Introduction to Overleaf and LaTex

Alexander Knetsch

21 June 2024

The first thing you see

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

2

The overleaf editor: Let’s take it apart

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

3

The overleaf editor: Let’s take it apart

Not just one file

​

• .tex file contains code

​

• Image files are external to code

​

• .bib files contain reference library

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

4

The overleaf editor: Let’s take it apart

The editor

​

• Forget WYSIWYG

​

• You are ‘programming’ a document

​

• Write prose section in plain text.

​

• Text format, title, author, sections, images, … is done via command.

​

• LaTeX interprets code and produces a beautiful document for you

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

5

The overleaf editor: Let’s take it apart

The output

​

• Typically PDF document ready to download

​

• Some compilation options available

​

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

6

The overleaf editor: Let’s take it apart

Collaborative writing

​

• Review: Collaborator can add comments next to the code

​

• Share: Share your documents with collaborators as read-only or editable

​

• Submit: Facilitates paper submission process to some journals and databases (e.g. arXiv)

​

• History: Your documents have a version control. Make sure to regularily create ’labels’ .

​

​

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

7

Highlights of the LaTeX syntax

Minimum example

• Commands start with \

​

• \documentclass[]{} defines the type of document and starts the code.
• Many different classes available (article,report,book,…)
• More parameter in [], e.g. twocolumn

​

• Comments start with %

​

• \begin{} \end{} define specialized sections

​

• Document body is opened and closed with \begin{document} and \end{document}

​

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

8

Highlights of the LaTeX syntax

Introducing structure

• \title{} and \author{} are examples of commands that set parameters before \begin{document}
• \maketitle compiles a document title from prior defined information.

​

• Title style can vary depending on documentclass and used packages

​

• \begin{abstract} \end{abstract}

​

• Sections are structured like this
• \section{}
• \subsection{}
• \subsubsection{}

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

9

Highlights of the LaTeX syntax

Introducing lists

• Itemized lists are written between \begin{itemize} and \end{itemize}

​

• Bullet points start with \item …

​

• To write sub-bulletpoints one can nest the list

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

10

Highlights of the LaTeX syntax

Equations

• \usepackage{} loads more packages and adds available functionality and commands.

​

• \usepackage{amsmath} introduces math environment

​

• $ … $ frames equations in text

​

• $$ ... $$ saparates the math environment from the text

​

• \begin{equation} … \end{equation} for referenceable equations

​

• \begin{align} … \end{align} for referenceable consecutive equations

​

​

​

​

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

11

Highlights of the LaTeX syntax

Figures

• Important package: graphicx

​

• \begin{figure} … \end{figure}[] sets the environment

​

• [h,t,b,…] to position figure here, on top, or bottom of page.

​

• \centering centers figure in the horizontal direction

​

• \includegraphics[size]{filename} links to graphic.

​

• \caption{} sets the text under the graphic.

​

​

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

12

Citations in LaTeX and Overleaf

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

13

identifier

Highlights of the LaTeX syntax

Citation

• Cite publications with \cite{identifier}

​

• Identifier needs to be the same in .tex and .bib file

​

• References section is automatically generated through \bibliography{}

​

• Library entries that are not cited, won’t appear in the References section

​

• But: You can only cite entries that are in your library.

​

• \bibliographystyle{} sets the style how citations are generated. Examples are: abbr, alpha, unsrt, …

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

14

How to build your library

With Google scholar

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

15

How to build your library

With doi2bib

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

16

How to build your library

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

17

Import your Mendeley library

Ressources

Useful links

https://www.overleaf.com/learn/ 🡪 Extensive explications and command database for LaTeX and overleaf

​

https://ctan.org/ 🡪 CTAN Comprehensive TeX Archive Network: A compendium of TeX packages

​

https://detexify.kirelabs.org/🡪 Detexify, draw symbols or equations for the math environment. Also available as android app

​

https://www.doi2bib.org 🡪 Build your reference library

​

https://scholar.google.de/ 🡪 Build your reference library

​

ChatGPT is also pretty good at writing LaTeX code

​

​

​

​

​

​

Overleaf Tutorial – Summer students 2024

18

Part II: The Exercise

19

You will be assigned as a group to an overleaf document

​

We meet again in ca. 15 minutes and the groups present their document

​

Your document should be populated with the following parts:

• An author list, a title and a short abstract. Bonus points for affiliations
• A section ‘Introduction’ including a citation of a real publication of your choice
• A second section with a figure. (for example FACET related (https://facet-ii.slac.stanford.edu/photos) )
• A section with an equation, which is referenced

​

Don’t bother about content or quality of text or equations, this is just for fun !

​

​

Good luck !

​

​

​

​

​

Part II: The Results

20

Group 1

https://www.overleaf.com/7646736159frswnnxxjmgb#e489b1

Group 2

https://www.overleaf.com/2922835765dhjqzbvqxgcy#3e3670

Group 3

https://www.overleaf.com/1695815831smhmpfvghfcj#d202af

Group 4

https://www.overleaf.com/8249781429xsgvnytfzgpq#2b478a

​

​