Scientific Writing with LaTeX
Course further information
LaTeX is the standard software for publication of scientific documents in many fields. This workshop focuses on only the use of LaTeX for creating publications (which includes theses).
Many software products can be used to write texts. Popular word processors, like LibreOffice or Microsoft Word, pose challenges when used in specific scientific contexts. LaTeX is designed to circumvent these challenges. Which advantages of LaTeX are most important for you depends on your field of research, other tools you use and, last but not least, personal preferences, but they may include: LaTeX plays well with version control systems like Git, LaTex documents typically stay small, LaTeX can easily be edited not only by humans, but also by software, LaTeX can set mathematical expressions beautifully, and LaTeX may already be the standard in your field of research.
After this workshop you appreciate the differences between word processors like LibreOffice or Microsoft Word and systems like LaTeX. Being a hands-on workshop, the main focus will lie on you making your own first steps using LaTeX, if possible on your own computer. This workshop alone will likely not be enough for a beginner to use LaTeX in the future without further help or reference at all, but aims to provide a quick start for creating simple documents and a solid ground to write scientific publications in collaboration with more advanced users.
Requirements
If you bring your own computer, have LaTeX already installed, as this can take quite a long time. If necessary, you can use computers provided at the workshop location, where all needed software is already installed.
LaTeX
How you best install LaTeX depends a lot on the details of your operating system. Installation instructions for different operating systems can be found here. If in doubt, prefer TeX Live. If on Linux, prefer the packages prepared by your distribution and not the installer directly from Tex Live.
An editor
LaTeX uses plain text files, so any plain text editor will do. Some editors do have additional features for LaTeX files and others have been especially made for LaTeX. If you already have a prefered plain text editor, we recommend sticking with it. For the case you do not, we would recommend to also install TeXStudio for this course.
No special previous knowledge is required for the course. You should only be familiar with basic concepts of file systems, files and folders.
