Introduction to LaTeX

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 What is LaTeX?
• LaTeX is pronounced “lay-tech” or “lah-tech,”
not “la-teks.”
• LaTeX is a document preparation system for
high-quality typesetting.
• LaTeX is most often used to produce technical
or scientific documents, but it can be used for
almost any form of publishing.

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 Why Use LaTeX?
• Designed by academics and easily accommodates academic
use.
• Professionally crafted predefined layouts make a document
really look as if “printed.”
• Mathematical symbols and equations are easily integrated.
• Even complex structures such as footnotes, references, table
of contents, and bibliographies can be generated easily.
• Forces author to focus on logical instead of aesthetic
structure of a document.
• Creates more beautiful documents.
• Portable, compatible, flexible, versatile, and cheap (or free)!
Images from Dario Taraborelli’s Blog

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 Installing LaTeX
• In Windows
• MiKTeX 2.9
– MiKTeX is a typesetting system for the Windows.
– Download from www.miktex.org for free
– It is generally recommended to install MiKTeX first,
then WinEdt.
• TeXnicCenter
– TeXnicCenter is a text editor.
– TeXnicCenter creates the source file (.tex and others).
– Download from https://www.texniccenter.org/ for free.

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 Installing LaTeX
• Other text editors
– There are other text editors.
– Winshell for free (http://www.winshell.de/)
– Scientific Workplace
• Combination of LaTeX and Mathematics program
• Does a good job of calculating and graphing, very user friendly,
but expensive

• In Mac
• TexShop
– Download for free
http://www.uoregon.edu/~koch/texshop/
– Includes everything!
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DIY

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 Basic Document Structure
• The format of a document is pretty simple.
– In the preamble
• Documentclass
• Packages
– In the front matter
• Title/author
– In the body
• Contents
– In the back matter
• bibliography

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 In the Preamble
• You specify your document class.
– Document classes: letter, article, report, book,
slides(beamer, prosper)
• \documentclass[12pt]{article}
• Backslash – at the beginning of text markup command
– Packages: numerous packages are available
• \usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
• \usepackage{setspace}
• \usepackage{harvard}

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 In the Front Matter
• \begin{document}
• \title{}
• \author{}
• \maketitle
• \begin{abstract}
• \end{abstract}
• \pagebreak

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 In the Body
• To begin a new section
• \section{}
– Similarly, \subsection{}, \subsubsection{}, \
subsubsubsection{}
– LaTeX does automatic numbering. If you don’t like it,
use section*{}
• \emph{}, \textbf{}
• \singlespacing, \doublespacing, \onehalfspacing
• \centering or \begin{centering} & \end{centering}
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 Footnotes/Quotes/Equations
• \footnote{}
• \begin{quote} & \end{quote}
• ` ’, `` ’’ for quatations
• Mathematical Equations
– Math always in between $ & $
• Alternatively, \begin{equation} & \end{equation}
– $ 1+4=5 $
– \frac{}{}, \sqrt{}, \sum_{k=1}^{n}
– ^{}, _{}
– \greek letters (e.g. \alpha or \Alpha)
– WinEdt also provides click and type functions.

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 Citations
• \cite{bibtexkey}, citeyear{bibtexkey}
• It is more convenient to create a bibliography
file, called bibtex file(.bib) and use it as
needed.
• WinEdt is capable of creating a bib file, but
there are more convenient tools out there.
• JabRef (http://jabref.sourceforge.net/)

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 Creating a Table
• Add numbered table
– \begin{table} \caption{}
• Creating a table
• Simple tables can be produced by
– \begin{tabular}[pos]{tablespec}
– Within the {tablespec} section, one details the number of columns,
the alignment, and the number of vertical lines of the table.
• {lrc}, {|l|r|c}
– Then type in from left to right, the values for each cell with & in
between.
– Put “\\” at the end of each row, then input another row of values if
needed.
– \hline
– For STATA users, after downloading the “outtex” package online, one
can simply type “outtex” after any estimation and STATA will spit out
LaTeX code for the results table presented.
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 Creating a 4*3 Table
• \begin{table}[h]
• \caption{Summary of Conclusions from Diagnostic Tests}
• \begin{tabular}{llll}
• \hline
• \hline
• & Macropartisanship & Consumer Sentiment & Presidential
Approval\\
• \hline
• Joint F test & $d=1$ & $d=1$ & $d=0$\\
• VR test & $0<d\leq1$ & $d=1$ & $0<d\leq1$ \\
• \hline
• \end{tabular}
• \end{table}
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 In the Back Matter
• Don’t forget bibliography{filename}
– Make sure that the bibtex file is saved in the same
location where the main tex file is saved.
• Don’t forget end{document}

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 Seeing the Document

Press on the Press on the Press on the

smiling bear to PDF+happy bear PDF/LaTeX to
convert to .dvi to convert convert to .pdf
to .pdf and open
it

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 Common Mistakes
• Often times, you make a mistake when
creating a document. You will notice the log
file reporting a problem.
• There are some common mistakes:
– “end” doesn’t follow “begin”
– $ doesn’t follow $
– Using commands from packages lot defined in the
preamble
– Don’t forget “\”s.

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 Other Resources
• Books
– Leslie Lampert. 1994. LaTeX: A Document Preparation
System.
– Helmut Kopta and Patrick W. Daly. 2004.Guide to LaTex
– Frank Mittelbach et al. 2004. The LaTeX Companion
• Online Guides
– http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX
– http://tobi.oetiker.ch/lshort/lshort.pdf
– https://www.latex-tables.com/
– CV and dissertation templates are available on line

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 Proposal and Thesis Template
• https://bitly.com/thesis-template

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