such accounts.

  • Questions about the site itself should be asked on Meta.TeX.SX, not on the main site. Here the restrictions are lower and you are free to start discussions as long they are about how to run the site etc.

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  • 12
    IMHO all the "Welcome to tex.sx!" in the Text building blocks should link to this page. I might change them after a while. Jun 22, 2011 at 14:37
  • 1
    w/r/t point 1, we now show hints on answer meta.stackexchange.com/questions/86576/… try it yourself by using Incognito/Private/Anonymous browsing mode, then focusing an answer. Also you should know that comment and editing help are pre-expanded for all new users by default. Lead a horse to water, etc. Jun 26, 2011 at 12:26
  • 1
    I've added a link to this page to the FAQ main page (the moderators can only edit part of the FAQ: the rest is reserved for Jeff et al.)
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Jul 2, 2011 at 9:10
  • @Jeff: Perhaps we could have a link to this page in addition to the one for the FAQ in the 'New User' bar?
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Jul 2, 2011 at 9:16
  • 1
    @joseph that message cannot be customized at this time Jul 2, 2011 at 9:27
  • 1
    @Jeff: I was not sure, but thanks for the quick reply.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Jul 2, 2011 at 10:03
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    @MartinScharrer: I suggest adding something like You can separate multiple code blocks with an HTML-comment <!-- --> if theres no regular text between them., but I can't edit your text ({featured} tag needed …) :-/
    – Tobi
    Jan 3, 2014 at 14:41
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    Why do you say TeX.SX, not TeX.SE? Dec 31, 2014 at 21:33
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    @VahidDamanafshan: Words which start with "ex" are often abbreviated as "X" not "E". We just started to use "SX" here on this site, while on other sites there seem to use "SE". Jan 1, 2015 at 17:11
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    Usually people vote up because (the question is important and asks something that will be useful for many poeple. I think it's good to add this to the note. Now it states: "Questions and answers can receive positive and negative votes to indicate their quality."
    – Ho1
    Jul 29, 2015 at 12:14
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    @MartinScharrer should it be changed to tex.se to keep uniform with other sites? sx can't be rendered to magic link either
    – Ooker
    Dec 16, 2017 at 6:17
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    @Ooker: That would not be my decision but another meta discussion. Dec 16, 2017 at 9:23
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    @zixuan Did you see the longstanding discussion above re. 'SE' vs 'SX'?
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Feb 23, 2019 at 16:03
  • @JosephWright very weak comment: topanswers.xyz and I use the .SE heheee. Nov 9, 2021 at 4:55

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