The Stata Journal LaTeX files can be installed and updated using the sjlatex command from within Stata. This installation script may be found in an up-to-date Stata by typing
. search sjlatex
Select the link sjlatex from http://www.stata-journal.com/production, and then select click here to install.
From within Stata, type sjlatex install using new_directory_name to install the packages and examples in a new directory of your choosing. Here are some examples:
. sjlatex install using C:\sjtemp
. sjlatex install using ~/sjtemp
. sjlatex install using ~:sjtemp
Upon completion, typing sjlatex will display the folder where the files have been installed and the version number and release date of the LaTeX files.
An example document is included with the Stata Journal LaTeX files to help you get started. This example document displays the layout/form of an article and provides tips to use when writing your own article.
The main document (main.tex) for this example uses the Stata Press document class (statapress.cls), the Stata Press page dimensions package (pagedims.sty), the Stata Journal package (sj.sty), the Stata package (stata.sty), and the Stata Journal bibliographic style (sj.bst). Individuals with access to recent distributions of TeX are encouraged to use these files because they are ultimately used to generate the Stata Journal.
Before you make any changes to the files downloaded with sjlatex, you should test the installation by typesetting the example article (readme.tex). The LaTeX program on Unix and Windows is invoked at the command prompt, so let > (greater than symbol) be the command prompt. The macOS distributions of TeX tend to be based on menus; thus, the spirit of the following instructions are equivalent. At the command prompt, navigate to the directory you just created, and run LaTeX on main.tex; that is, type
> latex main > bibtex main > latex main > latex main > dvips main.dvi -o main.ps
The first latex command generates the auxiliary (aux) file for your journal insert. The bibtex command uses the aux file from your journal insert (main.aux for the example) to generate bibliographic citations and references. After bibtex, two more latex runs are needed to ensure that cross references appear correctly in the resulting dvi-file. The last command uses dvips to generate a PostScript file from the dvi-file.
Alternatively, lualatex can be used to generate a PDF file; thus, change latex to lualatex in the above commands to generate main.pdf and then ignore the call to dvips.
The above commands were placed in scripts (included with the files downloaded by sjlatex) for your convenience.
> doit.bat (latex version) > pdfdoit.bat (lualatex version)
> sh doit.sh (latex version) > sh pdfdoit.sh (lualatex version)
The final result is main.ps (or main.pdf), which can be viewed using Ghostscript (Windows: gsview, Unix: ghostview or gv, macOS: view the dvi-file from the menu).
If you get an error message about a missing style file, see File dependencies.
Provided your TeX distribution contains the required packages and passed the above test, you can use these files to write your journal insert. Change the name of the example file (readme.tex) in main.tex to the name of your journal insert, and you are ready to run LaTeX on main.tex.
The result of the above test (of main.tex) has been converted to a PDF document collected in the sjxmpl Stata package for download. This package can be found using the following command in Stata.
. search sjxmpl
Select the link sjxmpl from http://www.stata-journal.com/production, and then select click here to get. Alternatively, see main.pdf for the file.
The examples have been successfully tested using the following TeX distributions, all of which are free:
The main website for the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) is http://www.tug.org.
The main website for Ghostscript is http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/.
The Stata Press document class (statapress.cls) is based on the standard book document class (book.cls) in your TeX distribution. The following list includes other files that are required:
All of these packages are available in most TeX distributions.
If you get an error message that one of these style files was not found, it could be that crop.sty, chapterbib.sty, or natbib.sty is not present in your distribution. These files are collected into the sjextra Stata package for download. This package can be found using the following command in Stata:
. search sjextra
Select the link sjextra from http://www.stata-journal.com/production, and then select click here to get.
If you install the sjextra package, you must change newcenter to oldcenter in main.tex.