How to define NEW COMMANDS in LaTeX
If you find yourself needing to use a particular bit of text (with or
without LaTeX commands) in your document multiple times, it may be
convenient for you to define it as a command, using \newcommand. For
example, if you were tired of typing the commands for a degree symbol,
you might do
\newcommand{\dg}{$^\circ$ }
and then in your text, you could say
At 10 in the morning, it was 68\dg outside
and LaTeX would automatically substitute "$^\circ " to make a degree
symbol where you had typed \dg.
Next, you can create commands which include arguments, by including a
field for the number of arguments in your \newcommand line, and
putting the arguments themselves in as #1, #2, and so on. For
example, if you were creating a description list and you wanted each
of them to have the item itself to be in bold and the rest to be in
italics, like so
\begin{description}
\item[\bf Elephant] {\em A big grey animal with a trunk}
\item[\bf Zebra] {\em A stripey looking horse}
\end{description}
then you could use a \newcommand for that:
\newcommand{\animal}[2]{\item[\bf #1] {\em #2}}
\begin{description}
\animal{Elephant}{A big grey animal with a trunk}
\animal{Zebra}{A stripey looking horse}
\end{description}
Last updated: 11/8/99
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