1. LaTeX – An Introduction Michael Herndon michael.herndon@gatech.edu

2. WHAT? A document typesetting program Rather than WYSIWYG, you markup text like HTML. –Don’t worry, it’s not THAT bad.

3. WHY? Separates content from style—you can focus on the content. It doesn’t break… Particularly good handling of references, captions, renumbering, etc. Math support is particularly good Text format allows you to move between operating systems easily Smaller size – helpful in backups Allows you to search using tools like grep Really nice treatment of typographical things. http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex If you want, you can edit in Word It’s free

4. Things to Watch out For… NO WYSIWYG It’s like programming—sometimes, it should be right, and it doesn’t work. Don’t wait until the last minute….

5. BibTeX Your luck may vary… just don’t use Chicago style, especially with my old advisor.

6. Resources http://www.math.gatech.edu/~keller/latex.html –A site created by a Georgia Tech student –Includes links to software tools http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf –The not so short guide to LaTeX is about 200 pages long. Great reference http://www.grad.gatech.edu/thesis/templates.html –The Official GA Tech Thesis Template™ http://nitens.org/taraborelli/latex –LaTeX is pretty, gosh darn it. http://www.google.com –Use it, love it. http://www.phdcomics.com –The forum section there has a section devoted to LaTeX – very knowledgeable people