LaTex

[Duns Eith]

Best ways to start? I have some coding BG, but not much. Do you recommend running with some templates first, or just type away and learn the codes for each format component I want to incorporate on the fly?

I have TeXstudio for Win, and MacTex for ...Mac. (Personal preferences?)

 

edit: Long term goal is to use this for papers, teaching handouts, etc. I want to become comfortable with it.

Edited December 23, 2015 by Turretin

[fuzzylogician]

The best way to get started is to inherit some code that compiles from friends or colleagues. There is a steep learning curve in the beginning, but you can get started with mostly text-based documents pretty easily, and worry about more advanced features as you go. There are a lot of resources online, so you can google pretty much any warning or error you encounter and someone has already explained how to deal with it. There seem to be philosophy-specific advice pages, if you google for something like "latex for philosophers" but it's also useful to see what setups others in your more immediate community are using. In linguistics, for example, there are several different packages for drawing trees and typesetting linguistic examples, and those initial choices pretty much dictate a lot of what you do later on. You can always change your setup, but in my experience people usually stick with whatever they had set up first, because learning the quirks of a new package takes time. So you want to make informed choices (albeit by the experience of others) as much as possible. 

I'd only recommend switching to LaTeX if there is a community around you that also uses it, otherwise you could easily get stuck, and collaborating and such would be made complicated (though obviously not impossible). Also be aware that some journals will not accept LaTeX submissions or will make your life more difficult because of it (while in linguistics, at least, there are also journals that only accept LaTeX submissions). That said, I personally wouldn't go back, now that I've switched.

I use TeXPad on a Mac and like it a lot, but it's a paid software so you might want to play around with free software and be sure you're really committing to LaTeX before paying for it. I think you might be able to use it for free for a bit before you have to pay.

[TakeruK]

I love LaTeX and I think it's the best scientific typesetting software! I currently use Mac OS X and I have MacTex installed. I use TeXShop as my text editor. I like TeXShop because it is simple, I can easily store templates that I can load and type in (e.g. I have a template to create problem sets for my students) and most importantly, it displays the compiled product side-by-side with the LaTeX. My favourite feature is to be able to click on the paragraph/equation/table/whatever in the compiled product and have my LaTeX screen scroll automatically to the same point in the code** and highlight the exact thing I clicked on. (**technically, it's not "code" but it's easier to say code)

However, one downside is that there are fewer "macros". When I first started to learn LaTeX, I used a different editor that had lots of buttons I could click on and the code for that thing would appear. For example, did I forget to how to code up an integration symbol? No problem, just click on the symbol I want and it appears! 

I first learned LaTeX over 10 years ago, but now, there are also other ways that might make LaTeX more intutitive to new users. For example, there is LyX (https://www.lyx.org/). It allows you to write and see the final product on the same page. For my field, this is especially helpful for equations, because for complicated equation, the TeX version is really different from what it displays as, and LyX gives you tools that is similar to Microsoft Equation Editor, letting you pick symbols and such easier. And, it also tells you the TeX version so that you can learn it. Eventually you'll learn things like \int gives you the integration symbol instead of having to find the button.

Last summer, my summer student showed me another cool thing: https://www.sharelatex.com/ It's an online cloud-based editor, so you can work on it from any computer without having to install a bunch of stuff on your machines. Also, it's collaborative, so if you are working on a document with multiple coauthors, everyone can edit it. One of the most annoying things about LaTeX, especially when I was first starting, was making sure I had the right packages installed and in the right place and in the right path etc. This means I have to keep everything exactly updated on my work and home/laptop computers. Nowadays, MacTeX actually does a really good job of managing my packages so this is no longer a problem for me. But for new users, ShareLaTeX might be a good place to start!

And finally, staff at my school's Library have started telling us about Overleaf: https://www.overleaf.com/ It seems very similar to ShareLaTeX but perhaps supports more formats. I haven't tried this yet. 

So, although LaTeX does have a steep learning curve, the nice thing about starting new is that you can take a look at all of the options available and pick what works for you. Hope this list here gives you some good ideas. I'm not sure if all of them will work with your field though but it's a worth a try! And as fuzzy said, take a look at what resources are available that is made for your community, by your community. In astronomy, there are plenty of templates that are pretty much "standard" to use and most journals even provide their own class files so that you can use those as a template. And, usually if you google "How do I ...." you will find someone who solved the same problem and posted their code solution for you to use. No need to reinvent the wheel

[dr. t]

I noticed you're in philosophy. I am another one of those rare humanities-ish types that uses LaTeX. I think it's actually fine to use it if you're the only one around who does. All you really need to do most papers is:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

\usepackage{setspace}

\begin{document}

\paragraph{}Your paper goes here.

\end{document}

Which isn't too bad. If you deal with other languages, I'd also suggest you take a gander at the ednotes package, which typesets critical editions.

Do be sure to get the stand-alone program pandoc to convert .tex to .docx, etc.

[Eigen]

I'm slowly learning myself- it's a slow process for me, because no on in my department uses it, so I can only use it for things that I'm not co-authoring, which is a small number of items at the moment. 

I've had "The Not So Short Guide to LaTeX" recommended to me, and it's a very good introduction, imo. 

I'm also on a Mac, and using TexShop at the moment (free, small footprint), but I've looked into TeXpad on Fuzzy's recommendation as well. 

The biggest issue I've run into is formatting figures- I'm a field that uses quite a bit of math (which is easy in LaTex) but also a lot of graphics (images of cells, schemes, etc.), and I've found some are easier than others. I've also had some issues mass-transferring my references to BiBTex, but there are a couple of good export styles now for many of the major citation editors (I know Endnote has one) that lets you specify a citekey when you export. 

I've also used Scrivener on and off to write for years- it has a major benefit of being able to compile a document either to TeX or to Word, so you can use it as a drafting solution, and then export to either depending on your needs. That's especially useful to me with some journals in my field only accepting Word submissions. 

[FoxAndChicken]

I second @TakeruK! I am only an undergraduate, but I type literally everything on ShareLaTeX these days. 

[thingii]

I'm a big LaTeX enthusiast, and absolutely support and am happy to help with people who wish to learn it.

It's been about 5 years since I started, and since then it's become my primary text editor (given up on Word). On my Mac, I use TeXShop as previously mentioned, but if you use your terminal, and have the MacTeX package installed, you can use the terminal to produce a pdf from a simple .tex file. Invoking it from the terminal allows for some easy automation tricks (such as when producing multiple files).

For me, when I first started learning, it was just to make snippets of equations since they looked good, and slowly progressed to writing simple (math-based) homework exercises and assignments. This turned into course summaries, reports, a thesis and various other documents. My tip would be to start small, and grow your repertoire. I found that when I was stuck and didn't know how to do something, 90% of my issues could be found by simply Googling (as is the case for most problems in this era), and the remaining 10% from building on and/or modifying what I had already found before. It's a slow process, but just like with learning a new language (and relationships, ha...), as you integrate it into your life more and more you will begin to familiarise yourself and bulk up confidence.

TL;DR: find excuses to use it. Then use it in some more places. Google if you don't know how to do something. Experiment further.

LaTeX is beautiful, and so are you (for making the effort to learn it)!!

Edited March 4, 2016 by thingii