Appendix B — PDF Settings

You are reading the work-in-progress of this manual.

This chapter is undergoing heavy restructuring and may be confusing or incomplete.

B.1 Typography

B.1.1 Typeface

To change typefaces, simply use the Quarto options, such as mainfont, monofont and sansfont in your quarto-[format].yml file.

format:
  abnt-pdf:
    mainfont: Arial

The ABNT NBR 14724:2011 norm does not specify the use of any specific font. You have the freedom to choose any font you prefer, but it’s important to note that the selected font must be installed on your computer.

B.1.2 Font size

To adjust the font size, utilize the fontsize option in in the quarto-[format].yml file.

format:
  abnt-pdf:
    fontsize: 12pt

It’s important to note that the third paragraph of Section 5.1 of ABNT NBR 14724:2011 norm establishes that the font size should be 12pt for the entire document, including the cover, except for quotations longer than three lines, footnotes, pagination, cataloging data, captions, and sources of illustrations and tables, which should be in a smaller and uniform size.

The smaller font is set to \footnotesize, which corresponds to a 10pt font size with the default settings. You can modify this setting by inserting the following LaTeX command into tex/include-in-header.tex:

\renewcommand{\ABNTEXfontereduzida}{[NEW SIZE (e.g., \small)]}

B.2 Language and hyphenation

B.3 Document sections

B.3.1 Editing pre-textual sections

abnt uses a system of tags to transfer and render the content of Quarto files (.qmd) to LaTeX. These tags look like this:

%:::% class attribute begin/end %:::%

<!-- %:::% class attribute begin/end %:::% -->

Unless you want to customize the template, you don’t need to modify the .tex files. You can write directly in the .qmd files. Just ensure that you preserve all the tags.

Please note that some settings regarding the pre-textual sections must be changed in the qmd/_congfig.qmd file.

B.3.2 How to include LaTeX commands in Quarto files (.qmd)

To add LaTeX commands in your writing, without worrying that it will contaminate the html format, use a {=latex} chunk.

```{=latex}
% Some LaTeX code.
```

B.3.3 How to add or remove sections

For pre-textual sections (e.g., list of symbols, abstract), remove them from tex/include-before-body.tex and from R/quarto-pre-render.R.

For textual sections (e.g., chapters), remove them from .quarto-[format].yml file.

For post-textual sections (e.g., appendices, annexes):

• If it’s the Glossary, remove it from .quarto-[format].yml and copy the the LaTeX code after <!-- glossary end --> in glossary.qmd to the bottom of the last chapter;
• If it’s not the last appendix chapter, simply remove it from .quarto-[format].yml; else remove it from .quarto-[format].yml, remove \begin{apendicesenv} from the bottom of glossary.qmd and add the code the code after <!-- appendices end --> of the appendice file to the bottom of glossary.qmd;
• [Annexes];
• [Index].

It’s important to note that, at this moment, the transition between sections of the document are made inserting LaTeX code at the end of specific sections. These are:

• Between the last chapter and the Glossary section.
• Between the Glossary section and the Appendices section.
• Between the Appendices and Annexes section.
• After the Annexes section.

B.4 Citation management

B.4.1 Citation method

This Quarto format was specifically designed to be compatible with BibLaTeX, which is a comprehensive reimplementation of BiBTeX. At first glance, these two systems may appear very similar.

To get started, simply insert your references into the references.bibfile. However, this task can be somewhat tedious and demanding. To simplify the process, we recommend exploring the integration of Zotero along with Better BiBTeX, as demonstrated in a section below.

For detailed guidance on handling citations in Quarto, please refer to Quarto’s Citation & Footnotes documentation.

B.4.2 Citation style

There are two built-in citation styles:

• ABNT (Brazilian Association of Technical Standards);
• APA (American Psychological Association).

To use one of them, simply change the biblio-style option in your yml file with the style of you preference.

format:
  abnt-pdf:
    biblio-style: abnt # options: [abnt, abnt-ibid, abnt-numeric, apa]

There are other options related to the citation style; some are shown below. Please refer to biblatex, biblatex-abnt and biblatex-apa manuals to learn more about them.

format:
  abnt-pdf:
    biblio-footnote: >
      According to the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards
      (ABNT NBR 6023).
    biblatexoptions:
      - backend=biber,
      - language=english, # [options: english, brazil, spanish, french]
      - url=true,
      - useprefix=false,
      - giveninits=true,
      - extrayear=true
    bibhang: 0cm # Use 0.5cm if `biblio-style: apa`.
    bibparsep: 0ex

B.4.3 Zotero integration

This template can work with Zotero and the Better BiBTeX plugin. The advantage of using this integration is that you don’t need to manually input your references into references.bib; they are automatically imported when you render the format.

For this to work, you must activate the zotero option in your yml file and have Zotero, with Better BibTeX installed, open while rendering your thesis (activated by default). A pre-render script (see R/quarto-pre-render.R), created using the rbbt R package, will scan all .qmd and .tex files searching for BibTeX citations (e.g., @watson1953). If they match with your Zotero database, the citations will then be written into the references.bib file.

format:
  abnt-pdf:
    zotero: true

B.4.3.1 Title case change

By using Zotero, you may experience a title casing change when exporting your references. This is the default behavior of Better BibTex while exporting to BibLaTeX.

You can disable this by going to Zotero’s configuration editor (go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Config Editor) and changing the variable\ extensions.zotero.translators.better-bibtex.exportTitleCase to false. Beware that this can produce some issues. You can find more information about this behavior here.

B.5 ABNT figures and tables

Thanks for the incredible work of Carlos Scheidegger and other Quarto developers we now have a built-in solution for figures and tables that require two captions (one at the top and the other at the bottom, or a caption and a legend), as required by the ABNT norms. Please note that this feature is only available for Quarto versions >=v1.4.

