A Georgia Tech Student's Guide to LaTeX2e

Mitchel T. Keller
School of Mathematics
Georgia Institute of Technology
138A Skiles Building
Atlanta, GA 30332-0160
Phone: 404.894.6365
keller@math.gatech.edu

Introduction

This page was started as part of the Basic LaTeX course organized by the Georgia Tech Library and Graduate Student Government Association. I'll probably keep it up-to-date with current information even after I'm no longer teaching the course (if that ever happens), so I hope it remains a useful resource.

What is LaTeX? In short, it's a document processing and typesetting system designed with mathematics, science, and engineering in mind. (OK, so it was really designed with mathematics in mind, but it works great for those who just need to use a lot of math, too.) Many journals in science and engineering (and all that I know if in mathematics) are typeset using LaTeX. That means that by submitting your articles in LaTeX format, you can reduce the number of errors that arise during the typesetting process. Also, it works great for writing your thesis/dissertation, since there's an approved GT thesis document class for LaTeX. I also use LaTeX for most of my everyday writing needs (letters, quizzes, memos, notes, course/recitation/lab policies, etc.) because it's so damned good at what it does. Also, I've been running my homework through LaTeX for nearly 3.5 years now, and I can honestly say that I can type it out in LaTeX faster than I can write it by hand. Plus, I don't get writer's cramp if I'm typing. LaTeX also handles large documents (such as your dissertation) very well, as opposed to that major commercial word processor, which has been known to eat documents over 50 pages in lenght.

Links

Hopefully by now you're convinced that you should try using LaTeX. Thus, for now, the rest of this page is going to be devoted primarily to links to resources you'll want to have ready and sample documents I've prepared for you.

Links

• Georgia Tech Thesis Class - Please don't give in to the temptation of the link to the template for a major word processor. Learning LaTeX is worth the time. It will make your life much easier!
• You can make posters for poster presentations using LaTeX, too. I've prepared a good template (compiled version in PDF), based on one from the University of Florida. You'll also need the Georgia Tech logo and placeholder graphic for it to compile out of the box.
• Note that this document must be compiled to PostScript and then converted to PDF, as it uses special PostScript commands that cannot be compiled by pdflatex. The usual process for this is to compile to dvi with latex GTposter or pslatex GTposter. Follow this up with dvips -Ppdf -o GTposter.ps GTposter.dvi and then ps2pdf GTposter.ps.
• The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e - It's "not so short" because it's 133 pages long. However, it's really worth reading the first three chapters of this at least, and all of it if you have time. It's treatment is superficial at times, but superficial is usually enough to get you started and then you can go more in depth.
• The comprehensive LaTeX Symbol list - A list of 3300 symbols and the corresponding LaTeX commands, with reference to the packages that provide them. According to the author of the list, all of the fonts and packages included are freely available from CTAN (see below).
• CTAN - The Comprensive TeX Archive Network. TeX is the original typesetting system designed by Donald Knuth (yes, that Donald Knuth) on which LaTeX (designed by Leslie Lamport) rests. CTAN is the ultimate resource for all TeX and LaTeX packages. If you can't find it here, it likely doesn't exist (or there are 12 things that do what you want, and you can't decide which to use).
• TUG - The TeX Users Group also has great information on TeX and LaTeX.
• MikTeX - The standard Windows implementation of TeX and LaTeX. Free all around. Install this before installing WinEDT or TeXnicCenter (see below).
• WinEDT - The most common (shareware) LaTeX shell for Windows systems. It's basically a text editor that does great synatx highlighting, spell checking, and LaTeX compiling all with point and click.
• TeXnicCenter - A truly free (as in speech and beer) LaTeX shell/IDE. Technically as of this writing still beta, but I know several people who use it and are very happy with it.
• TeXShop - The only Mac OS X LaTeX shell/IDE that I know of. It works quite well. Be sure to follow their instructions on how to install TeXLive-teTeX! Otherwise, TeXShop won't work right.
• For LaTeX installations for the Mac, see the info above on TeXShop.
• Most UNIX systems come with TeX pre-installed, usually in the form of teTeX. I'd ask Google! about TeX for your OS
• LyX is about the only IDE you'll find for LaTeX on UNIX. (Beware, LyX attempts to be WYSIWYG, but really is just WYSIWYM. In other words, it hides your code from you.) However (X)Emacs (via the AucTeX environment, which may not be installed by default) and vi(m) (if you like to use antiquatedfrustrating editors) do provide good syntax highlighting and compiling capabilities.
• CurVe is the best package for formatting your curriculum vitae in LaTeX. My CV is available as a sample, and the package author's is also on his page.

Course Resources and Sample Documents

Below are some of the files and documents that we'll be using during the GT LaTeX course. You're free to take any of these (except the text in long-text.tex, which comes from my honors thesis) and use them as the basis for your own writings. Note that I've divided things into two groups: skeletal for use during the class and full for what I develop during class. If you're downloading in the course, get the skeletal, otherwise, get the full.

• LaTeX file sample.tex with tweaks I made during class, along with the PDF output
• Sample documents for graphics class (zip format)
• Sample documents for graphics class (tar.gz format)
• Sample document from Stephen Young's LaTeX class.
• Introduction to LaTeX slides by Karen Feigh
• Introduction slides by Csaba Biro (Source files)
• Information on making posters in LaTeX
• Skeletal versions
  • triangle.eps - A simple right triangle figure in EPS format.
  • triangle.pdf - A simple right triangle figure in PDF format.
  • triangle.fig - A simple right triangle figure in xfig's format.
  • article-skeleton.tex - A simple example of using the article class.
  • report-skeleton.tex - A simple example of using the report class.
  • long-text.tex - A big chunk of text so that you can see how to include other files. Required for report-skeleton.tex and report.tex.
• Full versions
  • article.tex - A simple example of using the article class. (You'll need triangle.eps or triangle.pdf from above to compile this.)
  • article.pdf - What our simple example of using the article class looks like after running it through LaTeX.
  • report.tex - A simple example of using the report class. (Requires long-text.tex from above.)
  • report.pdf - What our simple example of using the report class looks like after running it through LaTeX.

Disclaimer: This page and the associated web site is not a publication of the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Georgia Institute of Technology has not has not edited or examined the content. The author of the page is solely responsible for the content.