My personally written guide for typesetting LaTeX documents in Overleaf.
You can view my resume here 😊
Getting Started
Preamble
Body
Further Development
LaTeX is a set of macros for the typesetting language TeX. A TeX document is ultimately made of two parts, the preamble and the body. The preamble is where the document layout and user definitions are declared, followed by the body defined between \begin{document} and \end{document}, providing the document's content. The first part of this doc explains the preamble fundamentals, while the second explains the body fundamentals.
LaTeX is interpreted into document file format, commonly pdf, by a LaTeX Engine. While there are several engines you can set up for local development, there is no obvious benefit to doing so as long as you have internet access. OverLeaf is an online LaTeX editor that can organize and develop a large number of projects for free, lets you switch between engines, and gives you access to a massive community template library all with cloud convenience.
LaTeX has somewhat confusing nomenclature when it comes to commands, so forgive yourself if this paragraph is confusing to read at first. There are 2 categories of "commands" that are effectively macros, special words prepended by a \ character that 'do something'. The first is called a command (which confuses most), which can be thought of as function, accepting input and possibly options in a single declaration. The second is called an environment, which sets some typesetting condition either after the declaration, or between \begin{something} and \end{something} declarations. We will look at the first below, and explore the latter shortly after. Please note; this doc refers to both "command types" as commands. This distinction is only explained here to aid in further reading, which is unavoidable for even moderate LaTeX development.
Commands generally take the following form:
\exampleCommand[option1, option2, ...]{Input Text}With some command input, units may be required after the number. The common units are in, cm, mm such as the following example:
\usepackage[margin=1.25in]{geometry}To Import packages, use the \usepackage command in the preamble:
\usepackage{examplePackage}Single line comments are prepended by %:
% this is a commentMulti-line comments are not supported natively, however there is a popular package verbatim:
\usepackage{verbatim}
\begin{comment}
these are
all
comments
\end{comment}Escaping special characters works as follows:
| Result | Input |
|---|---|
# |
\# |
$ |
\$ |
% |
\% |
& |
\& |
\ |
\textbackslash{} |
^ |
\textasciicircum{} |
_ |
\_ |
{ |
\{ |
} |
\} |
~ |
\textasciitilde{} |
Below are the essentials. Here's a terrific guide for the \documentclass command.
All documents begin with \documentclass[options]{type}.\
Common types:
article- most default document type, for short reports and program documentation.
minimal- sets only page size and base font.
report- for long reports and more significant thesis-esque documents.
slides- aptly named, base font is large sans-serif.
beamer- for presentations.
letter- aptly named, big margins.
book- aptly named, sets separate title page.
Common options:
Enclosed in { } will be a set of common values for the given option.
Font size - { 10pt, 11pt, 12pt }
Paper - { a4paper, letterpaper, legalpaper, executivepaper }
Orientation - { landscape, portrait }
Page printing - { oneside, twoside }
Title behavior - { notitlepage, titlepage }
Columns - { onecolumn, twocolumn }
Formula layout - { fleqn, leqno }
A note on 'formula layout', fleqn means "flush left equations", and leqno means "left equation numbers".
An example of a document class I use for school reports:
\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper,twoside,titlepage,fleqn]{article}After your document class is configured, it is customary to import your packages with the \usepackage command. Here are some common packages I use:
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} % unicode support
\usepackage{verbatim} % multi-line comments
\usepackage[margin=0.75in]{geometry} % margin setting
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} % access native typefaces
\usepackage{fontspec} % access imported typefaces || pdfLaTeX Only!
\usepackage[rm,light]{roboto} % set main typeface
\usepackage{amsmath} % equation setting
\usepackage{amssymb} % math symbols
\usepackage{ragged2e} % text alignment
\usepackage[normalem]{ulem} % text styling
\usepackage{indentfirst} % force subsection first paragraph indent
\usepackage{hyperref} % nice hyperlinks, formatted by the following
\hypersetup{
colorlinks=true,
linkcolor=blue,
urlcolor=magenta,
}
\usepackage{xcolor} % for defining colors, one example below
\definecolor{codepurple}{rgb}{0.58,0,0.82}
\usepackage{listings} % formatting code snippets, configured with the following
\lstdefinestyle{mystyle}{
backgroundcolor=\color{{rgb}{0.95,0.95,0.92}},
commentstyle=\color{{rgb}{0,0.6,0}},
keywordstyle=\color{magenta},
numberstyle=\tiny\color{{rgb}{0.5,0.5,0.5}},
stringstyle=\color{{rgb}{0.58,0,0.82}},
basicstyle=\ttfamily\footnotesize,
breakatwhitespace=false,
breaklines=true,
captionpos=b,
keepspaces=true,
numbers=left,
numbersep=5pt,
showspaces=false,
showstringspaces=false,
showtabs=false,
tabsize=2
}There are many typefaces supported by LaTeX in Overleaf, and the complete catalogue is listed in the references at the bottom of this doc (and here for convenience). To set a typeface from the native catalogue, include the following packages:
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[rm,light]{roboto} % this one sets the new main typeface.The package that sets the main typeface can be chosen to your liking.
