LaTeX for beginners – A quick start

LaTeX for beginners – A quick start

There are different ways through which one can start to use latex for documentation. We can use Overleaf, sublime, atom , texstudio, Mactex, and many more for the same. I had tried using overleaf, sublime and texstudio for documentation and decided to use Sublime text editor because I found it convenient and easy.

To start with the simplest LaTex source that will build the document.

For sections and subsections

To organise a document it is very important to divide it into different chapter, sections and subsections. The following commands are used to do the same :

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
   Main text ......
   \section{...}
    \subsection{...}
     \subsubsection{...}
\end{document}

Different Packages to be used

\usepackage{mathtools} – Provides a series of packages designed to enhance the appearance of documents containing a lot of mathematics
\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor} – To set text color
\usepackage{enumitem} – Control layout of itemize, enumerate, description.
\usepackage{lipsum} – For creating dummy text
\usepackage{caption} – Provides many ways to customise the captions in floating environments like figure and table
\usepackage{booktabs} – Enhances the quality of tables
\usepackage{natbib} – That implements both author-year and numbered references.
\usepackage[nameinlink,capitalize]{cleveref} – Aclever way to reference

How to add figures and table

For Figures: First save the image in pdf or png format , which is true to its scale (we use affinity and veusz).

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics{image.pdf}
    \caption{XYZ}
    \label{fig:xyz}
\end{figure}

For Table

\begin{table}
\caption{XYZ}
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{7 pt}
\begin{tabu}{c c c c }

\toprule
{{A}} &\multicolumn{2}{c}{{B}}  &{{C}}  \\
\midrule
  {{X}}&  \multicolumn{2}{c}{Y} & Z  \\
  {{1}}& 11 &111 & 1111  \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabu}
\label{table:abc1}

\end{table}
Output

How to use clever cross references

When we want to refer a particular figure, table, equation or section we use \ref for example when we want to refer a figure with label (fig:xyz}, we had to write Fig. \ref{fig:xyz}, but with cleveref package, things are much more clean. For example \cref{fig:xyz} output will be – Figure 1.

How to use mathpix for writing equations in LaTeX

Mathpix is an ultimate solution for creating digital documents in a simpler way. Mathpix snip digitizes the handwritten or printed text, and gives the output which can be directly copied and pasted into the LaTeX editors.

Categories: Research Tools

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