LaTeX Utilities submenu

This command provides access to each and every command on the LaTeX menu via the keyboard. It's a multi-step process, where the number of steps depend on whether you're using the long or short LaTeX menu: first, press <SHF CMD C> and choose a submenu from the list (using the arrow keys or by pressing the first letter of a submenu name). Next, choose another submenu from the list or the desired command, whichever is appropriate. Continue descending the LaTeX submenus until the desired command is found.

Use the Insert Literal Tab command, or better yet its command key <OPT TAB>, to insert a literal tab into the document. (This is the same command key used to insert a literal tab in other Alpha modes, by the way.) To insert a tab stop (i.e., a bullet) at the insertion point, choose the Insert Tab Stop command on the LaTeX Utilities submenu. On a U.S. keyboard, this character is bound to <OPT 8>, by default.

The Delete Tab Stops command deletes all tab stops (bullets) from the current document (or the current selection, if there is one). The Delete Comments command deletes all unnecessary comments from a LaTeX document (which is more difficult than you think). Using the Find dialog, the following three-step manual operation (try it!) will remove all comments from the current document:

The utility Delete Comments simply automates this process. Thanks to Craig Platt <platt@cc.umanitoba.ca> for posting this algorithm in the newsgroup comp.text.tex.

WARNING! The effects of Delete Comments can not be undone.

If there is a selection, Convert Quotes converts all straight quotes to curved quotes (LaTeX-style) within the selection; otherwise, it converts the entire document.

Plain TeX uses dollar signs to delimit math mode and displaymath mode. Since LaTeX inherits most, if not all of plain TeX's functionality, dollar signs work in LaTeX documents, too. Identical left and right delimiters are difficult to parse, however, and so any error messages will be misleading at best. That is why LaTeX has its own math mode delimiters and that's why they should be used. The Convert Dollar Signs command replaces all dollar signs in the current document (or the current selection, if there is one) with appropriate LaTeX syntax. It does this by making two passes over the code, and is therefore somewhat slow on large documents.

The Short LaTeX Menu command is a checkable menu item that toggles back and forth between the short and long LaTeX menu. See the discussion on page  for details.