Question

If anyone wants to learn how to use LaTeX to typeset your own documents, check out the youtube playlist I created:

http://www.youtube.com/user/mathteacher1729#grid/user/DD406480D35CE390

Any and all suggestions welcomed! (about this playlist or suggestions for future playlists or vids)

Answer 1

I like to use the 'enumerate' environment when making exams/quizzes. That might be a useful video.

Answer 2

Thanks! I have a vid about using the enumerate environment in that playlist (number 3): http://youtu.be/mn9FfoYWz5k

Answer 3

that's going to be a great help to me - thanks for putting up this free resource!

Answer 4

It would have been nice to have resources like this when I was learning \(\LaTeX\)

Answer 5

@Zarkon - it's never too late to learn something new - you never know there could be a hidden gem in these videos that you never knew about :-)

Answer 6

I guess that is possible...though I have written some extensive \(\LaTeX\) documents.

Answer 7

I use latex for all my word processing needs...I hate MS Word

Answer 8

wait - are you telling me that there are actually people out there that LIKE MS Word :-O

Answer 9

as crazy as it sounds...yes

Answer 10

Sure, MS Word has its uses, particularly with font control. ...unless someone tells me now that you do that more easily in LaTex.

Answer 11

@JamesJ - once you've mastered \(\LaTeX\) you will never look back...

Answer 12

I use Latex a lot as well. I'm just saying that unless I'm missing something, it's easier to use different fonts in MS Word.

Answer 13

I'm sure James is quite good at LaTeX. We each have our preferences. I personally love the look and control I lave in LaTeX

Answer 14

*Have

Answer 15

@JamesJ - yes you are right - I guess it all depends on the job in hand. didn't mean to start some sort of religious war :-(

Answer 16

I prefer Holy Wars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d4ui9q7eDM

Answer 17

@asnaneer: not at all. In my book you're one the good guys on here!

Answer 18

@Zarkon - LOL!
@JamesJ - the only thing I will add is that \(\LaTeX\) produces more beautiful looking documents - they seem to have more aesthetic appeal to me. and thanks for your last comment - much appreciated.

Answer 19

If you want font control I'd suggest looking into XeTeX... you definitely get a lot more than LaTeX as well as you can input unicode.

Answer 20

why do you use those packages amsmath, amssymb, graphicx?

Answer 21

Re: LaTeX v Word

I view Word and LaTeX as tools.

If I want to create a professional, aesthetically pleasing document, particularly one involving mathematics, references, bibliography, etc. I use LaTeX. If I want to create a flyer for a garage sale or a something that involves messing around with margins, multiple fonts, different colors, etc. I use Word.

Answer 22

Hi Thomas:

amsmath & amssymb = American Mathematical Society mathematical formatting & mathematics symbols respectively.
graphicx = lets me include graphics in my document.

Answer 23

so if I'm not in america I shouldn't use ams packages? :D

Answer 24

Thomas -- I think it's a universal package. :) Americans wrote it first, so they got to name it. :-p

Answer 25

@mathteacher1729 - You may wish to update your videos re use of double dollar. While the double dollar sign (still) works in LaTeX, it is not part of the "official" LaTeX command set (in fact, most books on LaTeX don't even mention it) and its use is discouraged. Use the bracket pair instead.)

see here: http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~hildebr/tex/course/intro2.html

also, on this site, the single $ for inline math does not seem to work. here we seem to have to use place inline math within a set of escaped round braces (as I was kindly informed by @Tomas).

e.g. here some \(x^2=16\) inline math.

Answer 26

I still use the $ but I'm trying to break that habit.

Answer 27

I'm with Zarkon - I still use $ and it never gives me trouble. Zero errors, Zero bad boxes upon compilation. :) The output looks identical to \ [ and \ ] but I should make a note about it. Thanks for pointing this out.

Answer 28

what about on this site - the single dollar doesn't seem to produce inline math?
e.g. some $x^2=16$ math.

Answer 29

My tutorial was for creating your own PDF documents with LaTeX. For this site use \ ( and \ ) for in-line math and \ [ and \ ] for centered math. (remove spaces between the backslash and parenthesis or brackets. :)

Answer 30

Also here is the AOPS wiki on LaTeX -- http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Wiki/index.php/LaTeX:Math
This page was last modified on 11 November 2011, at 21:37.

Answer 31

ok - thanks for the clarification.

Answer 32

Another tip -- right click on an existing LaTeX equation in openstudy to view the source. Give it a try! :)

\[x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}\]

Note, brackets/parenthesis not included in the source code view.

Answer 33

yes - I already new about this - I found it by accident a few weeks ago - but thanks in any case.

Answer 34

Oh my gosh if you right click and then click "Settings" you can set a "zoom trigger" such that when you click (or hover, or double-click) an equation it will make the equation bigger.

Answer 35

Wow! Now THAT I was not aware of - thanks.

Answer 36

$ is probably disabled deliberately so it wouldn't bother users who just want to type dollar sign 2 times, however double dollar sign works as \[

Answer 37

also why to use that symbol \therefore? why it's three dots? I have never seen it in any math books

Answer 38

"therefore" is a very common symbol in mathematics - it is used a lot when proving things.

Answer 39

The reason why the dollar sign isn't used on this site is so that if people want to type dollar amounts and are not familiar with LaTeX don't have to find themselves with a display error, as the regular text input automatically gets recognized as LaTeX by Mathjax.

Answer 40

as i said :)