How to use LaTeX to prepare your thesis and publications?

Hi, everyone! This post is intended to be a general post and interests to teach the basics of compiling your extra-lengthy documents using LaTeX, so it is prepared aesthetically beautiful (plus, helps the lazy you to format your thesis documents in minutes).


First.

Browse to the folder where the LaTeX document is stored and find the main .tex file. Launch it.

So, all you need is a LaTeX document compiler and a bibliography compiler.

I personally suggest Texmaker for compiling LaTeX documents since it is available across multiple platforms including Windows, macOS, and Linux. Download Texmaker.

Typically, Texmaker includes a bibliography compiler alongside, hence, mind not to download it. If you are on Linux/UNIX environment, you may also want to install it on terminal using the command below:

sudo apt install bibtex

After everything is clear, proceed to the next step.

Second.

Now, simply grab a LaTeX document template you need. Conference and seminars usually do provide a LaTeX template; simply head to their corresponding web pages and download the template. Some universities may provide LaTeX template for formatting your thesis. You may find the following template useful.

  1.  University Teknologi Malaysia thesis template - Thesis Template
  2. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing (AISC) Springer template - Conference Proceedings Template

Download any template you find useful and save it to your computer.

Third.

Browse into the directory of the downloaded template and find a file with extension .tex. It is a LaTeX document file. There may be several .tex files, each for a chapter; or may be only one file to represent the whole thesis.

If there is several .tex files, find a main .tex file (you can make a smart guess by the file name, I suppose), and double-click on the file to launch Texmaker.


Next, you will have a window looks something like this. That is a LaTeX document.

You can type your contents, click the arrow to the left of 'Quick Build' to compile your LaTeX document. Next you will know, a PDF document will be opened with the contents formatted within it.



You can modify the contents of the .tex file to change the contents, and click the compile button (the left arrow on the left of 'Quick Build' text at top of the document) to build your document.

Summary.

In summary, you are capable of formatting your thesis with ease using LaTeX. This post may help you to build your document with ease.

Next, you need to learn how to format bibliography and make automatic citation within your LaTeX document.

If you need to know something, feel free to drop a comment.

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