LaTeX - Typeset mathematical and scientific notation, handle cross-referencing and citations, and position images according to defined placement rules

The powerful typesetting system LaTeX is well known in the world of academia, scientific publishing, and technical documentation. While LaTeX mainly gets used to produce pages of PDF, it integrates well as a pre-processing tool to create vector graphics in notes, websites, and documents, too. Guides show how to improve, or generate the following content elements:

Math - Typeset, align, wrap, comment, enumerate, space out, scale, and style mathematical expressions, utilizing AMSmath

$$\begin{array}{rl}& \mathbb{P}(X+Y=k)=\sum _{x\in X(\Omega )}\mathbb{P}(X=x)\cdot \mathbb{P}(Y=k-x)\\ & =\sum _{x=0}^n\left(\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{n}{x}\right)p^x(1-p{)}^{n-x}\cdot (\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{m}{k-x})q^{k-x}(1-q{)}^{m-(k-x)}\end{array}$$

Tables - Separate content in plaintext and styles like alignment, spacing, markup, and calculation, utilizing Tabularray

Code Snippets - Print source code with syntax highlighting in latex with listings

Follow varying typographic conventions with the same input syntax

$$\begin{array}{c}\left(\left(\left(()\sqrt{2}\right)\right)\right)\left(\right((()\sqrt{2})\left)\right)\\ \frac{235}{711}\frac{235}{711}{}^{235}{/}_{711}{}^{235}{╱}_{711}\\ 2.71828\times 10^{3}2,72\cdot 10^{3}2718,28\\ 1\mathrm{kg}m/{\mathrm{s}}^{2}1\mathrm{kg}\mathrm{m}{\mathrm{s}}^{-2}1\frac{\mathrm{kg}\mathrm{m}}{{\mathrm{s}}^2}\\ 1,50\text{€}\$1.502\yen 1.50\text{GBP}\\ \text{March 1, 2024 1. Ma¨rz ’24}\end{array}\text{\hspace{1em}(6a)(6b)(6c)(6d)(6e)(6f)}$$

Plots - Dynamically plot mathematical functions, values as a vector graphic

Networks, Commutative diagrams - Dynamically draw graph networks as a vector graphic

Electrical circuit - Dynamically draw electronic circuit diagrams as a vector graphic

Molecules - Dynamically draw structural formulas of chemical molecules as a vector graphic

Heatmaps

Gantt chart

Roadmap for further data visualizations

• spiderweb diagram
• Fractals
• Public transport map
• (trail) Maps
• orbital paths
• engineering blueprint
• Minecraft blueprint
• Factorio blueprint
• music notes
• timeline
• geographic maps with transparent circles
• low-poly art

Roadmap for setup comparisons

• writing, conversion, lint, debug
• which editor comparison
• Don’t spent so much time on your setup, start writing code
• alternative markup systems

Learn, Troubleshoot, Debugging/Help/Documentation

• keep package number low
• don’t create macros
• problem with text, quotes, math, tables, images, floats, listings, layout, development, setup, conversion, compile time, plots, graphics, citations
• Learn and troubleshoot LaTeX - Read (package) documentation, cheat sheets, tutorials
• Develop LaTeX packages

Other topics

• Values - Standardize math, numbers, symbols, quantities, money
• Float - Dynamically place figures, images, tables, and listings at the top, bottom, or single page
• Graphics, Plots, Visualization - Generate dynamic professional vector graphics with matching fonts, design
• Project structure - Create folders for setup, resources, bibliographies
• Graphical elements - Standardize tables, images, plots
• Layout the document - Setup margins, hyphenation, table of contents

Color gradients

• Color gradients and my gradual descent into madness – Typst Blog

Animation

• GitHub - ManimCommunity/manim: A community-maintained Python framework for creating mathematical animations.

Motivation and use cases for LaTeX

LaTeX is a powerful typesetting system widely used in academia, scientific publishing, and technical documentation.
This lookup system showcases LaTeX capabilities beyond creating an entire document.

This lookup system showcases integrations, capabilities beyond the usual creation of an entire document, similar to word processing software like Microsoft Word. Because at its core, LaTeX is a command line compiler generating vector graphics with metadata as PDF.
For a website, creating pages of PDF is not suitable. But LaTeX can be used as a tool before the static site generation, to generate flexible math equations, generate plots, graphics. Math gets generated to individual html elements. CSS positions equation number optimally for desktop and mobile viewing.

If often gets compared to word processing software like Microsoft Word. While LaTeX is a great tool for document creating, it is so much more. Instead of writing your entire project in a single LaTeX document, I see LaTeX more as a tool in document creation. At its core, LaTeX is a command line compiler that generates high-quality vector graphics as PDF.

• LaTeX is not just an alternative to word processing software

• LaTeX can be used as a tool like a static site generator in generating elements of notes, web articles, documents

• LaTeX is a great tool to format markdown content for high-quality typographical document creation

• Don’t need to write the entire document in latex

• LaTeX as cli tool

• this is a webpage, obviously not pdf

• figures

• like css

• not just one document

• don’t worry about compile time

• if you can scroll through this page without feeling anything, you don’t have a heart ⇒ 3blue1brown

It’s easy to start typesetting in LaTeX, and rely on TeX Stack Exchange’s plentiful answers, whenever you don’t know how to implement something. However, I encountered many seemingly simple solutions, that caused more trouble afterwards. Sometimes, changes will unknowingly affect other parts of your document; packages are outdated or straight up cause conflicts; or more modern LaTeX3 approaches should be preferred.
Therefore, I developed guides on the following topics:

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Sources:

• 2023-06-19: How I’m able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim | Gilles Castel
• The LaTeX fetish (Or: Don’t write in LaTeX! It’s just for typesetting) – Daniel Allington

Related:

• LaTeX Symbols - Lookup mathematical symbols, operations, relations, and arrows
• Markdown - Write plaintext in a centralized location and generate to PDF, Jupiter notebooks, web pages, social media posts
• The Errors of TeX [pdf] (1989)
• latex, pdf to cropped svg - Redraw selection of a pdf as paths in a svg with Inkscape
• Excel to latex - Embed spreadsheet files as latex tables

Tags:
Markup and typesetting systems - Produce printed or digital documents aesthetically pleasing with readable typography