A short introduction to LaTex

LATEX is a widely used typesetting system in writing science (especially math) paper and books. It is a powerful tool and takes time to exploit its full features. Here we only give a very brief and “naive” introduction for typing homework assignments.)

Installation

You need to install two softwares (called packages in Linux): one is the back-end compiler and the other is the front-end editor.

A simple hint: If you installed Texlive from the above link, TexWorks should already be installed automatically.

How to use

Generally, you are only working with the editor and the complier will work automatically when you run from the editor. To make it simple to use, I created a template tex file. Please download it here and change it to whatever name you like. You can open the tex file with an editor such as TexWorks and make modifications according to the description in it. If you want to see the output, you can compile it with pdfLaTex or LaTex (click the green button in TexWorks). A separate pdf file with the same name will pop up and be saved in the same folder as the tex file.

Resources

An on-line LaTex platform

[www.overleaf.com]

You do not need to install anything on your computer, but you need to have internet access to use it.