LaTeX authoring

Write, compile, debug and check LaTeX manuscripts with a modular layout, a clean build and verified citations.

Layout and style

• Split the paper: main.tex (class, packages, \input of sections), macros.tex (notation, defined once), references.bib, sections/, figures/, tables/ (one file per table). Never one big .tex.
• Load hyperref late, then cleveref right after it.
• align/align* for multi-line equations, never $$ or eqnarray; number only equations the text cites.
• booktabs tables with no vertical rules; numbers right-aligned.
• Floats [t!], and \FloatBarrier at section ends so figures stay in their section.

Persian and English with XeLaTeX

For Babel Farsi (RTL) with English (LTR):

• Put a blank line before every LTR environment (\begin{otherlanguage}{english}, \begin{LTR}) so the RTL paragraph ends first; this prevents the \endL or \endR error.
• Define the English typewriter font in the preamble:

  \babelfont{tt}[]{DejaVu Sans Mono}
  \babelfont[english]{tt}[]{DejaVu Sans Mono}

• When editing .tex files from Python, never write \b in a normal string: "\babelfont" becomes a backspace plus abelfont, and XeLaTeX draws empty boxes. Use r"\babelfont" or "\\babelfont".
• B Nazanin cannot draw the text bullet (U+2022), so redefine list bullets as math symbols, which use the math fallback font:

  \renewcommand{\labelitemi}{$\bullet$}
  \renewcommand{\labelitemii}{$-$}
  \renewcommand{\labelitemiii}{$\ast$}
  \renewcommand{\labelitemiv}{$\cdot$}

• Wrap every English word inside Persian text in \eng{...} (for example \newcommand{\eng}[1]{\foreignlanguage{english}{#1}}), and every Latin name or word in math in \mathrm{...} or \text{\eng{...}}; otherwise it falls back to the Persian font and renders as empty squares.
• B Nazanin draws the zero-width non-joiner (U+200C) as a square; replace each ZWNJ with a space.

Compile

latexmk -pdf -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error main.tex      # pdfLaTeX
latexmk -xelatex -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error main.tex  # XeLaTeX, Persian and English

A clean build has no undefined references (??) and no missing citations. When it fails, filter the log instead of reading it:

rg -A 3 -B 1 '^!|LaTeX Warning|Package.*Warning' main.log | rg -v 'fontspec' | head -n 40

Citations

1. Give every entry a doi, an eprint or its exact venue. Never invent authors, titles or entries.
2. Use full fields: author, title, booktitle or journal, volume, pages, year, doi.
3. Find duplicate keys: rg -o '^@[a-zA-Z]+\{[^,]+' references.bib | sort | uniq -d.
4. After a successful build, compare bibliography keys with the keys cited in all .aux files (or the .bcf file for Biber), counting \nocite. Report unused keys; remove them only when cleanup is in scope. A syntax check does not prove usage, and failed checks stay visible in the report.

Render and open

1. Render pages and inspect them for overfull boxes, float collisions and missing glyphs:

   mkdir -p /tmp/paper_renders && pdftoppm -png -r 150 -f 1 -l 3 main.pdf /tmp/paper_renders/page

2. Open the PDF for the user with the environment's opener and confirm the viewer started.