LaTeX

It's pronounced "LAH-tech" or "LAY-tech", not "LAY-tecks"; the letters in TeX are meant to represent the Greek letters tau, epsilon, and chi.

What is $\LaTeX$?

$\LaTeX$ is a typesetting system, much like Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign. It is not a text editor.$\LaTeX$ is used widely in the scientific and technical publishing industry; if you've seen a document that looks like the picture below, chances are it was written in $\LaTeX$.

A very common look and feel for a LaTeX document

While $\LaTeX$documents come in all sorts of flavors, they generally share a similar appearance because they use the Computer Modern typeface. However, all the fonts, colors, layouts and pretty much everything is customizable--$\LaTeX$is a way of "programming documents".

While Microsoft Word is a "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) system, $\LaTeX$is decidedly not. Instead, $\LaTeX$is written as code (see below), and then compiled, usually into a PDF.

LaTeX document open in Atom, a text editor

Why should I use $\LaTeX$?

The most common reason to use $\LaTeX$is because you are writing a document with equations in it. There is simply no other way to get beautifully formatted equations (although many programs like Word now support $\LaTeX$syntax).

Even if you don't have equations, $\LaTeX$allows writers to stop worrying about annoying formatting issues, breaking their document when they add a picture, etc. and focus on the actual content. Documents like reports and books can be written in sections and seamlessly re-compiled using the articleandbookclasses, while the formatting and numbering of tables, figures, references, citations, footnotes, etc. are taken care of completely automatically.

To give one example, if you have 5 figures labeled Fig. 1 through Fig. 5, you can insert a figure between Fig. 1 and Fig 2. and not have to worry about changing the references to Figs. 2-5 to Figs. 3-6. This can save an enormous amount of time when writing longer documents.

How do I use $\LaTeX$?

There are two ways to use $\LaTeX$: locally on your computer or in the *cloud*.

Locally

This is really for hardcore users and people without internet. You'll first need to install a version of $\LaTeX$compatible with your operating system. Head over to https://www.latex-project.org/get/ to get started; we recommed TeX Live for Linux, MacTeX for macOS, and MiKTeX for Windows. These downloads can be pretty big!

As mentioned previously, $\LaTeX$is a typesetting system, not an editor. You can write $\LaTeX$documents in Atom, Sublime, Notepad, Notepad++, vim, Emacs, ex, TextEdit, or whatever text editor you can get your hands on. That being said, TeXnicCenter and TeXstudio are popular editors for Windows, and MacTeX includes TeXShop; you might want to use these or similar TeX-oriented editors to edit your documents unless you know what you're doing. Linux users can choose from 10s of options; for some reason people who are into Linux are also into TeX.

In the Cloud

Welcome to the future. Simply head over to https://www.overleaf.com/ (now merged with ShareLaTeX) to get started! UC Berkeley provides free Overleaf Professional with a verified berkeley.edu email address. Overleaf has hundreds of great templates and tutorials to help you get started.

A Short Tutorial

While there are hundreds of tutorials on the internet, this one is pretty good: https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Learn_LaTeX_in_30_minutes. When in doubt, just Google! Chances are someone's had the same question and made a StackOverflow post about it.

What does CalSTAR use $\LaTeX$ for?

We have previously used $\LaTeX$to compile our reports for NASA Student Launch. If you ever need to make a checklist, design document, or report, feel free to use $\LaTeX$. Generally, Google Docs is a little easier for the uninitiated, but don't be afraid to make your documents look nice!