Daryl R. DeFord

Daryl R. DeFord

Assistant Professor of Statistics

Dartmouth Latex Workshops

This webpage contains resources for the Dartmouth College ``Introduction to LaTeX Workshops'' presented by Daryl DeFord, David Freund, and Katie Harding.

Week 1: Installing LaTeX

Registration link through the Kresge website

The first meeting of the workshop series is focused on getting you up and running with LaTeX. We will help you install a LaTeX compiler and the TeX Maker editor on Linux, Mac, or Windows and practice compiling example documents. Several templates will be provided so that you can begin experimenting immediately. Please bring your laptop.

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Week 2: LaTeX Basics

Registration link through the Kresge website

In this workshop, we will provide you with the information that you need to produce a basic LaTeX document. We will cover the structural elements of text in LaTeX, including sections, subsections, and paragraphs, as well as text formatting. We will then talk about commands for writing mathematical elements, such as fractions, limits, sums, and integrals. We will conclude by offering some strategies and resources that you can use for troubleshooting error messages. Please bring your laptop.

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Week 3: Environments, Equations, and Tables in LaTeX

Registration link through the Kresge website

Resources: In this workshop, we discuss a variety of LaTeX environments which help produce a clean, readable document. We will start by talking about different list structures (bullets, numbered lists, etc.) and different ways of writing equations. Then we discuss how to build matrices in LaTeX. Our final topic will explore the environment used to create tables in LaTeX, discussing both simple customization options as well as more complicated ones (making use of the multirow and multicolumn packages). Please bring your laptop.

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Week 4: Floating Environments and Figures in LaTeX

Registration link through the Kresge website

The final meeting of these introductory workshops covers spacing and figures. We will discuss the basics of horizontal and vertical spacing as well as margin options for various types of documents. Building on the previous week's material we will cover floating environments for tables and figures with the corresponding placement options and captioning. Finally, we will conclude by discussing ways to include and format plots and figures in LaTeX documents using the graphicx package and the \includegraphics command. Please bring your laptop.

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Week 5: Commutative Diagrams with Tikz-CD

This workshop is intended for more advanced LaTeX users. The focus will be on creating commutative diagrams and Galois field extension diagrams in LaTeX using the Tikz-CD package. The documentation of the package is quite good and is an excellent source of reference material. Below are a couple of templates to get you started:

Week 6: Multi-part Documents and Preambles in LaTeX

Registration link through the Kresge website

In this session, we will focus on customizing the preamble of your LaTeX documents. Topics will include creating new commands, redefining the formatting of structural elements, and using personalized document classes. Another focus of this workshop will be designing large scale documents, like books or theses. This process is vastly simplified by including many different files in the same document and applying a universal preamble to the entire collection. Please bring a laptop.

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Week 7: Citations and Bibliographies with BibTeX

Registration link through the Kresge website

In this workshop, you will learn how to generate citations and bibliographies in your LaTeX documents using BibTeX. We'll start by talking about how you can create a database of your references (a .bib file). We will consider references for different types of publications, such as articles, books, proceedings, theses, and unpublished works. Next, we'll go through the process of citing references in a document. Finally, we'll show you how to declare a citation style and compile your document. Please bring a laptop.

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Week 8: TikZ: Creating Images using LaTeX

Registration link through the Kresge website

TikZ is a versatile LaTeX package that allows you to create graphics (e.g., graphs of functions, complicated shapes, diagrams) without importing images from outside sources. Once we've discussed the basics of TikZ, we will give examples of what can be done using this package. After this workshop, you should be comfortable with the basic structure of a tikzpicture environment and able to design your own shapes and graphs. Please bring a laptop.

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Week 9: Presentations in LaTeX

Registration link through the Kresge website

The beamer document class is used to make slideshow presentations in LaTeX. The resulting .pdf file has the advantage of appearing the same on every computer. As with any other part of LaTeX, it can take some time to become familiar with the commands, but it is completely customizable. Starting from the basics of creating slides, we will discuss how to delay the appearance of text or figures and customizing the beamer layout. By the end, you will have all the tools you need to make a professional presentation in LaTeX. Please bring a laptop.

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