To import fonts, you must change the compiler from your menu in the editor view of a given project in Overleaf to XeLaTeX. By default, it will be pdfLaTeX. From there, you can add the font file to your project's file tree, and set it like the following:
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont[Ligatures=TeX]{OleoScript-Regular.ttf}Next, you can use a few commands to set the document's title:
\title{Example Document}
\author{Sleepy Boy \thanks{The Computer Action Team}}
\date{December 18th, 2020}This will get set later at the top of the body. The \thanks{} command nested in the \author{} command will add the input text as a foot note to the first page. If you do not write your own \date{} declaration, a default one will be set for you with the format <month_name> <day_number>, <year>.
You may define your own commands with the \newcommand command. This feature is too dense of a topic to explain here, if this doc is to stay succinct. Thus, an example of a simple common use case is given here, and references for further reading are provided at the bottom:
\newcommand{\plusbinomial}[3][2]{(#2 + #3)^#1} % definition in preamble
\[ \plusbinomial[4]{y}{y} \] % setting declarations in body
\[ \plusbinomial{x}{y} \] % this declaration will rely on a default valueIn this example, the definition works as follows:
- The first parameter
[3]is the number of inputs for the command. - The next parameter
[2]is the default value for the first input. You can keep providing default values this way. When you do, that input becomes optional when setting declarations in the body. - For the expression wrapped in
{ },#1is the first argument provided, and so on.
The body should begin with the following line, setting the title you configured in the preamble:
\maketitleAgain, note that this will set a footnote if the title configuration in the preamble contained a \thanks{} declaration.
Statements containing symbols should be wrapped with the $. Overleaf will do this for you if it thinks you forgot to, then flags a warning:
$\theta$To declare a new line, append the line with \\:
Hello World\\To declare a size of vertical whitespace:
\vspace{10mm}For setting justification for a block of text, use center, flushleft and flushright in the following command:
\begin{center}
I'm centered!
\end{center}There is also a popular package ragged2e that manages alignment in a lighter syntax:
\usepackage{ragged2e}
\begin{document}
\centering
I'm centered!
\FlushRight
I'm right-justified!
\FlushLeft
I'm back to default justification!
\end{document}For typical type-face styling:
\textit{Italic}
\textbf{Bold}
\underline{Underline}
\sout{Strike-through} % \usepackage[normalem]{ulem} To set environments with a shifted font size:
\Huge Huge
\huge huge
\LARGE LARGE
\Large Large
\large large
\normalsize normalsize
\small small
\footnotesize footnotesize
\scriptsize sciprtsize
\tiny tinyFor hyperlinks, you can make use of the hyperref package and configure your link colors with the \hypersetup{<config>} command, demonstrated in the packages section of this doc. You may then declare a hyperlink in the body with the url{<address>} command. Example:
\url{[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonybench/)}To make a new section:
\section{Numbered Section Title}
\section*{Section Title} % the * character removes numberingand to make a new subsection:
\subsection{Numbered Subsection Title}
\subsection*{Subsection Title} % the * character removes numberingParagraphs are bodies of text seperated by blank lines, and the first paragraphs of sections/subsections are not indented by default. To enforce the first paragraph to indent, include \usepackage{indentfirst} in the preamble. To force no indent at a paragraphs onset, prepend the paragraph with the \noindent command.
There are two ways to enclose text to declare an equation; \[ \] for display mode and \( \) for inline mode.
Superscripts get prepended by ^, while superscripts pet prepended by _.
