Introduction to LaTeX

LaTeX, pronounced LAH-tek or LAY-tek, is a tool used to create professional-looking documents. LaTeX is not like Microsoft Word or GoogleDocs: instead of spacing out text on a page to control formatting, users write in plain text but use LaTeX code dictate the display of the text.

Benefits of learning and using LaTeX

    • It allows users to quickly tackle more complicated parts of typesetting, such as inputting mathematics formulas and symbols, creating tables of contents, generating particular header styles, referencing and creating bibliographies, and having a consistent layout across all sections.
    • LaTeX is open source, and there are hundreds of packages allowing for further customization like adding footnotes, drawing schematics, and creating tables.
    • Many thousands of members of the U-M Ann Arbor community use LaTeX especially in engineering disciplines to write papers, reports, theses and dissertations, so it is likely fellow students or professors already know what it is.

Overleaf LaTeX Editor

Overleaf Links to an external site. is a very popular online LaTeX writing and publishing tool that makes the whole process of writing, editing and publishing scientific documents much quicker and easier. 

latex documents side by side in the overleaf interface

A typical setup for a LaTeX document includes code on the left and a live version on the right

Note that you can sign up for a free account with Overleaf for basic use. U-M does not have a pro license for the entire campus, and if you would like to request that this be considered, please email ITS at 4HELP@umich.edu. 

Finally, Overleaf has outstanding documentation Links to an external site. related to writing with LaTeX. We strongly recommend that you read and practice with their "Learn LaTeX in 30 Minutes Links to an external site." introduction that can be read outside of this module.