Overview

LaTeX is useful for generating various types of scientific documentation and reports.

 

General Template

The following is a starter template that students may use.

 

Aligning Mathematical Equations

Use the align* function to align mathematical equations. On each line, you can align everything around the & symbol. Be careful about adding additional line breaks. You can add vertical whitespace by adding [1em] (or any number other than 1) to the end of the line break \\.

\begin{align*}
O( n^3 ) &= 10n^2 + 100n + 50    \\
         &\geq O(10n^2) + O(100n) + O(50)    \\
         &\geq O(n^2) + O(n) + O(1)    \\
         &\geq O(n^2)    \\[1em]
         & \text{This is a true statement!}    \\
\end{align*}

Result

 

 

Algorithm

The following code demonstrates how to implement the algorithm and algpseudocode packages for including algorithms in your reports.

Required Packages

\usepackage{algorithm}
\usepackage[noend]{algpseudocode}

\usepackage{amsmath,amsfonts,amsthm}      % standard math libraries

Code Example

\begin{algorithm}
\caption{An example algorithm to demonstrate how to use the \texttt{algorithmic} package}   \label{alg:cap}
	\begin{algorithmic}

	\Function{Build-Crazy-String}{$n$}

		\State $s \gets \emptyset$    \Comment{$s$ will be the string we build}

		\If{$n$ is even}
			\State $s \gets \textit{``crazy"}$  \Comment{$s$ is now a \textit{crazy} string}
		\ElsIf{$n \geq 10$}
			\State $i \gets 0$
			\While{$i \leq n$}
				\State $s \gets s + \textit{``a"}$
				\State $i \gets i+1$
			\EndWhile
		\Else
			\State $s \gets $ ``\textit{uacat}''    \Comment{$s$ is assigned the string \textit{uacat}}
		\EndIf

		\State

		\For{$i \gets 0$ to $n$}
			\State $s \gets s + \textit{``b"}$
		\EndFor

		\vspace{1em}  %add a bit of vertical space

		\State \Return $s$

	\EndFunction

	\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}

Result

 

Tables

The following demonstrates how to expand the rows and columns of a table in Latex.

\bgroup

\def\arraystretch{1.2}	           % row height:  1 is default
\setlength\tabcolsep{1em}          % column width stretching

\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
	\hline
	\textbf{x} & 0 & 1 & 2 & 3 \\
	\hline
	\textbf{f(x)} & 0 & 2 & 4 & 6  \\
	\hline
\end{tabular}

\egroup