The Bare Minimum Guide to LaTeX

Read a more detailed version of this post on my personal blog by clicking here

You can think of LaTeX as a programming language for documents. It’s well-suited for large projects and complicated document structures (e.g. theses), but can be difficult to get into. The other huge plus for LaTeX is the ability to easily write complicated mathematical equations.

Getting started with Overleaf

It is possible to download and install LaTeX on your computer, but I think using Overleaf is the best choice for most. Firstly, go to this link and sign up for an Overleaf account. Secondly, go back to Overleaf and log in. Finally, press the green button in the top left that says “New Project” and choose “Blank Project”. Give your project a name (you can change it later), and press “Create”.

The structure of a LaTeX document

You should see a document on the right side of your screen, a bit of code in the middle, and an overview of your project on the left only containing main.tex.

Let’s look at the code now. I’ve posted below, what your code should look like (except for a few things).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}