LaTeX

Latex is a program for typesetting papers. It is very good at typesetting math, so it is commonly used in fields that require equations to be displayed in papers.

Installation

Windows

download and run the install-tl.zip file from here http://www.tug.org/texlive/acquire-netinstall.html

Macs

Follow the instructions here http://www.tug.org/mactex/2011/

Linux (Ubuntu): use synaptic to install the texlive package

Note that the net installers look deceptively small is size, but the texlive folder on my windows machine is about 2.5 GB in size, so make sure you have HD space before you start!

2) Install a LaTeX editor. I use the cross-platform Texmaker (http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/)

3) Install REVTeX https://authors.aps.org/revtex4/

It may be useful to refer to this site: http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~hildebr/tex/tips-customstyles.html when installing the custom styles and bibliography formats.

4) Get this example template: File:Advanced lab.tar (Use 7-Zip, http://www.7-zip.org/, on Windows to extract this .tar file.)

5) Configure Texmaker: go to toolbar, choose options/quick build/User, add the following text

latex -interaction=nonstopmode %.tex|bibtex %.aux|latex -interaction=nonstopmode %.tex|latex -interaction=nonstopmode %.tex|dvips -t letter %.dvi -o %.ps|ps2pdf -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress %.ps

Using LaTeX

LaTeX Wikibook: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX

LaTeX Cookbook: http://www.personal.ceu.hu/tex/cookbook.html