Frequently Asked Questions:
AMS-LaTeX document classes
 

This page lists some frequently asked questions about the AMS document classes amsart, amsbook, amsproc, and the amsthm package. These questions deal mainly with problems of installation, different versions, and the like. "How to" topics relevant to AMS authors are covered in the AMS Author FAQ.

Suggestions? Please send mail to tech-support@ams.org.

NOTE:  Several questions here deal with older versions of the AMS document classes. Although workarounds are given for problems arising with these older classes, if you are creating a new document, it is better to upgrade than to try to deal with the limitations of an old version. Only the latest version of an AMS package is supported.

Where should I look for documentation?

• The primary user documentation is found in the "Instructions for Preparation of Papers and Monographs" (instr-l.pdf).   This and the other PDF files mentioned here are included in the AMS-LaTeX distribution, and you should be able to find them on your system.
• More detailed information on theorem and proof setup can be found in amsthdoc.pdf and thmtest.pdf.   The thmtest output is best examined side-by-side with the .tex source (thmtest.tex).

I want to make a custom document class based on amsart but with some minor style changes. What is the best way to do it?

• The recommended procedure is to copy amsart.cls to myart.cls (or whatever name you choose) and make changes in myart.cls.
• Even if you wish to work from a .dtx file it is probably best to start with myart.cls and add a .dtx framework around it rather than start from amsclass.dtx, because the latter contains quite a bit of extra complexity in order to generate amsbook.cls, amsproc.cls, amsart.cls, and amsthm.sty from the same source.
• \LoadClass is probably not what you want. That works best when the base class is frozen or when changes to the base class are under your control.

All the indents and left margins for numbered lists and other lists are suddenly different in my document that uses document class amsart (amsbook, amsproc). What happened?

• Most likely, you (or your system administrator) did a TeX or LaTeX upgrade and you now are getting version 2.0 of the AMS document classes instead of version 1.2.
• In version 2.0 the default list indents were changed. See also the next question.

My document had numbers of the form "1." "2." etc. for first-level enumerate lists, but after a recent upgrade I am getting "(1)" "(2)" etc. How do I get the old style back?

• The parenthesized style is AMS house style. That it was not being used before was an error in the AMS document classes. If you don't want AMS style, perhaps you should use a different document class, or make your own document class as described above.
• The style of numbered lists can, however, be altered in individual documents using standard LaTeX methods:

  \renewcommand{\labelenumi}{\theenumi.}

  See Section 3.3 in The LaTeX Companion (2nd edition, Mittelbach et al.).
• There is also a "paralist" package available from CTAN that provides more extensive facilities for modifying list numbering on the fly. See Section 3.3.2 of The LaTeX Companion.

The corners of the qed symbol look bad on screen. What can I do to get a better-looking version?

• When using amsthm with a non-AMS document class, the default qed symbol is drawn with four rules. If your screen is not sufficiently high in resolution then it will not be able to render the corners exactly because of pixel roundoff.
• There is an easy solution: Redefine \qedsymbol to be some suitable font symbol. Try using \textsquare:

  \renewcommand{\qedsymbol}{\textsquare}

• \textsquare is found in the AMSFonts. It has been the default qed symbol in AMS document classes since version 2.0.

When I use the amsthm package with the slides document class, the space above and below theorems is too small.

• The spacing setup for slides.cls is a bit peculiar. \parskip instead of \topsep is used to control the spacing around theorems -- something that seems questionable in general, as well as being different from the behavior of the generic article and book classes. The discrepancy becomes obvious with amsthm because amsthm goes to some trouble to prevent changes in parskip from affecting the space around theorems since book designers normally specify them independently.
• Workaround:

  \documentclass{slides}
  \setlength{\topsep}{\parskip}
  \usepackage{amsthm} 

  Further spacing adjustments may be needed for other elements.

Why do I get the following error message that I wasn't getting before?

! LaTeX Error: Command \for already defined.
  ...
l.24 \newcommand{\for}{\quad\text{for}\ } 

! LaTeX Error: Command \except already defined.
  ...
l.24 \newcommand{\except}{...} 

• The best solution is to upgrade.
• The easiest solution is to change your \newcommand statement to use \renewcommand.
• This is a side effect of upgrading from version 1.2 to version 2.0 of the amsart document class (or one of the other AMS document classes).

When I use a Latin-1 character in an article title the uppercasing for the running heads does not work correctly. How can I fix this?

• You have to load the textcase package in order for this to work. This widely available package is not part of the LaTeX base distribution, so the AMS document classes do not assume that it is available. Try:

  \documentclass{amsart}
  \usepackage{textcase}.
  .. 

  Please note, however, that articles submitted to AMS should not use Latin-1 characters, but only the basic ASCII set.

The AMS document classes provide an \MR command for putting MR numbers into the bibliography, but when I try to use it I get the error message   ! Undefined control sequence.   for the command \MRhref. How can I get this to work?

• This was a bug in version 1.2 of amsart and the other AMS document classes. It was fixed in version 2.0.
• As a workaround you can add the following definition in your document preamble:

  \providecommand{\MRhref}[1]{}

My title page (using amsbook) doesn't look anything like the published title pages in AMS books. Why not?

• The topmatter information provided by an author is processed into a dummy title page that will be used at AMS to prepare (by hand) the "real" title and copyright pages in the appropriate series style.
• If you want a more elaborate title page while working on your book, you should use the titlepage environment and omit \maketitle. (See the LaTeX documentation regarding use of the titlepage environment if you are not familiar with it.)

How can I put some text between the heading "Index" and the index data in my book (using amsbook)?

• Beginning with version 2.05, amsbook has the command \indexintro for this purpose. Its definition is normally empty. Redefine it with \renewcommand to supply the desired introductory text:

  \renewcommand{\indexintro}{YOUR TEXT HERE}

• If you have version 2.04 or earlier of amsbook, the easiest solution is to upgrade. Alternatively, you can make a custom document class based on amsbook.cls as described above. Then you can change the definition of \indexchap along the following lines to incorporate the desired text:

  \def\indexchap#1{\global\topskip 7.5pc\relax
    \twocolumn[{\fontsize{\@xivpt}{18}\bfseries\centering
      \vskip\topskip\hbox{}\vskip-\baselineskip% adjust top space
      #1\par
       \begingroup \normalsize
         \skip@\topskip \advance\skip@ -\baselineskip
         \vskip\skip@
         \parbox[t]{24pc}{\normalfont
           YOUR TEXT HERE\par
         }%
       \endgroup
       \global\topskip 24\p@\relax
    }]%
  }