From the moment I laid eyes on a \(\TeX\) typeset document, I fell in love with its style and figure. However, I thought it too difficult to learn, and instead spent my time in markdown.
Eventually whilst mastering that rather limited syntax, I found myself turning to YAML headers and \(\LaTeX\) snippets to get my work done with sufficient quality.
At some tipping point, the \(\TeX\) began to intrigue me and I began sloppily typesetting my University Mathematics assignments in \(\TeX\) and later carved out time in my Summer Holidays to work through the necessary tutorials.
This coupled with my ravenous apetite to consume more and more beautiful typesetting led me to producing every document exclusively in \(\LaTeX\).
Since this first deep-dive at the end of 2022, my passion for \(\TeX\) has matured. I have written many documents both professionally and non-professionally with Leslie Lamport's fork of Donald Knuth's magical τϵχ engine.
Back then I began by consulting the standard "A Short Introduction to Latex" and then later the "Not So Short Introduction to Latex".
I would later continue to invest some money into the matter (along with my time and effort), to purchase and work through Stefan Kottwitz' "A Beginner's Guide to LaTeX". I would eventually also purchase the original manual by Leslie Lamport on Ebay for a steal of $15 AUD. This would be the best front-to-back reading of Latex I have experienced til this day.
Because I was producing Invoices and Educational material with TeX, I could afford to invest more in books and thus fuel my own pyramid scheme. Eventually I ended up with a small stack, including the rest of Stefan Kottwitz' titles, and Frank Mittelbach's newly released TLC:
Below here you will find summaries of \(\TeX\) projects I have embarked on. The source code is always provided, either by way of embedding the source code blocks within the page, or redirecting you to the nginx files.
At this point, I spend a lot of time referencing code I have already written to solve a particular problem and am pleased with my TeX journey. Initially, I found it difficult to get my hands on the source code that created whichever beautiful document I was holding at the time. Hence the raison d'être for this page.
My advice would be to take the manual of your favourite LaTeX package and click on the option to download it's TeX file on CTAN.
Finally, as of 08/01/25 this page is being archived, any subsequent TeX sophistications can be gleaned from my work on N Birthday Problems which I release each year in a TeX typeset PDF.
To supplement your skill you must also cook up small documents in the interim, such as letters, invoices, birthday cards, one-off proofs and satirical pieces.
Stefan Kottwitz' Cookbook was of good help for these tasks, and in doing these things you will keep touching up your knife's blade.
Here are some silly rookie challenges I opted to do in \(\TeX\):
This was my first voyeur into splitting my source code up into multiple files, much in the way we do for any good computer program.
I produced a pocket version of the easy-to-forget rules in Ultimate Frisbee
Here is the directory structure
[rpi@rpi treatises]$ tree frisbee
frisbee
├── 0-field.tex
├── 1-summary.tex
├── 2-definitions.tex
├── 3a-pull.tex
├── 3b-stall.tex
├── 3c-stoppages.tex
├── 3d-misc.tex
├── 4-fouls.tex
├── 4-turnovers.tex
├── 5-fouls.tex
├── 5-infractions.tex
├── 6-infractions.tex
├── 6-violations.tex
├── 7-violations.tex
├── 8-handsignals.tex
├── rules.aux
├── rules.log
├── rules.pdf
└── rules.texIn an attempt to continue producing increasingly sophisticated \(\TeX\) I produced some Mathematics booklets for Year 7's and 8's that mimicked the Cambridge ICE-EM NSW Mathematics series.
In essence, I was fleshing out entire textbooks into interactive booklets with space to write. As a result I learned to effectively produce figures and leverage the exam class.
I also learned how to produce far larger documents, with some booklets nearing 50 pages in length to satisfy 3 hours of tuition.