Math 4160: Combinatorial Mathematics - Fall 2017

Writing mathematics with LaTeX:

All of the assignments you submit in this course will have to be written using the LaTeX typesetting system. This means that you will need to spend some time learning how to use this system. While this might seem like an unnecessary burden in a course that will already require a great deal of your time, you will find that using LaTeX:

• forces you to organize your thoughts and write more clearly
• often reveals unclear thinking
• produces an easily readable document
• allows you to submit assignments using the Moodle system
• allows easy editing.

You will find all of the resources needed to create a mathematics document using an on LaTeX system in this section. Here are a few sites that can be used to create LaTeX documents:

• ShareLaTeX is a free service
• Verbosus is also free
• Overleaf is intended for professional users, but you might want to try it as an alternative
• Sage (now rebranded as CoCalc) is a computional system that also provides LaTeX authoring on line.
• You may also wish to download latex onto your own computer from one of the LaTeX project or or MiKTeX (Windows) or Mac TeX (Mac)...and there are others.

I suggest starting with ShareLaTeX. I just tried it out and I was up and running on their service within minutes. I will provide a basic template (below) and files that you can look at in order to help you get started. However there are many on-line resources for learning the LaTeX basics:

• A simple guide to LaTeX - Step by Step and Beginners
• An Introduction to Using TeX in the Harvard Mathematics Department
• a template file with some text you can delete the body and start writing and this is what the output should look like
• A video of how to get started on ShareLaTeX