There are many great LaTeX tutorials available online. Therefore, I will not write another guide on how to get started with LaTeX. This post is a collection of links to resources I think provide a good starting point, getting you going with reasonable effort. Everything else will come with time…
LaTeX and the community
- Getting started on TeX User Group website
- The LaTeX project has general information and news on LaTeX
- The TeX community aggregator on TeXample, a collection of feeds related to TeX and LaTeX.
Tutorials
- The not so short introduction to LaTeX
- Andrew Roberts has a few well written tutorials on his website.
- LaTeX tutorials – a primer by the Indian TeX User Group.
- Wikibooks LaTeX pages is a great resource with code samples.
- The UK TeX FAQ
Other resources
- Ask Google
- Many questions you may have were asked and most probably answered on tex.SX.
- LaTeX cheat sheet by Winston Chang
- You will find posts on many topics on my blog as well as help on installing LaTeX and code samples.
Online editors
If I forgot to mention an important resource or in case you have a question, let me know below.
http://texblog.org/ 🙂
Thanks Tom,
I’m grateful for the hints and tutorials you provide -always well-written and informative.
I would be interested in hearing your views as an expert: since LaTeX is so good at certain typographical tasks that it almost defines the expected standard layout, are there any areas that in your opinion are best left to a word processor? In other words, when do you find working with LaTeX becomes a pain in the neck?
Hi Simon,
Thanks for your question. I would say it largely depends on your level and the amount of time and effort you have or are willing to invest. There are many topics which I am not familiar with. For example, I have only just started to learn TikZ and it takes me quite some time to come up with something reasonably nice. Also, I experienced problems with templates from certain journals. The problem there is that you can’t really change them and sometimes it may be easier to just use a word processor. I use LaTeX whenever possible and when I get stuck, I almost always find a solution somewhere on the internet.
Best, Tom.
http://detexify.kirelabs.org/ – helps you find the LaTeX-Code for a symbol (kind of an interactive version of the comprehensive symbol list).
Thanks for the link! Best, Tom.
Another editor on-line:
http://writelatex.com/
Thanks for the link, will add it to the list.
Tom.
The UK TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html
Added, thanks!
Thanks for the shout-out to SpanDeX, Tom!
In response to the above comment, I should also note that SpanDeX has some built in resources – for example, everything on the UK TeX FAQ and the NASA LaTeX FAQ are searchable from within SpanDeX, and we also have some homegrown help resources.
Keep on rockin’!
Josh
Josh, thanks for your comment! I will check out the latest SpanDeX updates soon! Keep up the good work! Tom.
Getting started with latex « ecology & stats
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Might I suggest http://www.latextemplates.com as resource for a wide diversity of LaTeX templates. The site doesn’t teach how to use LaTeX but I’ve made it so it appeals to people like me who learn by tinkering by heavily commenting all templates.
An interesting resource, thanks for the link. I hope the number of templates in each category will grow over time.
Hi Tom – a nice concise list with some good quality links, thanks 🙂
Have you seen the recent updates at http://www.writelatex.com – they’ve added new examples, and seem to have increased the speed of the preview rendering, so it’s become really handy for preparing presentations. It’s what I’ve started using for collaborating online with colleagues.
All the best,
Tom (W)
Thanks for the update, I will check it out! Best, Tom.