What, Why and How of LATEX
If you are a normal computer user or a tech-savvy person, you definitely have used MS Word for your work. There is one big issue with the word processors like MS Word and it is that in addition to writing the content, you also have to format the document. which is a very cumbersome job. Latex allows you to only worry about the content and it takes care of the formatting by itself.
LaTeX was originally written in the early 1980s by Leslie Lamport at SRI International. latex is free software which means that anyone can get his/her hands dirty on it. Unlike MS word where WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get), latex is a markup language where you first write your latex document, then give it to the language processor and it gives you the output as a high-quality well-formatted document. just like an HTML document is rendered by a web browser and the result is a beautiful looking website, the LaTeX system works the same.
Latex is widely used in the communication and publication of scientific documents in many fields such as computer science, physics, chemistry etc.
if you have no familiarity with programming, then a latex document might seem like a strange thing because your document has commands embedded along with the text, but with a little bit of practice, you get used to it.
example:
The input document:
\documentclass{article}\title{What, Why and How of LaTeX}\author{Ashar Malik}\date{March 2022}\begin{document}\maketitleHello world!\end{document}
The output document:
we just wrote some plain text and gave it a logical structure through commands. In simple English, it is
- This document is an article.
- Its title is What, Why and How of LaTeX.
- Its author is Ashar Malik.
- It was written in March 2022.
- The document consists of a title followed by the text Hello world!
As you can see in the above example that I haven’t specified any formatting but written a simple plain text along with the commands embedded and the output is a well-formatted document. Now, I know that the commands and the structure of the latex document might be a bit overwhelming at the start but it is a one-time effort and it is much better than formatting every document you write in MS Word (or any other word processor).
How to get started?
The easiest way to get started with latex is to create an account on overleaf. it provides an online environment where you can write and compile your latex document. overleaf even allows you to collaborate on a single document which means that multiple people can work on the same document at the same time. but if you are interested in installing latex on your local machine, you can easily find a guide for your respective operating system, on the web.
The great thing about latex is that it gives you the freedom of writing any type of document without worrying about its formatting. whether you are writing an article, a book or any other type of document, you can simply focus on your content, being confident that you will get a high-quality formatted document in the end.
Some great Latex features are
- high-quality formatting of journal articles, technical reports, books, and slide presentations.
- Control over large documents containing sectioning, cross-references, tables and figures.
- Automatic formatting of complex mathematical formulas.
- Automatic generation of bibliographies and indexes.
Conclusion
Latex is a document preparation system. it is widely used for the publication of scientific documents. it separates the content of the document from the formatting, allowing the author to only focus on the content and takes care of the formatting itself, but you have to create the logical structure of the document through embedding the commands.
Resources:
https://www.latex-project.org/about
