Getting Started with LATEX and LATEX References

https://www.overleaf.com

The easiest way to start with typesetting with LaTeX is by starting a (free) account with .com. They have a pay premium service, but the free personal account is fine. They have everything set up for you, some templates and a slew of resources for you as your Latexing gets better and better. After you your document, you can download the pdf output file generated and the original latex code file (a . file). But copies are always keep online in your account for future use.

For those who want a Latex Editor on your laptop, here are some suggestions: For these, you will need to download (for free) MiKTeX from https://miktex.org, and a text editor designed for compiling the LaTeX code. TeXworks: https://sourceforge.net/projects/texworks.mirror/ TeXstudio: https://www.texstudio.org/ These are a little more hands-on than using overleaf, but they walk you through easy down- loads and you get a (free) LaTeX system on your computer.

LATEX References 1. http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html If you have already been LaTeXing and you forget a symbol and don’t know how it’s called or what its latex code is, Detexify is where you go! Say you forget that the latex code for P is \sum, you can go to detexify.com and draw it in the box with your finger and it will give you the latex code. This works best on a computer or a smart phone where you can draw on the screen. If you don’t have that, then you can draw with the cursor on your a computer - it will try its best to figure out what you meant to draw ©. There’s a Mac app for those who want to download the program. There’s a bunch of iOS apps that can help with looking up the code for a symbol or where you can draw an entire equation and it will give you the corresponding latex code. There are even some apps for which you can tex and compile on your phone - for free!

2. Google search engine You can google the sentence “How to get a URL in LaTeX” and you’ll get more refer- ences on how to do it. I did on this file, that’s how I got the URL for the sites listed above - try them, you can click on them to get to the site referenced. There’s no need for LaTeX books, you can ask any LaTeX question in a google search box and find a number of different sites with responses. As with anything google, not everything you’ll find will work - remember, anyone can post anything!

Remember, everyone in the Math Department knows LaTeX to varying degrees. Feel free to ask any of us questions about it.

Happy LATEXing! - David