The quality of your LaTeX

The l2tabu tutorial (mentioned in online introductions) is undoubtedly a good read.

However, it’s always difficult to remember the things you should not do, when there are so many things to remember that you really must do: some automation is useful….

The nicely-named nag allows you to apply a configurable set of checks to your document, as you run it through LaTeX; you get messages like:

Package nag Warning: Command \bf is an old LaTeX 2.09 command. 
(nag)                Use \bfseries or \textbf instead on input line 30.

(the package provides a demo file which contains most of the sorts of errors you might make — the example is one of them). While l2tabu and nag alert you to possible programming errors, you should not forget that they are merely commenting on style; don’t assume that a nag error is going to damn your code — rather, note the issue and try to train your fingers not to do the same “next time”.

The lacheck program analyses your source and comments on it; its view of what is “bad” is very subjective (the documentation says), but it can be useful.

FAQ ID: Q-latexqual
Tags: latex–macros