Ask HN: Introduction to latex?
I'm in my final year, and looking for a guide to Latex to get me up and going with my dissertation. Does anyone have any sites or books they would recommend? Cheers
I’m also doing a PhD in computer science, in my case in Munich, Germany. Maybe I can give you a good starting hint…
The thing is that if you don’t really need to use full Latex power, I would recommend you to use a very graspable editor called Lyx (http://www.lyx.org). The editor uses Latex core but encapsulated it under an easy user interface. It’s somehow like if you could use Microsoft Word and at the same time generate documents with Latex style. The best of all is that you can copy text directly from Word into it and generate a document. Is what I used to do at the beginning! You don’t need to worry about the encapsulation stuff.
If you are looking for a more powerful editor, I recommend you to use TexnicCenter (http://www.texniccenter.org/).
There are other programs that you should know about such as Jabref (http://jabref.sourceforge.net/) for references using BibTex.
So if I were you I would do these: 1.Install MikTek (http://miktex.org/about): Latex motor. 2.Install Lyx. 3.Check if Lyx is what you need and fullfill your needs. With half an hour, you should be an expert ;-) The most important of all is the text field on the left top corner. 4.If it’s not, install TecnikCenter.
My own personal recommendation is that you don’t waste too much time with it. I mean, as my first boss at BMW used to say, it should be a part of the solution not of the problem. Latex gives vast possibilities, but probably you won’t need to use them all, so don’t waste time on them! Start writing and generating your documents. If something comes up and you don’t know how to deal with it, then google it up. I recommend you this rather than turning to the same book or to the same source. I tried both, and the google approach is much faster.
Good luck!