Latex

Typeset all of your papers using latex.

Installation

No Install

Use Overleaf to create latex documents in a web browser.

Partial Install

Download MikTex. It includes the TeXworks editor and will download packages as you use them. This will not take up as much disk space as a full install but will require internet access to download new packages.

Full Install

Windows

Download TexLive using the ISO images.
This is ~4 gigabytes since it includes all the popular LaTeX packages and takes a while to install. You'll also need an editor. I recommend installing Atom with the following packages:

latex for calling the TexLive compiler
language-latex for syntax highlighting
pdf-view for viewing the compiled pdf.

apm install latex language-latex pdf-view

Linux

sudo apt install texlive-full

Compile tex documents with

pdflatex [mydocument.tex]

Note to add bibliography, you need to run pdflatex, bibtex, pdflatex or rubber --pdf.

Usage

Fancy Math Font

See this answer.

% Use mathbb for the set of reals R or the set of complex numbers C
% Requires amsfonts
\mathbb{R}

Spaces

See Reference

Spaces in mathematical mode.
 
\begin{align*}
f(x) =& x^2\! +3x\! +2 \\
f(x) =& x^2+3x+2 \\
f(x) =& x^2\, +3x\, +2 \\
f(x) =& x^2\: +3x\: +2 \\
f(x) =& x^2\; +3x\; +2 \\
f(x) =& x^2\ +3x\ +2 \\
f(x) =& x^2\quad +3x\quad +2 \\
f(x) =& x^2\qquad +3x\qquad +2
\end{align*}

Units

For spacing between elements, use \hspace or \vspace.

\hspace[4mm]

Units in Latex
You can specify spacing in pt, mm, cm, ex, em, bp, dd, pc, in

Indents

Section

\hspace*{5mm}\begin{minipage}{\dimexpr\textwidth-5mm}
   Indented Section
\end{minipage}

Sections

Numbering

To change the section numbering from numbers to letters, add the following:

% Changes sections to use capital letters
\renewcommand{\thesection}{\Alph{section}}

% Changes subsections to use lowercase letters
\renewcommand{\thesubsection}{\thesection.\alph{subsection}}

Programming

Latex is a turing complete language.
You can use if statements and for loops in latex.

Custom Commands

You can define your own commands using \newcommand

\newcommand{\notdone}{{\color{red} Not done!!}}

Custom Operators

Latex packages like amsmath come with operators such as \sin and \log.
To get normal text for custom functions like arcsin, use \operatorname{arcsin}.
Below are some potentially useful math operators.

\DeclareMathOperator{\Tr}{Tr}
\DeclareMathOperator{\VCdim}{VCdim}
\DeclareMathOperator{\sign}{sign}
\DeclareMathOperator{\rank}{rank}
\DeclareMathOperator*{\argmin}{argmin}
\DeclareMathOperator*{\argmax}{argmax}

Notes

Adding * puts subscript elements beneath the operator.

Programming

For Each Loops

\foreach [count=\i] \j in {A,B,...,H}{
Element \i~is \j\\
}

Page Layout

There are many packages which adjust the page layout.
You can use the package wordlike for a MS Word layout.

Font

Font size

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

Font type

Times New Roman - \usepackage{mathptmx}

Tables

Multirow and Multicolumns

\usepackage{multirow}

\multirow{3}{4em}{Dataset A}

Newlines

stackexchange line break in table cell
linebreak in multirow

To have a newline in a cell, you can use the makecell package.
\makecell{Some really \\ longer text}.
To make this align left: \makecell[l]{Some really \\ longer text}

For multirow cells, you can use \multirowcell{5}{Numbers\\from\\ 1 to 5}.
By default, this will align center. You can make it align left: \multirowcell{2}[0pt][l]{Number\\ Letter}.

Table Generator

https://www.tablesgenerator.com/ can generate table code from existing tables.

Figures

\begin{figure}[!htbp]
  \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{/path/to/figure}
  \caption{}
  \label{}
\end{figure}

Be sure to use vector figures (pdf or pgf) instead of raster ones (png, jpeg).
See https://timodenk.com/blog/exporting-matplotlib-plots-to-latex/ on how to export matplotlib to pgf.

In the snippet [!htbp] represents the placement preferences.

! means to ignore some placement limitations
h mean to place the figure here
t means top of the page.
b means bottom of the page.
p means to place it on a figure only page.

If you add the the float package, you can also use [!H] which is a more strict version of [!h].

Subfigure

See overleaf reference

% In the header:
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subcaption}

\begin{figure}[!htbp]
  \centering
  \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.45\linewidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{graph1}
    \caption{This is graph1.}
    \label{fig:a}
  \end{subfigure}
  \hfill
  \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.45\linewidth}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{graph2}
    \caption{This is graph2.}
    \label{fig:b}
  \end{subfigure}
  \caption{}
  \label{fig:ab}
\end{figure}

Enumerate

Enumerate is used to make lists

Change the label

Reference
Add the option for the labels:

label=(\alph*) for letters
label=(\Alph*) for upper-case letters
label=(\roman*) for roman numerals.
label=(\arabic*) for numbers

Example

\usepackage{enumitem}
#...
\begin{enumerate}[label=(\alph*)]
\item an apple
\item a banana
\item a carrot
\item a durian
\end{enumerate}

Other Options

font=\bfseries for bold labels
align=left left align labels

Useful Commands

A list of potentially useful commands.
You can paste the following an a Macros.tex file and \input{Macros} in your main tex file.

