Interview with Undergraduate Stephen Lasinis on Getting Started with LaTeX

By Pamela E. Harris @DPEHarris and Stephen Lasinis

In this blog, we learn more about Stephen Lasinis’s experience in learning how to use LaTeX. His advice is one for students to keep in mind as they too begin to learn the basics and grow to develop a mastery of how to typeset mathematics. The blog ends with Stephen kindly sharing a great document on GitHub with details on how to format documents, which is free for download (both in PDF and .tex format) and can serve as nice introductory material to share with students in mathematics courses.

PEH: When was the first time you learned about LaTeX?

SL: I think the first time I learned about LaTeX was during my Introduction to Differential Equations course. The professor recommended that we take initiative in learning how to type up our homework nicely, and he recommended we use LaTeX. I took his advice and found a fantastic website, Overleaf, that offers a cloud-based LaTeX editor, and I began my journey to become proficient with it.

PEH: What was the most difficult part about learning LaTeX?

SL: I would say the most difficult part, for me, would have to be learning all of the subtle nuances that come with LaTeX. The typesetting language is very particular when it comes to the formatting and syntax it requires. Luckily, on Overleaf, most errors will be detailed in the logs and outputs window allowing for quick troubleshooting. Learning how to type symbols that are not on a conventional keyboard, such as anything ranging from the greater than or equal to sign to an integral symbol, is another important aspect when learning LaTeX. If there is ever a symbol that you are unsure how to typeset, I strongly recommend using Detexify. This is a website that allows you to draw the symbol you are trying to type, and it will give you the LaTeX code in order to use the symbol.

PEH: What does it take to get better at it?

SL: Getting better at using LaTeX requires a certain amount of gumption and a willingness to overcome any of the challenges that await you. You also have to be ready to put in the time it takes to sit down and learn the ins-and-outs of LaTeX. When I first began using LaTeX, even the shortest of math papers would seem to take several hours at best to complete. The more time you are able to commit to using LaTeX, the more comfortable and quick you will become with it.

PEH: What do you do when you are stuck?

SL: When I find myself in a jam, or if I even think I might have a difficult time typing part of a document the exact way I would on paper, I immediately turn to the documentation that Overleaf provides about the various commands and environments it offers. If I cannot find the answer in the documentation, I turn to google. Recently, I did not know how to write an equation that relies on multiple cases. After a quick google search, I found there was an environment specific to what I was trying to type.

PEH: What has been the most challenging thing to create in LaTeX? Or the thing that you are most proud of creating using LaTeX?

SL: Personally, the most challenging thing I have had the pleasure of creating was a large binary tree with large amounts of information at every node. I had to jump through a lot of hoops in order to use the right environment along with the correct options in order for the tree to fit inside the margins of the paper. Things like drawings and diagrams can be some of the most frustrating to create in LaTeX because drawing these on paper is usually a lot faster and more precise. Recently, however, I learned about a website called Mathcha from my professor Dr. Harris. This website allows you to create diagrams from primitive shapes and text boxes with a very clean user interface. These diagrams can then be either exported as an image file or you can copy and paste the LaTeX code required in order to produce it in LaTeX using the tikzpicture environment.

PEH: What advice do you have for a student who is first opening an Overleaf/LaTeX file? What would you say to them?

SL: I would tell the student that the best thing they could do is to find a template on Overleaf that looks similar to how they would like their paper to look. This template will act as a sort of cheat sheet for how to set up their paper, and the template will also contain sample text and formatting that they will be able to replicate in their work. Templates are a great way to get started in Overleaf as they usually have the basics in terms of environments allowing you to see how certain environments function and which ones you might like to use.

PEH: Tell me more about this template file you created to help those who are starting to get better acquainted with LaTeX.

SL: The template file called, Hitchhiker's Guide to LaTeX, definitely acts as a 2-in-1. On one hand, we have the PDF file that covers the usage of some of the most important features that LaTeX has to offer. Some of the topics covered include my most used packages, how to type equations, and how to generate beautiful 2D and 3D plots. On the other hand, you are able to view the .tex file used to create the PDF itself. Where the PDF will show you the syntax and some examples of how to use different environments in LaTeX, the raw .tex file will allow you to see how those examples were actually written and formatted to display properly.

PEH: If you could say something to yourself before the first time you ever used LaTeX what would you say?

SL: If I could go back in time, I think I would tell myself that using LaTeX to write math papers will be one of the most satisfying experiences, and the more challenging something is to create with LaTeX only makes it that much more fulfilling when you get to see the final product. I still remember exactly how I felt the first time I wrote a paper in LaTeX, admiring how beautiful it was and how accomplished it made me feel.

Pamela E. Harris is a Mexican-American mathematician and serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee and she was a 2023 recipient of the MAA Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. For fun she lifts weights and enjoys watching bad reality tv shows.

Stephen Lasinis is an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. He is in the Applied Math and Computer Science program. When not studying or programming and creating beautiful LaTeX templates, Stephen is an avid enjoyer of Jeopardy and likes to spend time with his two cats, Onyx and Ollie.

Stephen Lasinis’ LATEX guide.