My 'Introduction to Latex'-Workshop

[The course material can be found on GitHub].

Starting my Ph.D., it was highly recommended to me that I used Latex to write my dissertation. To be honest, at this point I was a happy MS word user who enjoyed the easy-to-access interface Word provides- I just clicked certain buttons and things would appear or disappear. Furthermore, I was not very convinced of the rather simplistic, technical look of Latex which at the time seemed quite daunting. Just compare the two below!

However, there are definitely valid reasons why I was urged to switch to Latex (btw I did switch and never regretted that decision). If you have written a longer document with Word before, I am sure you have come across quite a few pretty annoying problems. One is the automatic numbering. At first, it seems kind of nice that Word 'thinks for you', and that it automatically numbers sections and examples. However, once it becomes a little more complicated, for example, when you add subsections or make changes to your original structure, a lot of times Word messes up and the numbering does not seem to follow any system anymore. A related problem that often co-occurs is indenting. Take a 20-page long document and try to format your indenting in such a way that the spacing of section headers is identical. Good luck! Another problem that comes to mind is the embedding and numbering of tables and figures. In a long document, there are two main challenges with regard to tables and figures. First, placing them where they are supposed to be placed. Second, labeling them correctly and referring to the right label in the text. I am sure all of us who have written a longer type of text have become confused with the labels/numbering of our tables and have eventually referred to the wrong table and figure in our text.

I am not saying that Latex solves all of these problems - but I am saying that in a lot of cases, Latex poses a more logical, easier solution to them. The reason is that Latex does not think on its own but must be explicitly told what you want it to do whereas Word thinks for you. At first, Word's automatic help might be nice as it sometimes relieves you from some workload but it also means Word takes control over your formatting (yeah, this is the beginning of the evil AI taking over the world ;-)).

So, for a longer document, I definitely advise you to use Latex. I became a fan and promote the program left and right (at least to people writing academic texts)! In this vein, I decided to give an introductory workshop on Latex in 2018. This workshop was mainly designed for PhD-students writing their dissertation and not having any experience with Latex. You can follow this link to access all materials of the class, including a PPT, the worksheet the participants worked on and the document which you should compile by the end of the course. I designed the course in such a way that you can work through the material on your own and at your own pace. I hope you enjoy the material and it helps you to take your first Latex-steps!