📝 LaTeX Typesetting for Researchers

LaTeX is the lingua franca of academic publishing in CS, mathematics, physics, and engineering. Mastering it transforms your paper-writing workflow from a formatting struggle into a creative act.

1. Getting Started

Installation

Platform Distribution Command
Ubuntu/Debian TeX Live sudo apt install texlive-full
macOS MacTeX brew install --cask mactex
Windows MiKTeX miktex.org
Cloud Overleaf overleaf.com (no install)

[!TIP] For local installation, TeX Live Full installs everything. While large (~7GB), it prevents “missing package” errors mid-compile. On Overleaf, all packages are pre-installed.

Minimal Working Example

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath, amssymb}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{microtype}

\title{My Research Paper}
\author{Your Name \\ \texttt{your@email.com}}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\begin{abstract}
  Your abstract here.
\end{abstract}

\section{Introduction}
Your introduction here~\cite{key}.

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{references}
\end{document}

2. Conference and Journal Templates

Always use the official template for your target venue. Never submit without it.

Venue Family Template
NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR \usepackage{neurips_2024} — from venue website
CVPR, ICCV, ECCV CVPR LaTeX template from cvf.com
ACM (SIGCOMM, SOSP, etc.) \documentclass[sigconf]{acmart}
IEEE (TPAMI, ICDM, etc.) \documentclass[journal]{IEEEtran}
USENIX (ATC, OSDI, etc.) USENIX template from venue website
Springer (LNCS) \documentclass{llncs}
Thesis Your university’s official thesis template

3. Essential Packages Reference

Mathematics

\usepackage{amsmath}      % align, equation, cases environments
\usepackage{amssymb}      % \mathbb{R}, \mathcal{L}, etc.
\usepackage{amsthm}       % Theorem, Lemma, Proof environments
\usepackage{mathtools}    % Extends amsmath (dcases, pmatrix, etc.)
\usepackage{bm}           % Bold math symbols: \bm{\theta}
\usepackage{physics}      % Dirac notation, derivatives made easy

Common math patterns:

% Equation with label
\begin{equation}
  \mathcal{L}(\theta) = -\frac{1}{N}\sum_{i=1}^{N} y_i \log \hat{y}_i
  \label{eq:cross-entropy}
\end{equation}

% Aligned multi-line equations
\begin{align}
  f(x) &= ax^2 + bx + c \\
       &= a\left(x + \frac{b}{2a}\right)^2 + c - \frac{b^2}{4a}
\end{align}

% Matrix
\begin{pmatrix} a & b \\ c & d \end{pmatrix}

% Cases (piecewise function)
f(x) = \begin{cases} 1 & \text{if } x > 0 \\ 0 & \text{otherwise} \end{cases}

Tables

\usepackage{booktabs}     % \toprule, \midrule, \bottomrule
\usepackage{multirow}     % Multi-row cells
\usepackage{tabularx}     % Auto-width tables
\usepackage{siunitx}      % Aligned decimal numbers in tables

% Professional table example
\begin{table}[t]
  \centering
  \caption{Comparison of methods on Dataset X.}
  \label{tab:results}
  \begin{tabular}{lSSS}
    \toprule
    Method & {Accuracy (\%)} & {F1 Score} & {Time (s)} \\
    \midrule
    Baseline & 72.3 & 0.71 & 1.2 \\
    Our Method & \textbf{84.7} & \textbf{0.85} & 1.8 \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}

Figures

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{subcaption}   % Subfigures with (a), (b) labels

% Single figure
\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{figures/architecture.pdf}
  \caption{System architecture overview.}
  \label{fig:arch}
\end{figure}

% Side-by-side subfigures
\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
  \begin{subfigure}{0.48\linewidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{fig_a.pdf}
    \caption{Result A}
  \end{subfigure}
  \hfill
  \begin{subfigure}{0.48\linewidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{fig_b.pdf}
    \caption{Result B}
  \end{subfigure}
  \caption{Comparison of results.}
  \label{fig:comparison}
\end{figure}

Algorithms

\usepackage[ruled,vlined]{algorithm2e}

\begin{algorithm}[t]
\caption{Gradient Descent}
\KwIn{Learning rate $\eta$, initial $\theta_0$}
\KwOut{Optimal $\theta^*$}
\For{$t = 1, 2, \ldots, T$}{
  Compute gradient $g_t = \nabla_\theta \mathcal{L}(\theta_{t-1})$\;
  Update $\theta_t \leftarrow \theta_{t-1} - \eta g_t$\;
}
\Return $\theta_T$
\end{algorithm}

4. TikZ Diagrams

TikZ is the most powerful LaTeX drawing library. Use it for architecture diagrams, flowcharts, and neural network figures.

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes, arrows.meta, positioning}

% Simple neural network layer diagram
\begin{tikzpicture}[
  node/.style={circle, draw, minimum size=0.8cm},
  layer/.style={rectangle, draw, minimum height=2cm, minimum width=0.6cm, fill=blue!20}
]
  \node[layer] (l1) {Input};
  \node[layer, right=1cm of l1] (l2) {Hidden};
  \node[layer, right=1cm of l2] (l3) {Output};
  \draw[->] (l1) -- (l2);
  \draw[->] (l2) -- (l3);
\end{tikzpicture}

TikZ Resources:

  • Awesome LaTeX Drawing — Pre-built source code for neural networks, Bayesian graphs, and more.
  • TikZiT — GUI editor for TikZ graphs.
  • PGFPlots — Native LaTeX plotting (no Python/matplotlib required).

5. Bibliography Management

BibTeX with Zotero

Use Better BibTeX + Zotero to auto-export .bib files:

  1. In Zotero: File → Export Library → Better BibTeX → Auto-update
  2. Point your LaTeX project to this exported .bib file.
  3. Add references: \cite{authorYearKeyword}

Bibliography Styles by Venue

% Author-year (NeurIPS, ICML)
\usepackage{natbib}
\bibliographystyle{abbrvnat}

% Numbered (IEEE, ACM)
\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}

% Alpha style (theory papers)
\bibliographystyle{alpha}

BibLaTeX (Modern Alternative)

\usepackage[backend=biber, style=authoryear]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{references.bib}
% In document body:
\printbibliography

6. Compilation Workflow

# Standard compilation (with bibliography)
pdflatex paper.tex
bibtex paper
pdflatex paper.tex
pdflatex paper.tex

# Or use latexmk (automated, handles reruns)
latexmk -pdf paper.tex

# Continuous compilation with live preview
latexmk -pdf -pvc paper.tex

# Word count (excluding LaTeX commands)
texcount paper.tex
detex paper.tex | wc -w

7. Common Errors and Fixes

Error Cause Fix
Undefined control sequence Missing package Add \usepackage{package}
Overfull \hbox Line too long Add \sloppy or rewrite the sentence
Citation [?] .bib file not found or not compiled Run bibtex, then recompile twice
Font not found Missing font package Install texlive-fonts-extra
\textbf in math mode Wrong command Use \mathbf{} or \bm{}

Further Reading