LaTeX Guide

For some time now, I have used LaTeX to create a variety of great documents. In my professional work, examples include my thesis and defence slides, as well as various journal articles. I do not anticipate that I will stop using LaTeX anytime soon, but I do anticipate that I will need to collaborate on work created in LaTeX with people who are unfamiliar with it. In such an event, it can be daunting to try to establish a working understanding of something like LaTeX. To assist with this, I have decided to create this guide. Suggestions are most welcome.

This guide is built based on my personal experiences. I work in Windows, and so all software use covers only this. I relay what I have learned, either through trial and error, or searching the web. This guide describes, in detail, what to install and how to configure the software to work well.

  1. What is LaTeX?
  2. Installing the required software: MikTeX and WinShell
  3. Installing additional software (optional)
  4. General software use and understanding
  5. First example: a quick-and-dirty LaTeX example
  6. Useful examples: including images, equations, etc.
  7. LaTeX with class: Installing and using packages to extend functionality
  8. Take command of LaTeX: develop user-defined commands and environments
  9. Understanding a LaTeX project (WinShell)
  10. Quick and dirty guide to working with references and a bibliography
  11. Using BibTeX for bibliography generation
  12. Developing your own BibTeX style file
  13. Working with multiple bibliographies in one document
  14. A quick primer to TikZ, an inline graphics development system for LaTeX
  15. Some advanced tips and techniques for TikZ
  16. A quick primer to Beamer, a slide presentation development system for LaTeX
  17. A quick primer to BeamerPoster, a poster development system for LaTeX