Mini Latex Introduction

Links for our Tutorial Day:

You can typset your assignments beautifully in LaTeX .  Here’s a quick start guide once you’ve got yourself into some latex editing software and have a document open (see Resources for some info on getting the software going).

To add an equation to your latex document, as a separate line, you surround your math with \$\$ at the beginning and \$\$ at the end. So, you write

$$ YOUR MATH HERE $$

You can use symbols like + x – and for exponents you can write ^.  For subscripts you can use _.  So for example,

$$ x^2y_3+6=z_2^7 $$

produces

$$ x^2y_3+6=z_2^7$$

You can also write fractions this way:

$$ \frac{a}{b} $$

producing

$$ \frac{a}{b} $$

You can make an integral like this:

$$ 2\pi \int_a^b f(x) dx $$

producing

$$ 2 \pi \int_a^b f(x) dx $$

You can make a sum, and limits, like this:

$$ \lim_{N \rightarrow \infty} \sum_{i=1}^{N} \frac{1}{i} = \infty $$

producing

$$ \lim_{N \rightarrow \infty} \sum_{i=1}^{N} \frac{1}{i} = \infty $$

Here’s a real pro tip: if you want your math inline, use \$ and \$ (single dollars) to surround it. So for example,

I was trying to evaluate $ \lim_{N \rightarrow infty} \sum_{i=1}^{N} \frac{1}{i} = \infty $ when a pig flew.

produces

I was trying to evaluate $ \lim_{N \rightarrow \infty} \sum_{i=1}^{N} \frac{1}{i} = \infty $ when a pig flew.

Finally, you can make a matrix this way:

$$ \begin{pmatrix} 1 & 2 & 3 \\ 4 & 5 & 6 \\ 7 & 8 & 9 \end{pmatrix} $$

and you’ll get

$$ \begin{pmatrix} 1 & 2 & 3 \\ 4 & 5 & 6 \\ 7 & 8 & 9 \end{pmatrix} $$

If you have a symbol in mind and want to know the latex for it, draw it in the “deTexifyer”:

http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html

For a browsable list of lots of math symbols you can use, see

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/LaTeXPrimer/MathSymb.html