LaTeX in COMP 163

What is LaTeX?

LaTeX is a system for document preparation. Wikipedia has a good article about it.

Why learn LaTeX?

LaTeX is one of the best – if not the best – tools for creating truly beautiful documents, especially when there is a fair amount of mathematics involved. Learning LateX empowers us to produce spectacular documents, but also gives us an understanding of document structure, mark up languages, and the venerable craft of typography.

How to learn LaTeX?

In a single word: together. COMP 163 is a great place and time to learn how to write documents in LaTeX. The course is heavy in mathematical notation and it provides an excellent opportunity to practice LaTeX coding. That’s right, LaTeX is kind of a programming language albeit one with one purpose: to create beautiful documents.

There will be LaTeX demonstrations and examples during class. And you will be asked to return homework assignments as PDF files produced by LaTeX.

To get started

You need a LaTeX environment. To keep things simple at the beginning, sign up for a free account with Overleaf. Use your official Loyola email address to register your Overleaf account. Overleaf is a web-based LaTeX environment that allows you to focus on your writing without the burdens of technical maintenance. When you feel ready to assume that burden, you may download and install a LaTeX environment for your computer (for example, TeXShop for MacOS; TeXLive for Windows).

Overleaf offers a spectacular introduction to LaTeX; read it before coming to class.

Topics to cover

The following is a list of topics that we will explore in LaTeX, along the actual topics of COMP 163.

  • The concept of mark up languages. From TeX and SGML to LaTeX, HTML, XML, RST, and MD.

  • The TeX and LaTeX ecosystem.

  • Organizing a .tex file: preamble stuff and actual content; the powerful backslash; use of curly brackets.

  • Writing plain prose (displayed text).

  • Writing Euler’s identity: an exercise in superscripts and special characters. The difference between fonts for prose and fonts for math.

  • Multiline equations.

  • Math symbols and where to find them.

  • Tables