Introduction to LaTeX#

What is LaTeX#

Taken from the LaTeX-projects website,

LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents.

How to use it?#

A LaTeX document is compiled from a .tex file with the text and LaTeX code for your document. Typically, the compiler renders a .pdf file from the LaTeX code and creates a document with a specific format. To compile a .tex file directly from the terminal, you can use pdflatex:

pdflatex your_latex_file.tex

You often need to run this command twice for all changes to be displayed correctly.

Since this course typically involves collaborating with others on a single document, a simple solution is to use Overleaf for the writing and compilation process.

Note

Many people can work simultaneously on the same Overleaf document, even when using the free version of Overleaf, as mentioned here. Just use the link sharing option when you share the document with your collaborators.

However, you can of course also just use your git repository to collaborate on a .tex file, like you would for any code file. Use whatever solution works best for you and your collaborators.

Templates#

Template for projects 1 and 2: problem sets#

We’ve prepared a template for you to use in the two first projects. We have both the source code found in a .tex and a rendered file in .pdf format.

The above .tex example tries to include a figure file rel_err.pdf from a subdirectory imgs. If you want to compile this example yourself, you can get the figure file here.

Template for projects 3, 4 and 5: scientific reports#

Here’s a template you can use when writing the scientific reports for projects 3, 4 and 5. We recommend taking the time to read through all the text in the template, as it contains a lot of useful information on how to structure a scientific report, as well as some LaTeX tips and tricks.

To easily view the template “in action”, you can access it as a read-only Overleaf project here.

If you want to compile the template report yourself, you’ll need a figure file rel_err.pdf in a subdirectory imgs. (Just like for the template for projects 1 and 2.) You can get the figure file here.

To build the template along with the reference list, you need to run pdflatex and bibtex a few times over. Here’s a single-line command that should do the trick:

pdflatex report_example.tex && bibtex report_example.aux && pdflatex report_example.tex && pdflatex report_example.tex

Example report#

An example of a very good student report from a few years back can be found here.

LaTeX resources#

Here are some LaTeX resources that might come in handy:

  • Overleaf’s beginner’s guide to LaTeX

  • Overleaf’s documentation pages have info on all aspects of LaTeX that you will need for this course

  • Don’t know the TeX command for a mathematical symbol? Try drawing the symbol in Detexify…

  • …or look for it in this document of 18150 symbols and corresponding LaTeX commands