tlmgr and Debian variants

It's quite frustrating knowing that your working Linux distro does not have tlmgr and needs you to install the vanilla TexLive instead, as discussed here

It should be as easy as Python's easy_install and Ruby's gem install way..

Transcribing Doodled Equations to LaTeX (and MathML)

Here’s another useful website to bookmark: Web Equations lets you doodle a mathematical equation, then transcribes it into LaTeX or MathML. And it’s fast, too!

Quick Diagrams with SmartDiagrams

It all started with a question on TeX.SX: Namely, is there any quick way to draw diagrams from a list of items, similar to the ‘Smart Art’ feature in PowerPoint 2010?

It wasn’t long before the package smartdiagram was born as a response, using TikZ to do the actual drawings. The basic syntax is:

\usepackage{smartdiagram}
\smartdiagram[diagram type]{list of comma-separated items}

Here are some examples (based on material from here):

\smartdiagram[circular diagram]{Assess,Plan,Implement,Renew}

\smartdiagram[flow diagram]{Assess,Plan,Implement,Renew}

\smartdiagram[buggle diagram]{Planning Cycle,Assess,Plan,Implement,Renew}

If you happen to be preparing a Beamer presentation, replacing the \smartdiagram command with \smartdiagramanimated will result in an automatically ‘animated’ diagram, with each item in the list appearing one at a time as you advance through the slides:

See the manual for other digram types and customisation options (colours, shapes, sizes, etc).