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## Latex notes

I started using LaTeX fall semester of 2004, when I had to do a number of longish proofs for a math class and I needed to type them out. My experience with LaTeX is that it does things really nicely, but it's tough to get started. I have spent a lot of time knowing what I want to do, but struggling to find how to do it in LaTeX.

LaTeX handles math really well. I first started playing with LaTeX for a math class in which I had to type out a number of longish theorems. When I took Cryptology, I did almost all of my homework in LaTeX. For a long time, I wanted to write my resume in LaTeX, but couldn't figure out how to do it to my satisfaction. I originally wrote my resume in Microsoft Word. It got the job done, but these days I've been using openoffice.org exclusively and I find that it formats things slightly differently than Word. Besides, writing your resume in LaTeX is just cool.

## Getting started with LaTeX in 5 minutes

I may write a LaTeX tutorial some day, but not today. Here's the template I use when writing a standard school paper: one inch margins, name and so on in the upper right corner, double spaced.

I should find some good LaTeX references and include them here...

## Latex examples/samples

Here are a number of samples from my math class Sequences, Series, and Foundations:
• Convergence of a recursively defined sequence [tex][pdf]
• Proof of the Pinching Theorem [tex][pdf]
• Two proofs of statements about convergence [tex][pdf]
• An exercise about Euler's constant [tex][pdf]
• A problem about infinite series and the Alternating-Series test [tex][pdf]

I actually took notes for most of the semester for Cryptology. That's a lot of notes. When I reviewed them, I noticed a lot of typos, but here they are, nonetheless, in tex and pdf. I think it's the biggest document I've ever written.

### My resume

I finally figured out how to write my resume in LaTeX. I've done a lot of googling, and I haven't found anything like it out there. Feel free to use it. I think there's a better way to do what I'm trying to do, but I haven't found the time yet to figure that out. It gives a lot of errors when I run it through latex. Please email me if you know a better way to do this. Here's the (somewhat) sanitized source of my resume.

## Some things I've learned along the way...

### Layout

Not being able to figure out how to have smaller margins is something that plagued me for a long time. here's the original way I did it:
\textwidth 6.65truein \textheight 9.5truein \oddsidemargin -0.2in \topmargin -0.6in
This get the job done, more or less. A much better solution is to use the geometry package:
\usepackage[left=1in,top=1in,right=1in,bottom=1in,nohead]{geometry}
This defines one inch margins all around, with no header. Both of these go in the header.

To doublespace, put this in the header: \linespread{1.6}

I like to have some space between my paragraphs and not indent them. Put in the header:
\parskip 5pt \parindent 0pt

### Miscelaneous

I found a neat little package that allows you do to underlining and other font effects. It's called ulem. (\usepackage{ulem} in header)

• \uline{} - underline
• \uuline{} - double underline
• \uwave{} - wavy underline
• \sout{} - strikeout
• \xout{} - scratchout(?) (lots of diagonal lines)

You know that neat black filled in square you put at the end of a proof? Here's how you can do it in LaTeX: \hfill$\square$

I use this in my resume, but I'll include it here. I was looking for a smaller bullet point that \bullet but couldn't find one. So I made my own: \newcommand{\sbullet}{\,\begin{picture}(1,1)(0,-3)\circle*{3}\end{picture}\ }. This is for use in text mode. Not sure what it would do in math mode.

You know that funny way of writing letters to mean certain sets of numbers? Z is the integers, N is the natural numbers, and so on. It's called blackboard bold, and you can do it in LaTeX by including the packaged amssymb and then writing in math mode: \mathbb{Z}

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