Structure of a LaTeX File
LaTeX Commands:
\<commandname>[<optional argument>]{<required argument>}
o Commands start with a backslash.
o There are commands that do not have any arguments.
(Some commands have multiple optional and/or required arguments, each
of them given in its own pair of brackets.)
o Commands are used to change the format of text, start new
sections, insert images, load LaTeX libraries, specify the document
layout and font, …
\documentclass[<options>] The special begin and end
{<class>} commands define environments: }
<document preamble>
\begin{document}
<document body>
\end{document}
\documentclass command:
o Always the first command.
o Specifies the type of document you are working with
Common documentclasses:
o article: For articles in scientific journals, presentations, short
reports, program documentation, etc.
o report: For longer reports of several chapters, small books,
theses.
o book
o letter
o beamer: For presentations
<document preamble>:
o optional area, can be empty
o include additional packages
Packages are LaTeX libraries that offer additional commands or
change the layout of your document
A package is loaded into your document via the following command:
\usepackage[<optional arguments>]{<package name>}
Compiling a Basic Latex Document
[Link] Contains information for following compilations
[Link] Contains a log of the building process
Shows errors and warnings
[Link] Resulting PDF file
[Link] Original tex file
Compiling a Document with References
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Add a section called „Cool Section“ in our
\section{Cool Section}
document
Set a label with the name „sec:cool“ which can
\label{sec:cool} be used to reference the previous item (here:
the section „Cool Section“)
Hello! This is “~” prints a space that does not allow for a line
Section~\ break
Add a reference to the item belonging to the
ref{sec:cool}.
label with name „sec:cool“, i.e., „Cool Section“.
\end{document}
Compiling a Document with BiBTeX Citations
[Link] This file contains the literature that we
@book{s2011, want to cite, i.e., it is a bibliography
title={Erfolgreich database which contains format-
studieren}, independent information about our
sources.
author={Spoun, Sascha},
year={2011},
publisher={Pearson
Deutschland GmbH}
}
Structuring a Document
Section: \section{<Section Name>}
Subsection: \subsection{<Section Name>}
Subsubsection: \subsubsection{<Section Name>}
Paragraph: \paragraph{<Paragraph Name>}
\tableofcontents - Automatically adds a table of contents to the document
Formatting Content
Formatting Text
\textbf{…} for bold text
\textit{…} for italic text
\emph{…} to highlight text
Exmpty line start a new
paragraph
\smallskip
add empty vertical
\medskip
space
\bigskip
Lists: Itemize, Enumeration, Description
You can list items with the following environments:
o Itemize: Bullet point list (\begin{itemize})
o Enumerate: List with numeration
o Description: List without any extras
Formulas and Equations
Recommended packages that provide many math related commands and
symbols: amsmath, amssymb, amstext, amsthm
Inline equations: Enter and exit math mode with $
Math environment
o \begin{math} and \end{math}
o Line break: \newline or \\
Align and equation environments
o \begin{align} and \end{align}
o Line break: \newline or \\
o Every Line will be numbered and can be labeled
o Use align* instead of align to remove numeration
o Use “&” to align multiple lines at a certain point
Floats, Images, Tables, Algorithms
Floats
Floating environments (floats) are containers for arbitrary content
\begin{figure}[htp] Optional: Specify a list of locations
that are considered for placement
o h: here
o t: top of page
o b: bottom of page
o p: separate page
o !: Lift some internal restrictions
on placement that might
otherwise prevent a certain
location
<arbitrary things inside the Optional command \caption: puts a
container> name and a description/text below the
\caption{This is text under the floating environment
figure}
\label{fig:myLabel} Optional: add a label for referencing
\end{figure} the floating environment. Must be
put after \caption
Images
\documentclass{article} The package graphicx
\usepackage{graphicx} provides the \
\begin{document} includegraphics
command to load
images into your
document
\begin{figure}[h!] Use a float to
automatically place the
picture in a good
location and allow for
referencing it later
\centering Center the following
content of the float
\includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth] File name/path of the
{[Link]} image
\caption{My very cool figure}
\label{fig:thumbsup}
\end{figure}
\end{document}
Tables
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}[h!]
\centering
„tabular“ is the actual table
list of columns
\begin{tabular}{c|lr} c/r/l: align column
center/right/left
|: show line between columns
Color & Coolness Factor & Example \\: end of row
Item \\ \hline \hline Horizontal line between rows
Yellow & $314$ & Banana \\ \hline
Black & $-3$ & Night \\ \hline &: end of column within a row
Blue & $12$ & Ocean \\ \hline
\end{tabular}
\caption{My Fancy Color Table}
\label{tab:colors}
\end{table}
\end{document}
Algorithms
The algpseudocode and listings packages provide environments for source
code and algorithms
\documentclass{article} i← 1 0
\ if i≥ 5 then
usepackage{algpseudoc i← i−1
ode} else
if i≤ 3 then
\begin{document} i← i+2
end if
\begin{figure} end if
\
begin{algorithmic
}
\State $i \gets
10$
\If{$i\geq 5$}
\State $i \gets i-
1$
\Else
\If{$i\leq 3$}
\State $i \gets
i+2$
\EndIf
\EndIf
\
end{algorithmic}
\end{figure}
\end{document}
TIKZ
TIKZ is a library for drawing graphs, lists, trees, and many more
LaTeX Presentations: Beamer
\documentclass{beamer} use beamer class for presentations
\begin{document}
\begin{frame} each frame environment creates
one slide
\frametitle{First Slide} /frametitle sets slide title
This is the first slide.
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Second Slide}
This is the second slide.
\end{frame}
\end{document}