Fractions are formatted with the \frac{}{} command.\
An example of a display mode equation:
\[ m_1gh = \frac{m_1v^2}{2} \]The \usepackage command from the graphicx package inserts images into the document where ever declared:
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\includegraphics[scale=<n>]{<path>}
\end{document}where <n> is a floating point number that represents percent scale of the source image. It is recommended to take use of Overleaf's file system for each project, thus image hosting is not necessary. The <path> is the relative path from the document's file. An example is given below:
\includegraphics[scale=1.5]{img/app.yaml.png}You can caption an image with the \caption{<caption text>} command within the figure environment, demonstrated here:
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{sleepyboy.png}
\caption{The sleepiest boy}
\end{figure}With the listings package, you can wrap a block of text intended to be a code snippet with \begin{lstlisting} and \end{lstlisting}. Something uncommon about this utility is that options [ ] come after the command input. For example, one option is to specify the language so that the package knows to style keywords, and would be declared as follows:
\begin{lstlisting}[language=Python]
from math import factorial as F
def weightedCombinationSum(n, weight):
res = 0
for i in range(n+1):
res += (F(n) // (F(i) * F(n - i))) * (weight**i)
return res
\end{lstlisting}But let's not pretend that colorless code snippets are cool. They aren't.
This package offers a lot of configuration options, but first we need another package to write maintainable code when we manage colors, xcolor. With this package, we can define in the preamble with the \definecolor{<color_name>}{rgb}{<x>,<y>,<z>} command. The <color_name> input is the handle for the custom color, <x>,<y>,<z> are the floating point rgb values defining the color. An example:
\definecolor{codepurple}{rgb}{0.58,0,0.82}You don't per-say need the above package, but it makes for much more maintanable code and is suggested by the TeX community at large. After your colors are defined, we can configure a code snippet style with the \lstdefinestyle{<style_name>}{<config_settings>} command. The first input <style_name> is for the name you are associating the following style options with. The second input <config_settings> is where you write your configurations. This should be done in the preamble. An example is given here with all of the configuration options:
\lstdefinestyle{mystyle}{
backgroundcolor=\color{backcolour},
commentstyle=\color{codegreen},
keywordstyle=\color{magenta},
numberstyle=\tiny\color{codegray},
stringstyle=\color{codepurple},
basicstyle=\ttfamily\footnotesize,
breakatwhitespace=false,
breaklines=true,
captionpos=b,
keepspaces=true,
numbers=left,
numbersep=5pt,
showspaces=false,
showstringspaces=false,
showtabs=false,
tabsize=2
}Finally, you can set a style configuration by declaring its name in the body with the \lstset{style=<style_name>} command. Here's an example of all of this in motion:
% preamble %
\usepackage{xcolor} % define colors
\definecolor{codegreen}{rgb}{0,0.6,0}
\definecolor{codegray}{rgb}{0.5,0.5,0.5}
\definecolor{codepurple}{rgb}{0.58,0,0.82}
\definecolor{backcolour}{rgb}{0.95,0.95,0.92}
\usepackage{listings} % configure code snippet style
\lstdefinestyle{mystyle}{
backgroundcolor=\color{backcolour},
commentstyle=\color{codegreen},
keywordstyle=\color{magenta},
numberstyle=\tiny\color{codegray},
stringstyle=\color{codepurple},
basicstyle=\ttfamily\footnotesize,
breakatwhitespace=false,
breaklines=true,
captionpos=b,
keepspaces=true,
numbers=left,
numbersep=5pt,
showspaces=false,
showstringspaces=false,
showtabs=false,
tabsize=2
}
% body %
\begin{document}
\lstset{style=myStyle} % declare style
\begin{lstlisting}[language=Python] % set code snippet
from math import factorial as F
def weightedCombinationSum(n, weight):
res = 0
for i in range(n+1):
res += (F(n) // (F(i) * F(n - i))) * (weight**i)
return res
\end{lstlisting}
\end{document}For modularity, elements you define can be separated into files for repeated use. Such a file is refered to as either a class with the .cls extension or a package with the .sty extension. The rule of thumb is to make your code a class if it's specific to a document type, like if it's meant for just school reports for example. Else if it's intended to add functionality to any arbitrary document type, then it should be a package.
One package that likely deserves it's own document is TikZ, which provides a litany of powerful graphical tools for setting shape, images and other graphical flair. This package is quite complex, but time spent learning it can be rewarding. Should you accept the challenge, include this import in the preamble:
\usepackage{tikz}- Overleaf documentation Home
- TeX Stack Exchange Home
- LaTeX WikiBooks Home
- Document Class breakdown
- Best YouTube tutorial (imo)
- Other YouTube tutorial (he pronounces LaTeX wrong, but I'll forgive him)
- Native LaTeX Font Catalog