[Tex/LaTex] Nice template for writing a speech

templates

The title says it all. I think that a beautiful speech deserves to be written in a beautiful template. I can just simply take a basic article or something alike and type the speech, but as a LaTeX geek, I would like the speech to look wonderful. Possibilities for margin notes would be appreciated, they might give some clues to improvise in the middle of the speech.

Best Answer

You want your speech to look "wonderful", and "wonderfulness" is subjective. In my case, wonderfulness and sobriety are almost synonymous; below I present a possibility.

You can take the article document class and do some little customizations. In the following example I chose the article document class and use the following settings and packages:

Font size 11pt (or perhaps 12pt) to facilitate reading.
The geometry package for the page layout: a5paper, narrow right margin, generous left margin for marginal notes.
The marginnote package to typeset marginal notes: using \marginnote, marginal notes are not floats. \reversemarginpar to guarantee marginal notes on the left margin.
The parskip package: I think that for a speech is convenient to have some vertical spacing between paragraphs and with no indentation for their first lines.
The fwlw (first word, last word) package and its NextWordFoot page style: having the possibility to read ahead to the word on the next page can be helpful.
The micro-typographic features provided by the microtype package.
A nice font: I choose librebaskerville.

The code:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[a5paper,lmargin=3.5cm,rmargin=25pt,bmargin=0.8cm,includefoot]{geometry}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{parskip}
\usepackage{microtype}
\usepackage{marginnote}
\usepackage{fwlw}
\usepackage{librebaskerville}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to generate text for the example

\pagestyle{NextWordFoot}
\reversemarginpar
\renewcommand*\marginfont{\footnotesize}

\begin{document}
Some text\marginnote{Some initial remark here}
\lipsum[1]
\lipsum*[4]\marginnote{Remember to mention something at this point}
\lipsum*[2]\marginnote{Don't forget to mention some people here}\lipsum[5]
\lipsum[4]
\end{document}

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Template for Standard Operating Procedures

This isn't everything you're looking for, but it's a start, and hopefully will give you an idea of how easily document class customization can start out. Mind you, I'm not going to worry much about emulating bad habits from the Word document, but focus on simple semantic content and formatting.

Let's start with some minimal content from your PDF:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\title{Personal Protective Clothing Level}
\date{7/24/08}
\author{Harper}
\begin{document}

\maketitle

\section{Procedures}

\subsection{Structure Fires}
\begin{enumerate}
\item All firefighters operating in the ``hot zone'' of a structure fire will be in
full turnouts to include coat, pants, helmet, hood, gloves and boots. When operating
in an IDLH atmosphere an SCBA shall be worn.

\item Engineers when operating close to the incident and exposed to products of
combustion shall also be in full PPE including SCBA. If outside the ``hot zone''
engineers will be allowed to modify their PPE accordingly. If the Engineer is
considered to be a part of the RIT team, then full PPE including an SCBA shall be
worn.
\end{enumerate}

\end{document}

Using the standard article class as given, you get page content that looks like

enter image description here

After writing a (relatively) simple document class based off article, the same content (with \documentclass[12pt]{sop} and \approved{Chief Harper} instead of \documentclass[12pt]{article}, you get page content that looks like

enter image description here

and

enter image description here

The file sop.cls that created this layout is:

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\ProvidesClass{sop}[2011/07/08 v0.2 Modified article class for standard operating procedures]
% https://stackoverflow.com/questions/581916/how-do-you-extend-article-document-class-in-latex

% Passes and class options to the underlying article class
\DeclareOption*{\PassOptionsToClass{\CurrentOption}{article}}
\ProcessOptions
\LoadClass{article}

% Redefine the page margins
\RequirePackage[left=1in,right=1in,top=1in,bottom=1in]{geometry}

% Modifications to the section titles
\RequirePackage{titlesec}
\renewcommand{\thesection}{\Roman{section}}
\titleformat{\section}{\normalfont\bfseries}
  {\makebox[3em][l]{\thesection{}.}}{0pt}{}
\titleformat{\subsection}{\normalfont\bfseries}
  {}{0pt}{}

% Modification of title block
\RequirePackage{titling}
\RequirePackage{multirow}
\newcommand{\approved}[1]{\newcommand{\theapproved}{#1}}
% Ref: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3988/titlesec-versus-titling-mangling-thetitle
\let\oldtitle\title
\renewcommand{\title}[1]{\oldtitle{#1}\newcommand{\mythetitle}{#1}}
\renewcommand{\maketitle}{%
\begin{tabular}{|c|p{2in}|l|l|} \hline
\multirow{3}{*}{logo} & \multicolumn{1}{p{2.5in}|}{\centering Mammoth Lakes Fire Protection District } & Date: \thedate & Number: \\ \cline{2-4}
& \multicolumn{1}{p{2.5in}|}{\centering Standard Operating Procedure } & \multicolumn{2}{p{2.5in}|}{Title: \mythetitle} \\ \cline{2-4}
& Approved By: \theapproved & \multicolumn{2}{l|}{Revision Date: \quad / \quad / \quad} \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
}

% For "Page N of M"
\RequirePackage{lastpage}
% For easier construction of page headers/footers
\RequirePackage{fancyhdr}
\fancypagestyle{plain}{ % for first page
\fancyhf{}
\fancyfoot[L]{\framebox{Author: \theauthor}\\ \jobname{}.tex} 
\fancyfoot[R]{\framebox{Page: \thepage{} of \pageref*{LastPage}}}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}
}

\pagestyle{fancy} % for other pages
\fancyhf{}
\fancyhead[R]{%
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|} \hline %
Revision Date: & Number: \\
\quad / \quad / \quad & \\ \hline
\end{tabular}%
}
\fancyfoot[L]{\framebox{Author: \theauthor}}
\fancyfoot[R]{\framebox{Page: \thepage{} of \pageref*{LastPage}}} % \pageref* if we use hyperref, \pageref otherwise
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}

% For easier customization of itemized, enumerated, and other lists
\RequirePackage{enumitem}
% For hyperlinked cross-references
\RequirePackage{hyperref}
% Ensure first page is correct style
\thispagestyle{plain}
% That's all, folks!
\endinput

See this SO question for where I got started with this.

[Tex/LaTex] Problem using a LaTeX template for writing thesis

\typein asks for input on run. While running the unmodified file, you'd get the following question:

Enter file names to process, (chap1,chap2 ...), or `all' to process all files:

\files=

At this point you'd have to enter all to include all files.

If you always want to include all files, replace this:

\typein [\files]{Enter file names to process, (chap1,chap2 ...), or `all' to process all files:}

with this:

\def\files{all}

This way you can always change the included files by changing the definition. It for some reason you'll never do that you can remove (or comment out) this part entirely:

\typein [\files]{Enter file names to process, (chap1,chap2 ...), or `all' to process all files:}
\def\all{all}
\ifx\files\all \typeout{Including all files.} \else \typeout{Including only \files.} \includeonly{\files} \fi

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Template for Standard Operating Procedures

[Tex/LaTex] Problem using a LaTeX template for writing thesis

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