LaTeX

What is LaTeX?

LaTeX (pronounced lay-tech or lah-tekh) is a markup language for typesetting documents similar to how HTML is one for web sites.

LaTeX has advantages over What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) editors such as Microsoft Word because with LaTeX you provide the content, and LaTeX takes care of the layout. Separation of content from typesetting results in documents that are consistently and beautifully formatted. Furthermore, because LaTeX markup is of plain text format (unlike more complex file formats produced by WYSIWYG editors, like .docx), LaTeX files are lightweight and can be easily kept under version control.

LaTeX documents are typically compiled to PDF files so that consistency in layout is retained across different viewers, and for printing.

LaTeX is especially popular in academic writing due to its rich support for typesetting equations, cross-referencing figures and tables, and citations and bibliographies.

Here are some basic ideas to make sure your code doesn't break on you and your equations look better:

1. Make sure all brackets, curly braces, dollar signs, and \begin{} \end{} commands are matching. This is something where one small mistake can mess your whole piece of code up in a big way.
2. If you get errors, make sure you have the proper package loaded (for example, don't use the \begin{equation*} command without the amsmath package).
3. Never, ever, ever use double dollar signs ($$an equation here$$) instead of \begin{equation}.
4. Never use math mode as a way to make your text italic.
5. Completely stuck? Try TeX.SX, a site for answering questions about TeX, LaTeX, and related languages.

Good luck!

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