LaTeX Beginners Guide

Time for action – adding intelligent spacing to command output

We will load the package xspace. Its only purpose is to fulfill this need.

1. Modify the previous example to get the following code:

   \documentclass{article}
   \usepackage{xspace}
   \newcommand{\TUG}{\textsc{TeX Users Group}\xspace}
   \begin{document}
   \section{The \TUG}
   The \TUG is an organization for people who are interested in \TeX\ or \LaTeX.
   \end{document}

2. Typeset, see that the spacing between the words is correct, even without the backslash:
   

What just happened?

\usepackage{xspace} tells LaTeX to load the package called xspace and to read in all of its definitions. From now on we may use all commands ...