LaTeX Essentials#

Now that we’ve introduced the concept of LaTeX and discussed how to compile a document, we’ll now go over a few of the essential pieces that you’ll need to know.

For this, we’ll review each of the concepts listed below as they appear in /reports/report_example.tex in my blank_project repository: jmbejara/blank_project.

Environments#

In LaTeX, environments are used to define specific sections of a document that have different formatting or behavior. They are initiated with the \begin{environmentName} command and closed with the \end{environmentName} command. The itemize environment, for example, is used to create bullet lists. Each environment provides a set of formatting rules or structures, such as list environments (itemize, enumerate), table environments (tabular), mathematical environments (equation), and many others, catering to various types of content structuring and formatting needs.

\begin{itemize}
\item Something
\item Another thing
\item Something else
\end{itemize}

The Various Equation Environments#

  • Inline math with $y = x^2$. This would inline like this: \(y = x^2\).

  • Display math with $$, vs equation environment

Display math with $$

$$
\frac{\partial V}{\partial t} + \frac{1}{2}\sigma^2 S^2 \frac{\partial^2 V}{\partial S^2} 
+ rS\frac{\partial V}{\partial S} - rV = 0
$$

will be rendered like this: $\( \frac{\partial V}{\partial t} + \frac{1}{2}\sigma^2 S^2 \frac{\partial^2 V}{\partial S^2} + rS\frac{\partial V}{\partial S} - rV = 0 \)$ This will do the same thing:

\begin{equation}
\frac{\partial V}{\partial t} + \frac{1}{2}\sigma^2 S^2 \frac{\partial^2 V}{\partial S^2} 
+ rS\frac{\partial V}{\partial S} - rV = 0
\end{equation}

  • align environment for equations. Sometimes you want to align several equations for the purpose of derivations. For example, this code

\begin{align}
P(S_t, t) &= Ke^{-r(T - t)} - S_t + C(S_t, t)  \\
          &= N(-d_-) Ke^{-r(T - t)} - N(-d_+) S_t 
\end{align}

produces the following:

(1)#\[\begin{align} P(S_t, t) &= Ke^{-r(T - t)} - S_t + C(S_t, t) \\ &= N(-d_-) Ke^{-r(T - t)} - N(-d_+) S_t \end{align}\]

Tables and Figures#

  • tabular vs table environment

The tabular environment in LaTeX is used to create a table with specified alignment for columns, without providing floating capabilities. It’s useful for inserting tables directly in the text flow. On the other hand, the table environment is a floating container that allows you to position tables in a more flexible manner within the document, including adding captions and labels for referencing. The table environment can encapsulate a tabular environment, enabling the table to float and be captioned, but tabular is what actually defines the table’s structure and content.

A minimal working example of a document with a table would look like this:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
First document. This is a simple example, with no 
extra parameters or packages included.

\begin{table}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{lrrrrr}
\toprule
 & 0 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 \\
\midrule
0 & 0.543405 & 0.278369 & 0.424518 & 0.844776 & 0.004719 \\
1 & 0.121569 & 0.670749 & 0.825853 & 0.136707 & 0.575093 \\
2 & 0.891322 & 0.209202 & 0.185328 & 0.108377 & 0.219697 \\
3 & 0.978624 & 0.811683 & 0.171941 & 0.816225 & 0.274074 \\
4 & 0.431704 & 0.940030 & 0.817649 & 0.336112 & 0.175410 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Automating the generation of the tables can be done by swapping out the tabular environment and generating that from a Pandas DataFrame.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
First document. This is a simple example, with no 
extra parameters or packages included.

\begin{table}
\centering
\input{example_table.tex}
\end{table}
\end{document}

where example_table.tex is generated from code like this:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
np.random.seed(100)

import config
from pathlib import Path
DATA_DIR = Path(config.DATA_DIR)
OUTPUT_DIR = Path(config.OUTPUT_DIR)


## Suppress scientific notation and limit to 3 decimal places
# Sets display, but doesn't affect formatting to LaTeX
pd.set_option('display.float_format', lambda x: '%.2f' % x)
# Sets format for printing to LaTeX
float_format_func = lambda x: '{:.2f}'.format(x)


df = pd.DataFrame(np.random.random((5, 5)))
latex_table_string = df.to_latex(float_format=float_format_func)
print(latex_table_string)

path = OUTPUT_DIR / f'pandas_to_latex_simple_table1.tex'
with open(path, "w") as text_file:
    text_file.write(latex_table_string)

Labels and References#

  • Demonstrate labels and references, using tag and ref.

Bibliographies#

  • Bibliography, with .bib files and \cite{}. Use Google Scholar to add bibliography entry to BibTeX file and then cite the paper in the LaTeX document.