Typesetting (LaTeX) Resources

All submitted homework for this class must be typed. Diagrams may be hand-drawn and scanned and included in the typed document. You can use a word processing editor if you like (Microsoft Word, Open Office, Notepad, Vim, Google Docs, etc.) but you might find it useful to take this opportunity to learn LaTeX. LaTeX is a markup language used widely in computer science and mathematics. The homework assignments are typed using LaTeX and you can use the source files as templates for typesetting your solutions.

If you have never used LaTeX, we recommend cloud resources that don't require you to download and install LaTeX on your local machine. A good example is Overleaf (Links to an external site.), which has lots of documentation (Links to an external site.). Overleaf works similar to Google Docs in that all members can edit the file in parallel and changes are updated in real time. There is a way to directly invite group members to your document, but the free version of Overleaf only allows two people to work at the same time. To get around this, turn on link sharing: Click on “Share” in the top right, Click “Turn on link sharing”, Copy the displayed link and share it with your group members. To export your work, click on the “Download PDF” button on the right-hand side If you want to export the raw source files, click on the “Menu” button in the top-left, then click on “Source”

This open source LaTeX reference (Links to an external site.) can be helpful when getting started, and you can use the .tex source of all the files we use in class as templates.

Alternatively, you can use Google Docs, which is available through your @ucsd.edu account. You can create documents and then share them with your group members with manual invites or a shareable link. Google Docs has a LaTex add-on that lets you type formulas in a math typesetting environment: search for "Auto-LaTeX Equations" if you want to try this option. You'll need to use the display environment (start and end with $) for all the portions you want rendered with LaTeX.

You will be deducted 1 point per handwritten question.