An introduction to LaTeX

Learning LaTeX can be a daunting task, especially when you're teaching yourself and stuck consulting stack exchange for hours on end. To spare others some of those early growing pains, I've created a quick start guide, as well as a template. The template includes the main pieces that I have used time and time again in drafting papers and reports.  

1. You'll need to install a tex previewer (it essentially is an editor in which you can code up your document, compile it and view the resulting pdf). I like TeXShop, but there are other options as well. 
2. Some basic document structure: A tex file (the code that generates your document) has two main parts: the preamble (which is where you include packages, define shortcuts, set colors, set the document type and style, etc) and the main document, where the content of your document lives (this is all sandwiched between \begin{document} and \end{document}). You will also likely have a bibliography file as well (extension .bib), that will be used to generate your bibliography and organize references (there will be a separate post on this topic). 
3. The building blocks:
   1. Text: This is the most straight forward portion of the document. As long as you're between \begin{document} and \end{document}, you can enter text just like a standard word processor. It's worth noting that you can divide up your text into sections with \section{Name of Section}. This will automatically number/letter (depending on the style and type of document chosen in the preamble) the text of your section name and give it a unique font/size compared with the rest of the main body of text. 
   2. Tables: Tables come up quite a lot for me, so I've included a simple table as well as a more complex, nicer looking one in the template. The basic structure for a simple table is shown below. The 'table' environment (\begin{table} \end{table}) will allow you to label and caption the table, and the 'tabular' environment  (\begin{tabular} \end{tabular}) is what actually generates the structure of the table. Next to \begin{tabular} is where you can define the number of columns, as well as their alignment (c = center, l = left, r = right). The vertical bar key can be used here to insert vertical lines between columns. You can also add additional (or less) space between columns here as well. Finally, inside the tabular environment, rows of your table are separated with '//' (this is a line break command) and columns are delineated with '&'. Always make sure that you have the same number of items in each row (i.e. same number of columns) as you do in your definition. Within the table, horizontal lines can be added using '\hline' (note: this is not the only way to achieve horizontal lines). 

3. Figures: You will undoubtedly need to add images/plots/figures to your document and this is pretty straight forward. Similarly to the table example, you first generate the figure environment (\begin{figure} \end{figure}) which will label your figure and give it a caption (if you choose). Inside of this environment, you include an image using \includegraphics[<specify scale, height or width of the image here>]{<specify the path to the file relative to the location of your .tex file>}   

4. Equations: For me, writing equations is the biggest selling point for LaTeX. Once you get used to coding up equations, this method is so much quicker than any other equation editor and looks orders of magnitude nicer too. The two main equation environments that I use are the 'equation' environment (\begin{equation} \end{equation}) and the align environment (\begin{align} \end{align}). The main difference between these two is that the align environment allows you to (as the name suggests) align lines of equations, using the '&' key. This is handy for making your equations look cleaner and more organized, or to display an equation that is too long for a single line. Both these environments will by default number your equations. If you do not want a number, you can either include \nonumber at the end of the equation, or, you can use the equation* or align* environments. You can also enter into 'math' mode inline in your document using $ <put your equation code here> $. Using $$ $$ will cause a line break and display like \begin{equation*} \end{equation*}.  

To serve as a launching off point, here is a template with all the main building blocks that I tend to use regularly. I hope you find it to be helpful! 

latextutorial.zip
File Size:	442 kb
File Type:	zip

Download File

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When starting out with LaTeX, you'll undoubtedly ask yourself, 'But isn't [insert text editor you usually use] so much quicker/easier/etc.?' Maybe it is right now, but with practice, typesetting with LaTeX is quicker and looks more polished (especially when creating documents with lots of equations). In fact, once you get the hang of coding in LaTeX, you'll realize how time-consuming the equation editor in ppt and word really was and how much more streamlined having control over all aspects of the typesetting is. 

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