Tips and Tricks for LaTeX, mostly concerned with squeezing space!

%% keep figures from going onto a page by themselves 
\renewcommand{\topfraction}{0.85}
\renewcommand{\textfraction}{0.1}
\renewcommand{\floatpagefraction}{0.75}

%% make lists small
\newcommand{\denselist}{\itemsep 0pt\topsep-6pt\partopsep-6pt}

%% make section headings take up less space ("medium" can be replaced by "small" or "big")
\usepackage[medium,compact]{titlesec}

%% a trick that makes the title take up less space for many style files (but not article)
\addtolength{\titlebox}{-1.8cm}

%% print a diagram showing the names of all constants related to margins etc.
\usepackage{layout}
\layout

%% make a paragraph one line shorter without deleting any words!  Put the following at the beginning, the wrap the paragraph in {}
\looseness=-1

%% make the whole document shorter--this one is very powerful.  Experiment with the number; 0.97 will do a lot and looks OK
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{0.97}


%% densify spacing in bibliographies
\newcommand{\bibfix}{%    PUT \bibfix in file.bbl after first line
    \setlength{\parsep}{\parskip}%
    \setlength{\itemsep}{0cm}%
    \setlength{\topsep}{\parskip}%
    \setlength{\parskip}{0cm}%
    \setlength{\partopsep}{0cm}%
    \setlength{\listparindent}{\parindent}%
    \setlength{\labelwidth}{10pt}%
    \setlength{\labelsep}{0pt}%
    \setlength{\leftskip}{0pt}%
    \setlength{\leftmargin}{0pt}%
}

%% change margins
\setlength{\textwidth}{7in}
\setlength{\textheight}{8.75in}
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-0.25in}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{-0.25in}
\setlength{\headsep}{10pt}

%% get an actual tilde (~) in latex without resorting to $\sim$:
\textasciitilde

%% make vertical rubber space \vfill % this makes a pre-defined amount of rubber space. It's equivalent to \vspace\fill \vskip 10pt % this makes a fixed amount. It's a TeX command, so no curly braces.

Useful links:

• http://www-h.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/tpl/textprocessing/squeeze.html
• http://amath.colorado.edu/documentation/LaTeX/reference/layout.html

-- Main.kevinlb - 13 Apr 2005