LaTeX: Tutorial

Getting started with LaTeX for CS111

TODO: This LaTeX tutorial has some stuff in it that’s specific to working with MATLAB. It might be good to factor that out. The original is here: http://cs.ucsb.edu/~gilbert/cs111/latex/

Resources

These resources will be useful for almost everything outside of the small scope of this tutorial. Thus, they are displayed prominently at the top.

The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e - Great introduction to LaTeX
LaTeX Wikibook - Full of detailed examples for just about anything
Comprehensive list of symbols - Don’t know how to make that symbol that was used in class? Look it up in this massive PDF (try searching the closest english you know, or look through the index at the end).

Prerequisites

First and foremost, you will need access to a copy of LaTeX. You should be able to install a LaTeX distribution for nearly any operating system:

You could also use SSHFS, SSH and your CSIL account, rather than install these rather large distributions.

Alternatively, something like LyX is a great all-in-one solution.

Finally, we will need a favorite text editor and a copy of MATLAB.

Template directory

The template files are in the following github repo:

https://github.com/ucsb-cs111/latex-template

Here is a summary of the files:

File	Explanation
`latex_tut.tex`	LaTeX source file. Read through this carefully
`Makefile`	Runs `pdflatex latex_tut` 3 times—just to be safe.
`finitefern.m`	Matlab code used to generate figure.
`finitefern.pdf`	PDF version of the figure generated in Matlab.
`placeins.sty`	LaTeX package that is included so the `FloatBarrier` command can be used.

Run make in the template directory.

If your machine doesn’t have make, run pdflatex latex_tut (you may need to run this 3 times).

If you have some time, rubber is a much better alternative to make or the by-hand method.

Create a Matlab figure

The instructions to duplicate the figure (or replace it with your own) included in the template directory are simple. I used finitefern to generate my figure. Run the code and a figure should appear. Then save the figure as a PDF. Place the code that generated the figure and the PDF in the same directory as your LaTeX code.

Credits

This file was authored by Jeff Tyson, and refomatted for Markdown by P. Conrad