Guide to LaTeX (LaTeX Series Part I)

This article is written based on the LaTeX Tutorial pt 1 - Creating Your First Document video, introducing the uses and basic properties of LaTeX. LaTeX is a document preparation system that is more catered towards mathematics and research; similar to Google Docs for math. By coding functions and the layout of the document, LaTeX allows for a lot more flexibility and professionalism in your writing.

1. Register! OverLeaf is an easy LaTeX text editor; register at https://www.overleaf.com/ by clicking the upper right button Register

2. Once registered, a new project is created by clicking on the green “New Project” button on the left hand side and clicking “Blank Project”. The other options include Example Project, Upload Project and there are also different templates, including Academic Journal and Thesis.

3. After creating a project, the project was titled “My First Document”.

4. In the editing part of the document, the left hand side includes all files in the project, the center is for coding and the writing of the document and the right hand side is the preview of the project. At the top right corner, there are buttons Review, Share for collaborating, History and Chat.

5. Each sentence on a separate line is called a statement, and those starting with a “\” and are in blue are code.

6. The \documentclass{_} command codes for the type of article the project is, including article, letter, book and slides, and these can be input within the curly brackets.

7. The \title{_} document is the title of the document, \begin{document} commands Latex to start the document, and the \section{Introduction} command organizes the document into sections.

8. The introduction should be written underneath the \section{Introduction} part, and the \end{document} command ends the document. The green “Recompile” document refreshes the preview of the document, and must be clicked after every adjustment to the code.