\newcommand{\degree}{\ensuremath{^{\circ}} }
\newcommand{\etal}{{\em et al.}}
\newcommand{\ceil}[1]{{\lceil #1 \rceil}}
\newcommand{\floor}[1]{{\lfloor #1 \rfloor}}

\newcommand{\bmat}[1]{\begin{bmatrix}#1\end{bmatrix}}
\newcommand{\pmat}[1]{\begin{pmatrix}#1\end{pmatrix}}

Bibliography (Bibtex)

How to do references in Latex.
Bibtex Examples

Citations

Use \cite or some variant to cite references.
Natbib reference sheet

# Defaults to author-year citations
\usepackage{natbib}
# For numerical citations
\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}

# If using author-year citations
\citet{jon90} ⇒ Jones et al. (1990)
\citep{jon90} ⇒ (Jones et al., 1990)
\citep[see][]{jon90} ⇒ (see Jones et al., 1990)

# If using numerical citations
\citet{jon90} ⇒ Jones et al. [21]
\citep{jon90} ⇒ [21]
\citep[see][]{jon90} ⇒ [see 21]

Case of Titles

If you do not want lower case titles, you can change your .bst file by commenting out the portion which alters the case.

FUNCTION {format.title}
{ 
  %title empty$
  %  { "" }
  %  { title "t" change.case$ }
  %if$
  title
  %add.link
}

Tikz

Tikz is used to draw graphs and other shapes

Drawing over images

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \node[anchor=south west,inner sep=0] (image) at (0,0) {
    \includegraphics[width=.9\linewidth]{my_image.png}
    };<br />
    \begin{scope}[x={(image.south east)},y={(image.north west)}]
        \draw[black,ultra thick,rounded corners] (0.0,0.1) rectangle (0.3,0.5);
        \draw[red,ultra thick,rounded corners] (0.5,0.1) rectangle (0.8,0.5);
        % \draw[help lines,xstep=.1,ystep=.1] (0,0) grid (1,1);
        % \foreach \x in {0,1,...,9} { \node [anchor=north] at (\x/10,0) {0.\x}; }
        % \foreach \y in {0,1,...,9} { \node [anchor=east] at (0,\y/10) {0.\y}; }
    \end{scope}
\end{tikzpicture}

Algorithms

How to insert pseudocode into your Latex document.

See algorithmc vs algorithmcx vs algorithm2e
Also Wikibooks: LaTeX/Algorithms for several examples

\usepackage[linesnumbered,ruled]{algorithm2e}

\begin{algorithm}[!htbp]
 \KwData{this text}
 \KwResult{how to write algorithm with \LaTeX2e }
 initialization\;
 \While{not at end of this document}{
  read current\;
  \eIf{understand}{
   go to next section\;
   current section becomes this one\;
   }{
   go back to the beginning of current section\;
  }
 }
 \caption{How to write algorithms}
\end{algorithm}

Verbatim

The verbatim package gives you the environment verbatim. You can use \verbatiminput to embed text files.

`fancyvrb`

The fancyvrb package gives you the environment Verbatim which has more options.
To embed in a figure, you can use BVerbatim.
There is also \VerbatimInput, \BVerbatimInput, \LVerbatimInput.

Document Class

Overleaf Writing your own class
Document classes are .cls files which provide a layout for your document. By writing your own document class, you can ensure a consistent layout across multiple latex documents. You can also encapsulate commands and macros or package requirements within your document class.

Notes

See Wikibooks: LaTeX/Document Structure for a list of common document classes and options.

Examples

Below is a basic example of a latex document

Article Example

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{datetime}
\usepackage{lipsum}<br />
\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}

\newdateformat{monthyear}{%
  \monthname[\THEMONTH] \THEYEAR}

\title{My Main Title\\
\large A Subtitle}
\author{My Name}
\date{\monthyear\today}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\begin{abstract}
    \lipsum[1]
\end{abstract}

\section{Introduction}
\lipsum[2-4]


\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{thebib}

\end{document}

Exporting

See https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Export_To_Other_Formats#Convert_to_image_formats.

Images

On Linux, you can convert PDF files to PNG files using:

pdftoppm paper.pdf paper-page -r 300 -png

-r specifies the DPI. Default is 150.

Latex Cleanup

If you need to submit the latex, e.g. to Arxiv, you can use this tool to help clean it up: https://github.com/google-research/arxiv-latex-cleaner

Resources

Detexify LaTeX handwritten symbol recognition