The procedure for adding these captions is the same for figures and tables. Enclose your figure/table/code in figure divs, as shown in the example below. The first paragraph after the figure content will be rendered as the source (bottom caption), and the last one will be the top caption.

The formatting options for this bottom caption/legend is still matter of debate (see here). That’s why is important to add Quarto’s LaTeX Environment filter in your _quarto-pdf.yml" with the commandlegendand use[SOURCE TEXT GOES HERE].legend}` when defining legends for figures/tables, like the example below.

::: {#fig-1}

::: {.figure-content}
This is the figure content.
:::

[Source: My source.]{.legend}

This is a caption.

:::

Please note that, like all cross-reference elements, these divs must follow a naming pattern. Always use the prefixes #fig- for figures and #tbl- for tables.

Visit the showcase chapter “Introduction” (qmd/introduction.qmd) of this Quarto format to see this feature in action. For more detailed information, please refer to Quarto’s Crossreferenceable elements article.

B.6 Redenring PDF after rendering HTML (and vice-versa)

The index file title (index.qmd) and content must be altered for each format to render properly. This cause some issues that abnt can’t resolve for now. If you’ve rendered the HTML format and them wish to render the PDF format, you must run R/quarto-pre-render-pdf.R one time before starting the render. If is the inverse situation, you must run one time R/quarto-pre-render-html.R.

We’re working to fix this.

B.7 Crossreferenceable elements

Quarto allow you to create and reference almost anything by using div enclosures.

Example: See Theorem B.1.

Theorem B.1 (Line) The equation of any straight line, called a linear equation, can be written as:

\[ y = mx + b \]

Although, it’s important to note that for this to work, each type of div must use pre-defined prefixes. If you don’t follow these rules your document will not be rendered.

Here are most of the the label prefixes.

• cnj-: Conjecture
• cor-: Corollary
• def-: Definition
• eq-: Equation
• exm-: Example

• exr-: Exercise
• fig-: Figure
• lem-: Lemma
• lst-: Listings

• prp-: Proposition
• sec-: Section
• tbl-: Table
• thm-: Theorem

For more information about cross-reference elements, see Quarto’s guideBook Crossrefs, Cross References and Crossreferenceable elements articles.

B.8 Freezing and cache

See Freeze.

B.9 Spelling check

See rutils:::spell_check_quarto()

B.10 URL check

Soon.

(Based on urlchecker::url_check()).

B.11 How to customize this Quarto format

B.11.1 Quarto system

See Quarto’s guide.

B.11.2 Template and template partials

See Tempalte partials.

B.11.3 Spacing rules

• Set fixed dimensions (e.g., page dimensions) in cm or pt. cm is the prefer unit for margins.
• Set line spacing as a proportion of \baselineskip (e.g., 1.5\baselineskip).
• Use the settings \tinyskipamount, \smallskipamount, \midskipamount, \bigskipamount, \hugeskipamount and their counterparts \tinyskip, \smallskip, \midskip, \bigskip, \hugeskip. You can find them in the lengths.tex template partial.
• For other kinds of relative vertical spacing, use the ex unit.
• For relative horizontal spacing, use the em unit.

See OETIKER et al. (2023, sec. 7.5) to learn more about LaTeX spacing features. The articles on Overleaf are also a great source of information. Check Lengths in LaTeX and How to change paragraph spacing in LaTeX to get a sense of the subject.

B.11.3.1 Unit equivalences

• 1em \(==\) 12pt or \(\approx\) 0.423333cm.
• 1ex \(==\) \(\approx\) 6.22266pt or \(\approx\) 0.219521cm.

B.11.3.1.1 \baselineskip

These are the equivalences for a Arial typeface with size 12pt:

Use \the\baselineskip and \gevalue{} to figure out the exact value. Note that \gevalue{} will return the value in pt.

Example of using \getvalue{}:

\begingroup
\setlength{\parskip}{1em}
\getlength{\parskip}
\endgroup

• \linestretch=1
  • 1\baselineskip \(==\) 14.5pt. That’s about 1.2x (or ($$1.208333x) the font size (standard procedure).
• \linestretch=1.5
  • 0.25\baselineskip \(==\) 5.4375pt or \(\approx\) 0.191822917cm;
  • 0.5\baselineskip \(==\) 10.875pt or \(\approx\) 0.383645833cm;
  • 0.75\baselineskip \(==\) 16.3125pt or \(\approx\) 0.57546875cm;
  • 1\baselineskip \(==\) 21.75pt or \(\approx\) 0.76729167cm;
  • 1.5\baselineskip \(==\) 32.625pt or \(\approx\) 1.1509375cm;
  • 2\baselineskip \(==\) 43.5pt or \(\approx\) 1.534583cm;
  • 2.5\baselineskip \(==\) 54.375pt or \(\approx\) 1.91822917cm;
  • 3\baselineskip \(==\) 65.25pt or \(\approx\) 2.301875cm.

B.11.4 How to add new citation styles

B.11.5 Must see references

To learn the basics about LaTeX, see OETIKER et al. (2023). To delve deeper into the LaTeX system, see LAMPORT (1994) and KNUTH (1986).

B.11.5.1 Manuals

• Quarto
• abntex2
• memoir
• biblatex
• biblatex-abnt

• biblatex-apa
• babel
• fontspec
• makeidx

B.11.5.2 R packages

• gt

• rutils

KNUTH, D. E. The TeXbook. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Addison-Wesley, 1986.

LAMPORT, L. LaTeX: A document preparation system: User’s guide and reference manual. 2. ed. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co, 1994.

OETIKER, T. et al. The not so short introduction to LaTeX: Or LaTeX in 280 minutes. 7. ed. [s.l: s.n.].