Getting Started

Introduction

Although you can install a LaTeX compiler on your own machine, the process is painful and I do not recommend it.

Instead, use a cloud based compiler. These are easy to use and come with a large range of templates for you to use.

My preferred online LaTeX system is Overleaf. The free account has more than enough functionality for basic documents. Click the link below and create yourself an account:

Overleaf, Online LaTeX Editoroverleaf

Once registered, create your first blank project and call it Hello World:

Overleaf will create a blank project and open up the document interface:

This contains three panels.

1. File Panel - shows the documents and folders that make up the project. Main.tex is the file that LaTeX will compile and all other documents need to be referenced within this.

2. Document Panel - shows the contents of the selected file and where you edit its contents. Currently showing main.tex

3. Output Panel - shows a preview of your documents after it has compiled. You can also download it as a .pdf here.

When working on a document I usually shrink or even close the output panel until I an ready to compile.

Basic Document Structure

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\title{Hello World}
\author{sdf }
\date{May 2021}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\section{Introduction}

Today is \today{}.

\newpage

\section{Another Section}

\end{document}

• The first two lines define the template structure that we will be using. This is taken car of when we use an Overleaf template so we don't normally have to change these

• Line 4-6 set up the information used to create the title page

• Line 8 and 14 tell the compiler where the contents of our document starts and ends

• Line 10: We tell the compiler to make the title page and put it before everything else

• Line 12: The start of a new section

• Line 14: Print today's date

• Line 16: Force a new page for the next section

Compiling the Document

Lets create a document that we can use to explore the features of LaTex. Change the title to Introduction to LaTex and set the author to your name. Include some text after Introduction

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\title{Introduction to LaTeX}
\author{Dr. S D Flatres}
\date{May 2021}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\section{Introduction}

This is an introduction to Latex

Today is \today{}.

\newpage

\section{Another Section}

\end{document}

Press CMD-S or click Recompile in the document viewer to compile the changes

Work through the next section to see how to include formulae, images and lists