latex

Special Characters

• Reserved chars need escape: # $ % & _ { } textbackslash
• Tilde as character: textasciitilde not ~ (that's an accent)
• Caret: textasciicircum not ^
• Backslash in text: textbackslash not \ (that's line break)

Quotes & Dashes

• Opening quotes: `` not "; closing: ''—never use straight " quotes
• Hyphen -, en-dash -- (ranges: 1--10), em-dash --- (punctuation)
• Minus in math mode: $-1$ not -1 in text

Math Mode

• Inline: $...$ or (...); display: [...] or equation environment
• Text inside math: $E = mc^2 text{ where } m text{ is mass}$
• Multiline equations: align environment, not multiple equations
• left( ... right) for auto-sizing delimiters—must be paired

Spacing

• Command followed by text needs {} or : LaTeX{} or LaTeX is
• Non-breaking space: ~ between number and unit: 5~km
• Force space in math: , thin, : medium, ; thick, quad qquad

Packages

• usepackage order matters—hyperref almost always last
• inputenc + fontenc for UTF-8: usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
• graphicx for images, booktabs for professional tables, amsmath for advanced math
• microtype for better typography—load early, subtle but significant improvement

Floats (Figures & Tables)

• [htbp] suggests placement: here, top, bottom, page—not commands
• LaTeX may move floats far from source—use [H] from float package to force
• Always use centering inside float, not center environment
• Caption before label—label references the last numbered element

References

• Compile twice to resolve ref and pageref—first pass collects, second uses
• label immediately after caption or inside environment being labeled
• For bibliography: latex → bibtex → latex → latex (4 passes)
• hyperref makes refs clickable—but can break with some packages

Tables

• tabular for inline, table float for numbered with caption
• Use booktabs: toprule, midrule, bottomrule—no vertical lines
• @{} removes padding: begin{tabular}{@{}lll@{}}
• Multicolumn: multicolumn{2}{c}{Header}; multirow needs multirow package

Images

• Path relative to main file or set with graphicspath{{./images/}}
• Prefer PDF/EPS for pdflatex/latex; PNG/JPG for photos
• includegraphics[width=0.8textwidth]{file}—no extension often better

Common Errors

• Overfull hbox: line too long—rephrase, add - hyphenation hints, or allow sloppy
• Missing $: math command used in text mode
• Undefined control sequence: typo or missing package
• include adds page break, input doesn't—use input for fragments

Document Structure

• Preamble before begin{document}—all usepackage and settings
• maketitle after begin{document} if using title, author, date
• article for short docs, report for chapters without parts, book for full books