Tutorials

Introduction

This article lists some resources to help you learn LaTeX, including various tutorials, web sites and articles.

How do I get started?

If you are wondering where to start your Overleaf and LaTeX journey, you could start by checking out these resources:

• Overleaf LaTeX tutorials
• Community video tutorials
• Overleaf webinars

After you have gained confidence/awareness of LaTeX, we recommend the Overleaf article What’s in a Name: A Guide to the Many Flavours of TeX because its explanation of TeX-related terminology might assist your onward LaTeX-learning journey.

Overleaf LaTeX tutorials

Learn LaTeX in 30 minutes

Overleaf’s Learn LaTeX in 30 minutes is an introductory tutorial that does not assume any prior experience with LaTeX and guides you through creating your first LaTeX document. It contains numerous LaTeX examples, almost all of which have links to open the LaTeX directly in Overleaf—enabling you to gain confidence and experience by editing and exploring the code.

Dr John Lees-Miller’s 3-part LaTeX tutorial series

Dr Lees-Miller, a co-founder of Overleaf, wrote a free 3-part tutorial to help new users get started using LaTeX. Use the following links to jump to topics of interest:

• Part 1: The Basics
• Part 2: Structured Documents & More
• Part 3: Not Just Papers: Presentations & More

Overleaf webinars

Our archive of recorded webinars not only shows how to make the most of your Overleaf account but also contains an introduction to LaTeX and Overleaf with further recordings for intermediate and more experienced users.

Community video tutorials

In addition to content produced by Overleaf, we are delighted to see video tutorials being created by members of the LaTeX community. Here is a selection of some you may wish to view.

Dr Trefor Bazett

Readers may be interested in Dr Bazett’s Introduction to LaTeX (Part I) and other videos in his LaTeX tutorials playlist, including videos sponsored by Overleaf, such as Introduction to LaTeX (Part II):

Dr Vincent Knight

Dr Vincent Knight, Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics, Cardiff University, has prepared a series of short videos which introduce Overleaf and help you get started with producing your first LaTeX document. We have embedded the first video in that series, but please visit Vincent’s YouTube Channel to view the full video playlist.

Additional YouTube videos

Naturally, searching YouTube using LaTeX tutorial for beginners yields numerous videos to be filtered according to your requirements.

Other resources

Overleaf templates

Another good place to start is opening and exploring one of Overleaf’s pre-loaded templates and examples—ideal for helping you create your first project. Choose from one of the following suggestions:

• “I’m writing a project report/homework assignment”: then we recommend taking a look at our project and report templates or homework templates.
• “I’ve heard LaTeX can produce great presentations—I want to give that a try”: take a look at our presentation templates.
• “I’ve used LaTeX before but can’t remember the commands”: we’ve preloaded a Quick Guide to LaTeX which contains lots of commands to get you going!

Tutorials on CTAN (Comprehensive TeX Archive Network)

A search on CTAN yields a list of tutorials including the popular, and long-established, (Not So) Short Introduction to LaTeX, which is available in many languages.

Web sites

• learnlatex.org: after landing on the home page, select your preferred language to access free tutorials covering a wide range of topics.
  • TIP: learnlatex.org provides a page listing various sources of documentation for LaTeX (and related) software and where you can turn to for help with LaTeX questions or problems typesetting your documents. If you encounter LaTeX problems whilst using Overleaf, feel free to contact us with details of the Overleaf project you need help with.

• tug.org: the web site of the TeX Users Group (TUG). Contains a vast amount of information on TeX, LaTeX etc., and related software.
  • TIP: tug.org also has a page with links to sources of help and documentation.