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TeX is a powerful typesetting system that is the current standard for creating mathematical documents. A system called LaTeX, which includes TeX along with many “macros” to make your life easier, is used by most mathematicians and many professionals in other scientific fields.
Decide whether you're going to use the department computers (Linux) or your own (Windows, Mac, or Linux). Getting LaTeX working on your computer takes two steps: (1) installing LaTeX, and (2) getting an editor. Once you've completed these two steps, download an example TeX file (see below) and try compiling the TeX file into a PDF. Congratulations, you are now a LaTeX user!
Install MacTeX, which includes TeXShop. Open a LaTeX file in TeXShop and click the “Typeset” button. You can make changes in the editing window and view the results in the PDF preview window.
Install proTeXt.
Using a terminal, change into the directory where your LaTeX file is. If your file is called myfile.tex
, then run the command pdflatex myfile.tex
. In the same directory should be myfile.pdf
. You can make changes using any text editor (or retransfer / download your updated LaTeX file) and rerun pdflatex
.
If you get a command doesn't exist
error, some of the “local machines” (like the math department computers in the grab lab) don't have TeX/LaTeX installed. First, SSH into one point/round/line/tangent, cd to the right directory, and try again. If you're running Linux on your own computer at home, you might need to first install tetex.
An error message indicates invalid LaTeX. When you get a message like
! LaTeX Error: Bad math environment delimiter. See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation. Type H <return> for immediate help. l.12 \begin{displaymath} ?
Enter either q
or x
to get out. LaTeX suggests the error is at line 12. In reality, it may be on some line nearby.
There are many tools available for editing TeX files. Here are a few:
Everything before the command \begin{document}
is called the preamble. You may have noticed that some LaTeX preambles contain lines starting with \usepackage
. This is how you load packages, which are even more macros that work on top of the basic LaTeX setup. For example, the diagrams
package below enables easier-to-use commands to create commutative diagrams than in standard LaTeX.
Some of these packages may already be installed in your version of TeX.
Package | Description |
---|---|
diagrams.sty | This is Paul Taylor's commutative diagrams package |
hyperref | Use this to typeset urls and create (internal and external) hyperlinks in your documents. Download the package and manual from TUG; your TeX distribution will most likely already have this installed. |
setspace | Use this to create one-and-a-half spacing, double-spacing, etc. Your TeX distribution will most likely already have this installed. |
Before beginning the tutorial, we present a selection of example LaTeX files.
– Insert here a link to a sample .tex file for beginners –
– Insert here a LaTeX template for a qual proposal –
– Insert the dissertation template(s) here –
A great place to find many examples of LaTeX source code is the arXiv. Virtually every preprint on the arXiv is typeset using LaTeX and has source code available for download from the summary page.